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Weather and the Four Noble Truths
Pema Chödrön
When the Buddha first taught, he could have taught anything. He had just waked up completely. His mind was clear and he experienced no obstacles – just the vastness and goodness of himself and his life. The story goes, however, that it was difficult for him to express his experience; initially he decided not to teach because he thought no one would be able to understand what he was talking about. He finally decided that he would go out and he would teach because there were some people who would hear him. The interesting thing is that at first he didn’t talk about the unconditional; he didn’t talk about basic goodness, clarity, space, bliss, wonder, or openness. In the first teaching of the Buddha – the teachings on the four noble truths – he talked about suffering.
I’ve always experienced these teachings as a tremendous affirmation that there is no need to resist being fully alive in this world, that we are in fact a part of the web. All of life is interconnected. If something lives, it has a life force, the quality of which is energy, a sense of spiritedness. Without that, we can’t lift our arms or open our mouths or open and shut our eyes. If you have ever been with someone who is dying, you know that at one moment, even though it might be quite weak, there’s a life force there, and then the next moment there is none. It’s said that when we die, the four elements – earth, air, fire, water – dissolve one by one, each into the other, and finally just dissolve into space. But while we are living we share the energy that makes everything, from a blade of grass to an elephant, grow and live and then inevitably wear out and die. This energy, this life force, creates the whole world. It’s very curious that because we as human beings have consciousness, we are also subject to a little twist where we resist life’s energies.
Excerpt, with gratitude, from: The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chödrön, Shambhala Classics, Boulder 2001
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