buddhism the four noble truths
text by rza / header by defiant / layout by eeri
e-kun
.. defiant
33
and the four
noble truths and other stuff too :
hello, and this is
rza here, and i would like to enlighten y
ou a
little bit about th
e basix of buddhism and the four noble
truths,
that are essential to know if
you are to begin to learn about the
religion.
i will try to break the basic stuff
down, in a comprehensible,
non didactic forma
t, because it may not easy to understand alot
of this.
okay, first off b
uddhism is a religion which revolves around
principles that are unlike ot
her religions other religions
meaning christi
anity, judaism, and islam.
one of these would be
the idea of transmigration
, or reincarnation of the soul.
buddhists believe that
when one dies, their soul does not
totally extinguish with the b
ody, and that it passes on to a new
life form. m
ost people have the idea, that if they were to be
reincarnated, say f
or example, as a dog, that they would be a
person trapped in a dogs body
, and as if they could perceive and
still think as
the person they are, but like i said just in a
dogs body. that is incorrect
. if one was reincarnated as a
dog, the only thing in common that
that dog and person would have,
is the same soul o
r what-not.
however, the dog would
be a normal dog and not see things as the
human would have, not th
e fictitious idea of the persons mind
living on as a dog. the only
common ground the two dog + person
would have, is bein
g manifestations of the soul.
aside from that, buddhis
ts also believe that we are reincarnated
not once, but many
times over and over again. this cycle of
birth, death, and rebirth is
known as samsara sanskrit. most
people, when uninformed
of the buddhist view-point, would find
this information pl
easing, for the fact that they dont totally
die off and that they get to
live over and over again in a
sense, yes.
however samsara and the wheel of life are not
perceived as something positive, in
fact, they are seen as very
negative and pessimistic.
why?
because buddhists view life as suffering
, which i will get
into later. okay, so
you know that all of us are stuck in this
big cycle of death, and
continual rebirth over and over again, and
what can one do about it? ba
sically we are all subject to
suffering, and deat
h, and all sorts of things, over and over again
in a nearly infinite cycle o
f existance. does this sound like
fun? hell no. and, wha
t can be done about it? how can one
escape this pit of hel
l?
.. well, several thousan
d years ago, there was an indian prince
named siddha
rta gautama. its sorta a long story, so i wont
go
into it. but, he did not unde
rstand suffering and why all this
terrible shit
had to happen, and wanted to know why and how to
make this stuff come to an end, and
a release from the cycle. so,
he set out to find this ultimate tr
uth and reality, and meditated
with some ascetics
and practically starved himself and did all
sorts of extreme p
ractices, in search of this ultimate truth.
after he had established
the middle path and realized that you
dont have to be too extreme
or too lose in practicing, he set
out again, this tim
e refreshed and more determined. eventually,
he attained true enlightenment and
perceived nature and things as
they truly are, and he h
ad achieved the final stage of nirvana
sanskrit.
when one attains
nirvana, or nibbana in pali they are
at a
totally different s
tage, in which they are not subjected to
birth, nor death anymore. onc
e you have attained nirvana, you are
out of the cyc
le of samsara, you are free. once siddhar
ta
attained nirvana, he was known as
sakyamuni buddha buddha
meaning enlightened one
. thus, siddharta found a way to
liberation, and to
get out of this cycle that we are all damned
to. this way is k
nown as buddhism.
+ no
ble truths, and other stuff +
the world, however, is given to ple
asure, delighted with pleasure,
enchanted with pleasure.
obviously, such beings will hardly
understand the law of
conditionality, the dependant origina
tion
paticca-samuppada
of everything incomprehensible to them will
also be the end of all f
ormations, the forsaking of evey
substratum of rebir
th, the fading away of craving, detachment,
extinction, nirvana.
however, there are beings whose eyes
are only a little covered
with dust, they will understand the
truth.
the first no
ble truth
life is s
uffering.
what does suffering
entail, what defines suffering?
birth is s
uffering, decay is suffering de
ath is suffering
sorrow,
lamentation, pain, g
rief and despair are suffering
not
to get what one desire
s is suffering basically, the five
aggregates of existance
are suffering.
the five aggregates connected
with cleaving are: bodily form,
perception
, feeling, mental formations
and consciousness.
whoso delights in bodily form
, or feeling, or perception, or
mental format
ions, or consciousness, he delights in suffering
and whoso del
ights in suffering, will not be freed from
suffering, thus i
say, - sutra nipata
dharmapada 14
6-48
how
can you find delight and mirth
where there is burni
ng without end?
in deepes
t darkness you are wrapped!
why do
you not seek for light?
look at t
his puppet here, well rigged,
a he
ap of many sores, piled up,
diseased and fu
ll of greediness,
unstable and impermanent!
devoured by old
age is this frame,
a prey of sicknes, weak and frail
to pieces breaks this putrid body,
all lif
e must truly end in death.
the secon
d noble truth
the noble truth of the or
igin of suffering.
the cause or origin of
suffering is desire. it is that craving
which gives rise to fresh reb
irth, and bound up with pleasure
and lust, now here, now
there, finds ever fresh delight.
there is sensual craving, the
craving for eternal existance, the
craving for te
mporal happiness.
therefore, whatever kind of feeling
one experiences, pleasant,
unpleasant, or ind
ifferent -- one approves of and cherishes the
feeling, and by do
ing so clings to it and while clinging t
o
it, lust
springs up but lust for feelings means clinging for
existance and, on clingi
ng to existance depends the process of
becoming ka
rma-bhava and that process depends on bir
th jati
and dependent on bi
rth are decay and death, sorro
w, lamentation,
pain, grief a
nd despair. and when you take into account a
ll of
this, you can see how th
e whole mass of suffering arises.
the third trut
h
the noble
truth of the extinction of suffering.
what is the no
ble truth of the extinction of suffering?
it is the
complete fading away a
nd extinction of this craving/desire, its
forsaking and giving up, the libera
tion and detachment from it.
by the total fadin
g away and extinction of craving, clinging to
existance is extinguis
hed and through the extinction of the
clinging to existance th
e process of becoming is extinguished and
through that being extinguish
ed, the process of rebirth is
extinguished and t
hrough extinguishing the process of rebirth,
you extinguish decay and death, sor
row, lamentation, suffering,
grief and despair. ther
efore, the extinction of the whole mass of
suffering comes about.
this, truly is the
peace, this is the highest, basically the
end
of all formations,
the forsaking of every substratum of rebirth,
the fading away of craving, de
tachment, extinction, nirvana.
the fourth truth
the
noble truth of the path that leads to the
ext
inction of suffering.
what is the path
that leads to the extinction of suffering?
it is the noble eig
htfold path,
1. samma-ditthi
, right understanding
2. samma-
sankappa, right mindedness
3. samm
a-vaca, right speech
4. samma-kamma
nta, right action
5. samma-
ajiva, right living
6. s
amma-vayama, right effort
7. samma-sati
, right attentiveness
8.
samma-samadhi, right concentration
truly, like this path there is no o
ther way to purity of
insight. if you f
ollow this path, you will put an end to
suffering.
okay, there you have it, some
of the basics of buddhism. if i
were to fully expla
in all of this in depth, it would take an
immensely large amount of time and
effort, neither of which i
have at the moment :
i apologize if this was banal
and monotonous, religion has many
dull aspects to it. oth
erwise, i hope this was not your same
trite, hackneyed, t
ypical article, and that maybe you learned
something. im out,
-rza