First Noble Truth
Jewels: An Introduction to American Buddhism
Buddhism is sometimes accused of being too “pessimistic” precisely, because there is much talk about suffering. But isn’t that the role of any true religion to face up to and overcome suffering? The overall purpose of Buddhism has been “to eliminate suffering and to bring about true happiness.”
The first of the four Noble truths states, “We all experience suffering.” Isn’t that the truth! Even young teenagers can agree with this, for while there is much happiness in life, there is also much suffering.
The Buddha specified a kind of suffering, which are:
- birth
- aging
- illness
- death
- having to meet up with people and situations we don’t like
- having to separate from people and situations we like
- not getting what we want
- being attached to the five physical – psychological components that make up our experience
Now, let us look at each of these sufferings. As we do this, you might ask, “Why is birth a form of suffering?” After all, when the baby is born the family and friends all celebrate the arrival of new life. The answer to this requires more space, so we will come back to this a bit later. Having so said, I’d like to ask you to begin thinking why “birth” is considered suffering in Buddhism.
Compared to birth, it is easy to see how aging, illness and death are considered suffering. Remember, it was seeing an old person, a sick person and a deceased person that shocked and pained the Prince who later became the Buddha. These experiences motivated him to leave his family and comfortable life to seek the spiritual path.
As for the fifth suffering… We saw a perfect example of it with the story of the greedy dog. There the puppy experienced this suffering when he faced the greedy dog that frightened him and ended up taking his bone. In our lives, examples of this fifth suffering include having to do that dreaded homework, losing a close sports match, and having to be, in the same class or team with people we don’t like or whom we might even hate. What are other examples of this kind of suffering that you can think of?
The sixth suffering… also takes place often in our lives. For example, it includes having to say goodbye to our loved ones. We have done that when our grandparents passed away or when we parted ways from our girlfriend or boyfriend we still care for him or her. Also, some of us had to leave the school or neighborhood that we love on account of our family moving far away.
Next, the greedy dog’s plight applies to the seventh suffering. He wanted the bones so badly that he went so far as to steal the bone from a puppy. However, he lost even backbone to the river, leaving him in the state of suffering, for he was again “without what he wanted.”
Finally, let us look at the eighth suffering. This one is a bit harder to understand for it looks at suffering from a more objective and psychological perspective.
These five functions that make up our experiences are the 1) body and five senses, 2) feelings, 3) thoughts, 4) intention, and 5) consciousness. According to the Buddha, we suffer because five functions are tainted by our attachment or G. A. S. (Greed, anger/hatred and stupidity).
For example, when the greedy dog saw and smelled this juicy bone through his senses of sight and smell, it was followed by pleasant feelings about the bone, which generated a desire for it. This feeling then led to his thoughts of determining that he could easily overpower the tiny puppy in order to snatch its bone. And then he raised the intention of taking it away from the puppy. Finally, the fifth function, consciousness, includes the decision he made to take the bone away based on his awareness of the previous four functions.
It was the self – centered attachments agreed and stupidity that led to the greedy dog wanting the bone (feelings), knowing that he could overpower the puppy (thoughts), then scaring and snatching away the bone from the puppy (intention), and finally making the decision (consciousness). While the greedy dog was experiencing all this, he was not at all at peace or happy; his greed and aggressive actions made him very anxious and agitated.
Certainly, he ended up suffering a lot when he dropped the bone into the river. He suffered a great deal because he became greatly agitated, frustrated and regretful.
We must remember that it wasn’t only the greedy dog that suffered, for the poor puppy also suffered. The puppy became terrified and upset when the greedy dog growled at him and stole the bone the puppy had looked forward to chewing. This goes to show that our action impacts not only our own happiness but also that of others.
Excerpt in gratiude from: Jewels: An Introduction to American Buddhism by Kenneth Kenshin Tanaka. BDK America, 2020.
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