The Four Noble Truths: 4. The path to the cessation of suffering

There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the Eightfold Path. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth. The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely "wandering on the wheel of becoming", because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning. Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.

The Four Noble Truths: 3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.

The Four Noble Truths: 2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.

The Four Noble Truths: 1. Life means suffering.

1. Life means suffering.

To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.

Angry

"Angry people are not always wise."
- Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

Edit

 "Write drunk, edit sober."
- Ernest Hemingway

Write

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."
- Saul Bellow

Beauty

Isaac

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
- Gibran Khalil Gibran

Bullshit

 

"Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit."

 - Chuck Palahniuk - Diary

Blossom

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

- Anais Nin

Hated

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not."
- Kurt Cobain

Secret Sorrows

"Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Destination

Flaws

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."

- Augusten Burroughs

Touch

"She touches me as if I were herself, her own.
She has not realized yet, that fearful thing, that
I am the other,
she thinks we are all of one piece.
It is painfully untrue."
- D.H.Lawrence