I tend to like to keep my practice simple, basic even, but profound; In Buddhism, there is probably nothing more basic — foundational — than the 4 Noble Truths. I suppose that is why I return to them over and over again in my own practice, checking in with them, seeing what I have learned, what additional layers of meaning I can find in these simple but profound teachings. Sitting at home one afternoon, pandemic bored, restless, I decided to give them a re-read and re-exploration. I went to access to insight for translations, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html. At the time of this blog (Spring 2020), I saw 2 slightly different readings/interpretations/ ways to approach the path to enlightenment, and I will share them both below.
I do however want to note that by now, May 2022, I have a fresher take on the First Noble Truth, The Origination of Dukka: Recently, I have come to explore the idea that everything is suffering, rather than that stress and enjoyment come as a pair or that life entails dissatisfaction. This is an evolution in my thinking that we will get to at a later entry in this blog. But I do want to mention it here, first off to say that this entry is hardly the end-all-be-all of Alana’s deep understanding of the Four Noble truths (or anything at all for that matter). It exemplifies the fact that this blog, my practice, is a work in progress, it is shifting and growing, no entry is, or has been, the final say on a topic, especially not Buddhism’s first, most foundational, topic of the Four Nobel Truths. Secondly, I wanna fess-up that present day Alana, reading these 2 year old notes, sees they are lacking a perspective that I have recently understood to be essential for practice — everything is stressful, the fact we don’t see it that way is a function of our delusion, not the nature of the world. It is a key culprit in our bondage. Yet, I still want to share these older thoughts to reflect the stepping stone they are, and to as authentically as possible share the evolution of my practice. Afterall, I wouldn’t have gotten to today’s understanding without yesterday’s.
When I read the Nobel Truths now, I see 2 possible readings at the same time, and with it 2 slightly different thoughts on how to approach enlightenment:
In the first reading/interpretation I see:
1. Life is stressful
2. Craving is the reason you have life, you crave the good parts, the things you want and so we are born and we perpetuate continual becoming for what we want. But, everything has 2 sides, which means the stuff you want comes with stuff you don’t want, and the don’t want part is super stressful. In other words life itself, that folks desire so much, comes with stress baked-in. If you want to avoid stress, you gotta give up the good parts, the stuff you want and like, in order to avoid their shadow side, the stressful parts you don’t want. Seeing the 2 sides, the tuk tok pie in all = getting exhausted by this crap and not wanting any more.
3. Get rid of the craving and get rid of the stress
4 Enter the 8 fold path. ie the tactics of letting go of stress
It is a fair assessment of course, straight forward; good comes with bad, if I don’t want bad forgo good. Done. But in practice, I see my own tenaciousness can be a trap with a perspective like this. The reason is that, even if I know something will be a lot of work, may suck, may hurt, may cause suffering, I will do it anyway to get the outcome I want. I don’t give up easily, I will take the bad with good. But as I reread these basic truths I saw a second option/ interpretation as well:
1) Life entails dissatisfaction. The un-satisfactoriness is woven into every aspect of life. Its a basic truth of this world.
2)The cause of dissatisfaction is desire for satisfaction in a world that is fundamentally dissatisfying. Therefore, the intermediary cause of dissatisfaction is the reason I want satisfaction to begin with; I have a wrong view that something I do will enable me to achieve satisfaction in a fundamentally unsatisfactory world. I don’t understand truth 1 –dissatisfaction is baked-in — and so I have hope, born from my misunderstanding of the world. From hope springs desire. The desire for the illusive (actually impossible) white whale of satisfaction.
3) If I can change my view of the world, if I can understand those 3 common characteristics and give up hope for satisfaction I will give up desire for this world. Afterall, I never really hope for things that I believe to be utterly impossible. I only hope for thing I have seen glimmers of, or had momentary experiences with in the past (in other words, imagination relies on memory).
4) Enter the 8 fold path
With this reading of the Truths, my job is to kill the hope that I will be able to find satisfaction in a dissatisfactory world, I need to convince myself to stop striving for the impossible. Ultimately satisfaction is impossible because:
1: My desire changes — Example: First I wanted the NY home, and then, with more information about what it was like to live in NY (terrible), I no longer wanted it but was burdened by it. It caused me dissatisfaction.
2: Objects change –Example: When it was working I wanted the Porsche, but when it had to sit in the garage for months and cost me a ton of money to repair I found it dissatisfying.
3: The circumstances change — Example: an SF apartment was great when I can go spend time there, but come the pandemic and suddenly it was a stressful burden to get rid of.
At the end of the day all it takes is time, inescapable impermanence, to move anything that is momentarily desirable into a state that is undesirable. And momentarily desirable is simple not satisfying.