Four Noble Truths

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Dec 26, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Four Noble Truths.

I am currently looking at the Knowing and Seeing book of the Venerable Sayadaw, a recent Buddhist master who stuck to the original methods given by Gautama Buddha. It is a very painful thing, as a spiritual son of Gautama Buddha, to hear people misrepresent him and give distortions and totally crazy ideas about the way of enlightenment he pioneered.

There are tons and tons of distortions, and to make matters worse, these increase day by day. The problem with this is to that it dismantles what Gautama Buddha tried to give humanity, and it setbacks the very persons who formulate the misrepresentations.

Venerable Sayadaw in keeping with the original Pali text dished out the Four Noble Truths as

1.    Truth of Suffering

2.    Origin of suffering

3.    Truth of cessation of Suffering

4.    Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering.

In modern American English, I translate this again as follows:

Reality of Trauma

First of all one cannot be a Buddhist if one does not reach the first essential insight. One cannot reach that insight if one is not completely detached from sense enjoyment. Buddhism is not for persons who are essentially attached in their regular lifestyle. This is because like Buddha one has to come to certain realizations and be moved by these to take renunciation.

Who did this?

Who is the example of this?

The answer is of course, Buddha himself. He saw some traumatic incidences of human existence and reacted drastically to these, left the conveniences of royal social life and never resumed it. If you are not willing to do this, if you feel that this is not necessary because Buddha himself developed a Middle path after doing gruesome austerities, then Buddhism as Buddha delivered it is not for you.

This does not mean that you may not benefit from a study of Buddha’s life and teaching, but it means that your adjustments and adaptations will not permit you full access to what Buddha stood for and did.

If you feel that Buddha's Middle Way is what you want to do, then at least realize that this middle way did not include a resumption of social life, because Buddha never went back to the life of a householder prince. He never resumed political task as the son of a King or chieftain. Therefore the Middle way cannot be defined as anything other than a monk’s life style in the forest moving from place to place as Buddha did.

The first noble truth or essential insight is the reality of trauma. We have heard this again and again as being the truth of the suffering or the realization that essentially we are cornered on all sides by the threat of suffering.

Why is this?

In fact is this truth?

Can one be a Buddhist without this negative outlook?

One can be but one should not claim to be following exactly like Buddha unless one can keep this perception about trauma in mind.

The first thing to realize is that there is no way around the trauma of material existence because this reality comprises an energy which is lined with trauma every step of the way. There is no escaping it, either by having money, by having a beautiful body, by having a youthful form, by having high pedigree, by becoming famous, by being enterprising, by conquering territories, by making others into slaves, or by seeking and enjoying pleasures. There is no escape from it.

The realization of this is what stirred Buddha into action. There is promise in fighting an enemy so long as there is some hope that one may overcome the opponent but if one realizes that victory is not possible, then one should abandon the fight.

Gautama Buddha, the old father, the shelter of those males who do not know what to do in association with females, realized that he was boxed in by trauma and decided to think the situation over to see if there was any way he could escape. To do so he left family and royal responsibilities and never looked back in the sense of thinking that he should resume that social profile.

If trauma is on all sides, then if one cannot find a way out it means that one should either become resigned to one’s lot like a condemned man who waits in the execution chamber or one should become a genius overnight and discover a way out.

Supposedly, and people believe this, that where there is a will there is a way. Or stated non-poetically, if you are determined to do something, there is a high probability that nature will afford you an opportunity. It may not be exactly what you conceive of but if you are and

Origin of Trauma

What is the origin of trauma? To effectively deal with something, especially something which has such a large and varied lay out as material nature, one should know about the origin and development of that subject. From one angle it should be easy to figure the origin of trauma, especially if it is universal. If something is everywhere we should easily recognize and penetrate it.

But in this case, that reasoning falls through.

Despite its all-pervasive aspect, traumas are not easy to figure as to its roots or origin. This is because the trace back to the origin has many misleading starts and stops. As it developed material nature, it split itself into multi facets, so much so that from our position, a backtrack leads nowhere.

In this case we should take help from a genius of psychology who is Buddha. He will give us hints on what to trace and what to ignore, on what is a good lead and what will cause frustration.

If I cannot find the origin of trauma then I am stuck and cannot be a Buddhist.

Realizing that Trauma can be Terminated

I must somehow get some realization to know if trauma can be terminated. At the surface level trauma cannot be ended because it is built-in to material nature. Unless I am assured that it can be terminated, I will not have the required confidence to take the path set by Buddha.

In Buddha’s case he heard about monks going into the forest to realize the end of trauma but when he took up the methods available in the area of India where he resided, none of these systems brought about the end of trauma. He therefore pioneered a new method.

People think that Buddha did not find a method in India and there was no method but the only thing I know for sure is that there was no method available in the area where Buddha did austerities. In that area there were no teachers of any method which was fully effective in removing the individual from the realm of trauma.

After Buddha and because we believe that he did do the austerities and did achieve the termination of trauma for himself, we have confidence that it is possible. Here, there is no alternative but to have faith because we have not realized in fact that trauma can be terminated. Even us, the faithful followers of Buddha, his spiritual sons, must exhibit faith in this regard, at least until we can gain the experience of a state of consciousness or realm of existence where trauma is completely absent.

Application of an Effective Method for Terminating Trauma

Once we have faith that trauma can be terminated, even if we fail to evolve that faith into personal realization and direct insight, we may began applying the effective method. This again could be done on the basis of faith in Buddha. It is interesting that in a path which does not give credence to a Supreme Being, which advocates personal endeavor and personal capacity for liberation, we utilize faith in someone. We find faith to be useful even on this path which advocates autonomy for the individual seeking liberation.

Buddha is unique because he got the insight that trauma could be terminated and then he developed an effective method for attaining that. In our case, we do not have the insight. We have not seen the realm or level of consciousness where trauma is conspicuous by its absence, and yet we attempt to use the effective method for terminating trauma. This happens by the grace of the life of Lord Buddha. If for any other reason, his life has this value to us, that gift of faith in the fact, that there is a state of consciousness which is devoid of trauma and there is a method for attaining that level.

Thomer Scheepens 3 years ago

Thanks a lot! very interesting!