The Noble Truths and Suffering

Hi.

     This will be the third blog in the series on the Four Noble Truths. We have discussed the first two and the translation has come to this thought.

"TRANSIENCE IS ALL AND RESISTANCE TO TRANSIENCE THROUGH ATTACHMENT BECOMES THE SOURCE OF SUFFERING. "

     This brings us to the third of the Noble Truths and in Pali the word used is "Nirodha." Sometimes Nirodha Sacca. Sacca is translated to the words reality or truth. Again as previously pointed out the translations vary with some overlap of meaning. Nirodha translates into liberation, cessation, disbanding, stopping, estrangment, indifference, control, confine, corral, and restrain. Some defining words correlate and some are conflicting.

     So we ask how does the third truth translate so it fits into the first two translated meanings in a cohesive way?  In order to keep the thread going I prefer to translate Nirodha into the following: "IT MEANS THE MOVEMENT OF LIBERATION FROM ATTACHMENT." Nirodha is pointing to the means and the way to stop being attached which is the root of all suffering. Nirodha indicates a movement to a way to finally give us some relief from suffering. You will note that unlike some of the classical interpretation and writing I am not suggesting the anyone is able to terminate suffering. We can be in the process and aspiring to reduce suffering. My belief system is that we will experience suffering unless the world takes a major psychological turn and I don't see that happening for a while. Thousands of years of conditioning is not going to be erased due to a concept, it needs to be processed via time, some action, and concrete changes in thinking. So we ASPIRE to freedom and liberation and stay in the movement towards.

     I have some comments on that. Do you know anyone, or met anybody, who has reached Nirvana? Me either. We are not going find that person. Currently in "spiritual" publications we see people and organizations that are headed by people who allude to being enlightened but they will continue to allude to something that simply cannot be proven. It's unfortunate that once a person attains popularity and power no one is willing to challenge them. They protect their vague claims by never stating anything as fact but only alluding to their position and for the most parting "acting as though" for the public. Historically speaking we have the "stories" about people who were enlightened but honestly my belief system is that they are stories and not particularly true. Nice stories though. And I think my second point is so what? Even is someone managed to achieve some sort of miraculous freedom how does that really affect the rest of humanity? It's obvious that context, content, and time have changed our position and what may have been so no longer is. We have not seen any fantastic long term changes in humanity from the historical enlightened ones. Just watch the news at night if your doubting me. Dukkha is everything. The third point is that if anyone has reached a "point of no suffering" they are unable to translate it to the rest of us in plain language. I think it's fun and intriguing but the whole "yes I am enlightened but it doesn't translate into language so you will have to take my word for it" thing just doesn't mean much to me. 

     So the third truth points directly to the fact that there is a way to diminish suffering. What great news that is for anyone who follows this path. The next blog will start to cover the Eightfold path which happens to be a more intricate and detailed part of the initial message. Although the Eightfold path appears to be a really direct answer we need to look at the meaning and intent of the initial message. 

     As always I am hoping that this translation of the Four Noble Truths helps simplify and reduce the confusion concerning the message and it's application. I am always happy to hear from you, all thoughts and ideas are welcome. 

Sincerely,

Bryan S. Wagner







   

The Second Noble Truth SAMUDAYA

Hi.

     I wrote about my view on the first of the Four Noble Truths on the last blog and will continue to examine the process defined by the truths in today's blog.

     To refresh. Dukkha means the process of transience. Everything we can experience changes. The only way to experience anything is inside the process of changes itself. The first truth points directly to accepting and living a life than moves and thinks with transience itself. We suffer by attempting to exist with change by describing it from a static viewpoint.

     The Second idea is  embodied in the Pali words Samudaya Sacca. Samudaya has been translated to mean origin or source. Other meanings are whole, combination, or junction. Sacca has been translated as meaning truth or reality.

     So in the classical sense the two truths are Life is Suffering and the second is translated into the Truth of Suffering with an addendum such as attachment, greed, or whatever static process we happen to be examining. Makes sense and has been used for a long time to explain the "truths."

     I interpret it somewhat differently. Dukkha is the reality of transience. Samudaya Sacca refers to  the entire truth or source of truth and is pointing to the fact that suffering occurs when we live outside of transience. The truth lies in the gestalt. (Samudaya Sacca) In other words we need to embrace transience entirely or we continue to suffer. Or to put it another way we suffer through RESISTING CHANGE. Resistance most often takes the form of attachment by bringing into our control or by preserving our stasis by pushing away. By attachment we mean being attached to anything at all. So the first and  second truth say that TRANSIENCE IS ALL AND  RESISTANCE TO TRANSIENCE (VIA ATTACHMENT) BECOMES THE SOURCE OF SUFFERING.

     Ending suffering means to live in transience. Suffering by living in resistance only leads to more suffering. Once this is understood we can start comprehending why attachment to anything increases our suffering. Becoming attached to something means we desire to "have" this object someplace in space and time. Transience says that isn't possible. Every single things changes into something different than the object to which we first attached ourselves. So we suffer. We are not living in reality but in denial of reality.

     We identify with this using the image of trying to grasp water with our hands or wanting to hold onto a sunset or the full moon. Or wanting a relationship to peak and never change. Or going back to family dynamics that no longer exist. We want to return to a vacation spot we had our best vacation. Useless except for learning and all will result in suffering.

     If we live in transience it allows us to savor the moment and let go. Notice that nowhere am I suggesting that we some how avoid the moment. Experiencing the moment is life. Staying in a place of not experiencing is suffering.

     So much of spiritual and most religious paths spend inordinate amounts of time finding ways and methods of "removing" what have been labeled as "negative" processing. Entire systems are dedicated to things like "not getting mad" or "use this system and you will experience constant happiness" types of messages. Now some of these might work for a second. But because of the nature of change they will not be a "permanent" solution. However when anything arises, if you experience it knowing it will change, you will find yourself reacting differently to the experience.

     An example: You have anger and your reaction to the anger is extreme. Anger much like any emotional structure, if embraced, will peak and diminish quickly. Like getting cut off by another driver and five minutes later you are no longer paying attention to the incident and are no longer angry. Instead of resisting the anger and telling ourselves "I will not get angry" it's better to simply be angry in transience. Which means to have the anger, let it cycle quickly, knowing that it will, and move on without reacting outside the experience. Reacting only increases your suffering. Getting angry is not suffering, reacting to the attachment of being angry is suffering.

     Why am I pointing this our? Because focusing on the anger and trying to develop a lifestyle that says "I won't get angry" or "I am not angry" doesn't work. Never has never will. Being angry fully and embracing the anger in transience does work. The anger comes and goes. There is no need to "do" anything with it. I have never been able to change pure emotional structure as it happens.

     The same thing works for being happy. Embrace being happy when you are happy. Have insane happiness but live in transience. You will find your self cycling through the happiness without going through the suffering of trying to hang on to the happiness. You know you cannot so you don't even try. Any emotional state can be approached the same way. Any experience is cycled the same way.

     If we live in transience all experience becomes precious by the contact with the event itself.

     We can see how life changing embracing the process of the Noble Truths can be. I am going to continue to explore the Truths in the next blog.

I am grateful to our community and am looking forward to hearing from everyone. Input is always welcome.

Sincerely
Bryan S. Wagner

The Noble Truths Revisited.

                                                             

     Hi!
 
     I would like to start by talking about the idea that whatever was written about and and what the somewhat formal forms of evolved Buddhism are pointing to are, at best, interpretations that have first been translated from oral traditions that were then translated to writing  and then translated into several different languages. The truth is that the initial message was so powerful that it's "essence" has survived through thousands of years. Yet there remains an enormous amount of room for misinterpretation, confusion, and cognitive contamination. Much of what we have now has become dogma and presented with an inflated sense of surety of meaning. As the Buddha has been reported to have said we need to question everything. Always.

     We can take the translations and interpretations anyway we want too. Some declare that the writings represent what was said or pointed to most accurately. They indicate a belief that oral traditions can be transmitted successfully over multiple generations. Others indicate the difficulty in accuracy if we rely on dead languages, interpretations, arrogance, ego, human error, human inability to translate anything without adding a filter and the human tendency to "spin" information to place the interpreter in a position of importance. My thinking is grounded in the idea that regardless of the above arguments some of the "essence" of the original message has been retained. So the "core" message has remained intact although not particularly in a precise manner. Evidently the root message was powerful enough to withstand all the twists and turns as it was passed along. ( I do wonder how much information was lost before the oral tradition was initiated. The Buddha evidently said some things before they was an organized attempt to "memorize" his talks.)

     The Four Noble Truths. It's an interesting title. Unfortunately it's not very accurate in the sense that the Pali language is open to a lot of different interpretations and the title is just one of them. They could have been called "The truth for the nobles" except that wouldn't fly well with a lot of people because it implies the truth is for a select group of people. It's not. Although that could actually have been the title. Interpreting means to be aware of source, content, context, and the interpreter's agenda. All the known Buddhist information is loosely interpreted and a lot of guesswork was done before its presentation to the public. This becomes apparent if you investigate multiple sources of interpretation. 

     My belief is that the loosely named "truths" were not initially meant as separate ideas but a connected cohesive conceptual idea that over time has been broken down in to the separate "truths" that we see today. Looking at context and content I have come to the conclusion that the truths were initial presented as a concept statement and so will proceed to explain what I think is the truer meaning.

Some examples of the first truth as we have translated it reads as the following

Life is suffering.

We experience dissatisfaction.

Life is like a wheel out of kilter.

     These are just a few of the interpretations. It's pretty apparent that the difficulty lies in the way the statements are formulated. Almost all of the first truth statements imply a state of no change. EX: Life is suffering. No it's not. Life, if you accept that everything is change, simply cannot be one thing. It can be a billion things or an experience in transience thus "containing" an event but it cannot be "suffering." So we need to examine the first truth or part of the truth in terms of a flowing dynamic. 

     The word that is the focus of the first of the truths is Dukkha. A word that has been translated as meaning, suffering, anxiety, uneasiness, and dissatisfaction. Notice that all of these point too but do not translate the meaning of the word. Part of the difficulty in extracting the exact meaning of ancient words is that much of what we identify as nouns or subjects were in fact words that meant action in the sense that verbs relay a sense of action. The words are not static but  represent a flowing process. Think of the difference between a s simple photograph or a movie.

     So Dukkha relates the ACTION of change. Not suffering, anxiety, uneasiness, or dissatisfaction. To change. It is the first principle of an entire conceptual statement. This is not exactly an earth shaking or profound idea. Certainly this is not the first time in history that this idea was explored particularly in the Yogic traditions. Everything is change. It's not that "things" change. Things "are" change. There are no things to change, only changing things. If you look at a table it's not the "idea" table. It's not sitting there stuck in time. It's a flowing never ending process of transformation that we loosely call "table." In reality the best we could say is that it's a "flowing through time" type of table. Our view of the table is a slice of the transience not the table itself. 

     The same concept applies to people and all that's living. None of life is static. There is not a single essence of you. Only multiple essences that overall appear to be you when taken in the broadest view or again a brief slice of transience. You are not the you of a microsecond ago but are fleeting and in constant motion. 

     So in reality what Dukkha or the ACTION OF CHANGE represents is transience. The first concept in the "truths" is simply pointing to the concept of TRANSIENCE. Transience means that everything has a life. Everything "appears" briefly and proceeds to change. And the bigger concept, and the one that I think is the original message, is that of not only accepting transience but the ACCEPTANCE AND WILLINGNESS TO LIVE IN THE STATE OF TRANSIENCE. Rather than simply stating an observance the concept is pointing to a radical change in our relationship to existence itself.  

     One of the difficulties in the path of Zen, Buddhism, and Taoism is remaining aware and focused on the living in transience part of the teachings. We forget and in doing so become steeped in what we think is both permanent and personal. If we truly live in transience nothing has any permanent impact. There is a distinct difference in comprehension of a concept and integrating or living the concept. A pitfall remains in simply comprehending a concept, like transience, and adopting the belief system that we are LIVING the concept through the comprehension. We only live in transience by integrating it through a state of awareness not by simple comprehension. We can easily be misled by thinking we "know" things and become confused because our lives are not being "lived" according to comprehension. In understanding this we come to a greater appreciation of the practices of meditation and contemplation both of which are tools for integrating concepts. 

     We will continue to explore this further by exploring the second part of the Four Noble Truths in our discussion of Samudaya.

I welcome any and all comments and information or questions.

Sincerely,

Bryan S. Wagner