the 2nd noble truth

So it is here that we find ourselves: Existence and dukkha are inseparable. Life is dis-ease; things fall apart, they do not come together. Entropy is the hallmark of reality. Very well, the 2nd noble truth: The origin of dukkha is craving.

From the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: “And this, monks is the noble truth of the origination of dukkha: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming.”

First things first. What exactly is craving, the hinge on which this whole definition pivots? The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘craving’ (in its first, obsolete, but highly relevant meaning) thus: ‘To demand (a thing), to ask with authority, or by right.’ In real life, how does this manifest itself? The first, and most obvious, is a desire for sensations, the craving for things that make us feel good. This attachment to sensuality (kama tanha) is easy to understand. Think about food that tastes good. At the time, we know it tastes good; if it tastes good enough, when we are not enjoying the sensation it gives, we desire to have that sensation again, we desire to feel the same pleasantness in the future. This operates from moment to moment. While eating, we want to take another bite to recapture the sensation after only a moment of being without it. And as we are experiencing the pleasurable sensation, is it ever really far from our minds that there will soon be a time that we shall be without that sensation? We are uneasy while we are not experiencing pleasurable sensation, we are uneasy while we are. This is clear with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with sex, with the sun on our face and the cold wind blowing through our coats. This is the craving for sensual pleasure first named in the above quote. This is kama tanha.

More subtle is the desire, the craving for becoming. These are, in part, divorced from the material world, and this craving exists in the realm of the immaterial. This form of craving, bhava tanha, is the desire to become something, someone, some state that you do not presently reside in. Bhava tanha has been styled the “realm of ambition and attainment;” we seek to be wealthy, to be happy, to find contentment, to find peace, to be passionate, to care, to be in a state of happiness. I want to be spiritual, I want to be enlightened, I (and this is particularly something I struggle with) want to understand, I want respect, I want authority, I want the American dream, I want love, I want children, I want, I want, I want……The list could be extended until the end of time. We desire these things because of the way they make us feel, in a way that is different from the simple causation of physical stimuli; the first form of craving pleasures our body; the second pleasures our minds.

Just as subtle, just as difficult to understand as a negative, is the craving for not-becoming, the opposite of the craving for becoming. Yet really how opposite is this craving, in its essentialism? The desire to not-become is the reverse side of the coin of craving; desire to become and the desire to not become share the same root, craving. The craving to not-become (vibhava tanha) structures itself in the same way as the desire to become: I want to overcome the material, to get rid of my attachment to the world; I want to get rid of suffering, of jealousy, of fear, of desire itself, of pain, of greed, of evil, of any state.

Unreasonably, we constantly strive for a state that is not our own; we constantly attempt to escape the dis-ease in which we constantly find ourselves. We assume the universe owes us this (even if we won’t say so, even if we work for these things there is the assumption that we deserve a reward), we assume it is our right to feel good, to be one things and not another. Those things are good, but it is important to realize that existence owes us nothing, that asking for these things, that striving for them, in this way, is as senseless as railing at the rain for making me wet.

These are all a reflection of dukkha, of dis-ease; no condition is permanent, no sense lasts forever, no state will survive more than an ephemeral little while, be it positive or negative. To crave, to desire, any sensation or state of being is folly, for it will pass, it will change, and you will be left with nothing but an attachment to what once was or will be, not what is now.

Part of the 2nd truth is realizing that even these thoughts, the desire of sensation, the desire to be and not-be, are themselves impermanent. They masquerade in our day to day lives as permanent ideas to be attained, or to be avoided, on and on; recognizing desire for what it is, the yearning for permanence in an inherently impermanent universe, is vital to overcoming them (thought he word ‘overcoming’ has many connotations undesirable to this argument; perhaps a more cogent term would be an acceptance and discarding of them….)

As another has eloquently stated, “[d]esire has power over us and deludes us only as long as we grasp it, believe in it and react to it.” It should be noted, as well, that this is a formulation of a middle way between asceticism and gluttony. It is foolish to deny that, for instance, we need food to live. However, we should not latch onto food, becoming gluttonous; nor should we forgo food, and starve ourselves-whatever the reason. We should recognize that food is necessary, and let it go at that. Any more and any less veers into sensuous desire, craving for a state of becoming or not-becoming. Recognizing these cravings dispassionately, for what they are-ephemeral states of thought that will pass- without judging them as good or bad, without attempting to quash them or to indulge in them, without craving to be free of them or desiring to be without them (or with them, conversely), but simply growing aware of these cravings, is the first step to going beyond them, as will be discussed soon with the 3rd noble truth.

Reflections on the 2nd noble truth: Seems sensible enough to me. That there is suffering, dis-ease, dukkha, in this world, seems almost inarguable; the old cliche about the grass always being greener on the other side helps me to realize this. There’s a reason everyone knows what that means, because most of us instinctively see the world as consisting of states of ease and dis-ease. Realizing that every moment contains within in it’s own dukkha is the first step; the next is figuring out where dukkha comes from. It comes, as the second truth claims, from craving, from desiring, from grasping for desire-for sensual pleasure, for ways of life, for states different than your own. These cravings chain us, like Satan in his lake and Prometheus on his rock, further into the cycle of samsara and the the sway of dukkha. By opting out, as it were, from the interplay of desires, by understanding craving for what it really is, can we….forget about grasping. When we become comfortable in the eternity of now, the present without past or future (not by ignoring either, but by not becoming beholden to them), when we understand the sensations and cravings and desires we are subject to as part of dukkha, then we can begin to be unbound by them.