the 1st noble truth

Just because I don’t go to church with any sort of regularity doesn’t mean that I’m not searching, not looking for….something.  And of all the faiths/creeds/philosophies/systems I’ve encountered and looked in to, Buddhism seems the most right.  Hardly an objective standard, I know, but it just seems to make sense in so many ways.  So, to work through some of my own ideas about the basic tenets of (most schools of) Buddhism, I’m going to look at, first, the Four Noble Truths.  Thus, the 1st noble truth, the noble truth of dukkha.

From the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Buddha’s lecture/discussion on the four noble truths:  “Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.”  This is usually translated as “Life is suffering,” but, from what I can understand (and remember), this is a little simple.  It’s more accurate to say that ‘Life is dukkha,’ a much more nuanced meaning.

So, what is dukkha? It is pain, it is suffering, it is stress, it is unsatisfactoriness, anxiety, longing, loss, want, etc., etc; the meaning that makes the most sense to me (and to which i am indebted to Zeff Bjerken and my freshman Religious Studies class on Buddhism for) is ‘dis-ease.’  No matter the situation, no matter the state of mind, there is always a profound sense of ‘dis-ease.’  Think of a lousy situation, like you get fired from your job.  This sucks for obvious reasons:  how are you going to pay the bills?  Perhaps it brings on a crisis of self-confidence (Did i deserve to be fired?). Or anger (That Bastard fired me!).  It seems really easy to see dukkha in the situations where we expect to find what we think of as suffering, as pain.  More subtle, though, are the situations where we do not expect to find ‘dis-ease.’  Spending time with someone you love, for instance. Even with someone you love, there is always a sense of dukkha in your mind:  Do they love me?  How do I know they love me?  I will soon be parted from them.  When will I see them again? Why are they ignoring me?  Why are they paying so much attention to me?  On and on.

Dukkha is always present.  Another definition, from The Three Basic Facts of Existence:

“Disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread, anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority; sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure; excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration, suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity, striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety; love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction; parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion; decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty.”

Particularly interesting are the pairs of opposite states were we find dukkha: aimlessness/striving, submission/rebellion, aversion/attraction.  The 1st noble truth holds that the world we are in, the world we are attached to, is a world of suffering, even when it doesn’t seem to be.  The world, as it is, is one that is incapable of satisfying us because we are always left with a sense of unease.

This makes a lot of sense to me.  It boils down to life is hard-for everyone.  Some lives are harder than others, its true; after all, I myself tend to have more sympathy for the poor among us who perhaps never get the chances they deserve than the rich who don’t have to try nearly as hard for anything.  Life is much easier for them, or so it would seem.  Of course, that’s not true, or at least I can not know the interior life of their minds, these privileged individuals.  After all, they may be just as unsatisfied, just as in ‘dis-ease,’ with their world as I am with mine and the homeless man in Charleston is with his.  We are united in suffering, united in the unfulfilled nature of this world, though it may take many forms, interior and exterior, tears or laughter.  We live in the same world, a world that fundamentally fails to provide us with contentment.  This, again, makes a lot of sense; I don’t feel that many would argue that material things ever brought anyone true happiness; they can ease your cares, make life easier, but they will never, ever provide a deep sense of contentment and/or achievement.  The things most worth doing are the things you cannot touch or measure.

So, do I agree with the 1st noble truth?

Yes.  So what comes next?