Buddhism and Suffering

[pic 1]

Buddhism And Suffering

Endrit Syla

8nn

The Four Noble Truths        ·Page 1        ·Page 2        

The Eight-Fold Path                ·Page 3        

The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths as edified by Buddhism characterise human life ecumenically. No person, however salubrious or however opulent, is liberated from suffering or desire. According to Buddhist pedagogy Ajahn Sumedho, "suffering or dukkha is the common bond we all share," ("The First Noble Truth"). Far from being a pessimistic negation of the value of human life, the first noble truth invites the individual to explore the inchoation of psychic pain and work to dispel them. The remaining three Noble Truths offer a deceptively simple yet highly logical philosophy: desire causes suffering, pain can be eradicated by eliminating desire, and that the elimination of desire can flow from following the Eightfold Path as outlined in Buddhist scripture.

Desire causes suffering in the most mundane ways. As anon as I commence wanting cookies or other junk victuals, I become restless, solicitous, and filled with a sense of craving. Similarly, if I feel that my house is too minuscule or that I operate an incipient car, I engender an atmosphere of materialistic appetition that automatically entails psychological and spiritual suffering.

1. The Noble Truth of Suffering

Besides “suffering,” other translations of the Pali word dukkha include unsatisfactoriness, dis-ease, and instability. All these words point to the fact that no conditioned phenomenon can provide authentic bliss in our lives. The first step in a spiritual life is to look very punctiliously and voraciously at our experience of life and optically discern that there is suffering. We incline to overlook or ignore or just blindly react to the unpleasant, so it continually haunts us. Albeit physical pain is a natural aspect of our lives, we can learn to transcend noetic suffering.

2. The Noble Truth of the Cause of Suffering

Through a lack of understanding of how things genuinely subsist, we engender and reconstitute an independent self-entity called “me.”

The whole of our experience in life can be viewed through this sense of self. In consequence, many appetencies govern our actions. Desires arise for sense experiences, for “being” or “becoming” (e.g. affluent, famous, loved, reverenced, immortal), and to evade the unpleasant. These appetencies are the cause of suffering.

3. The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

The mind can be purified of all the noetic defilements that cause suffering. Nibbana, the ultimate tranquillity, has been compared to the extinction of a three-fold fire of prurience, ill-will, and delusion. One who has realised cessation has great purity of heart, ocean-like commiseration, and perforating sagacity.

4. The Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

The fourth of the four noble truths are the truth of the path of cessation. This is that the path to being able to find the middle way is a peregrination that each must take. The Dali Lama verbalises of the thirty-seven things that are needed to reach enlightenment.

This is the path that those who are incentivized to liberate themselves from suffering. These thirty-seven factors to enlightenment are the five paths. The five paths being the “four close placements of mindfulness, the four miraculous potencies, the four pristine abandonments, the five powers and the five forces, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the eightfold path.” The other way that one is to peregrinate through the paths of the cessation of suffering was through the six “transcendent perfections.” This way is through practising both the methods and sapience.

The Eight-Fold Path

The Eightfold Path is a treatment, treatment by training (Smith 104). Buddha taught that man is a slave to his ego (Smith 108). That person wishes happiness, security, success, long life, and many other things for himself and his loved ones. However, pain, frustration, sickness and death are all impossible to avoid, and the only way to eliminate these evils is to overcome desire. In Buddhism, the Eightfold Path is meant as a guideline, to be considered, to be contemplated, and to be taken on when, and only when each step is fully accepted as part of the life, you seek. Buddhism never asks for blind faith; it aims to promote learning and a process of self-discovery. The First step of the Eightfold Path is Right View. This is a significant step on the path as it relates to seeing the world and everything in it as it is, not as we believe it to be or want it to be. Knowing reality is of little value if we don't put it to personal use in our lives. The second step on the Eightfold Path is Right Intent. This is the stage where you become committed to the path. RightViews shows us what life is and what life's problems are composed of Right Intent must come from the heart and involves recognising the equality of all life and compassion for all that life, beginning with you. Right Speech is the next step of the Path. Our speech reflects our character. We must avoid speaking falsely, obscene, slanderous, and belittling words. Right Conduct recognises the need to take the ethical approach in life, to consider others and the world we live in. This includes not taking what is not given to us and having respect for the agreements we make both in our private and business lives. Right, Conduct also encompasses the five precepts, which were given by the Buddha, not to kill, steal, and lie, to avoid sexual misconduct, and not to take drugs or other intoxicants (smith 107-108). The next on the Eightfold Path follows on from Right Conduct, and this is Right Livelihood. If your work has a lack of respect for life, then it will be a barrier to progress on the spiritual path. Buddhism