Seattle Insight Meditation Center | Mar 2016
The Four Noble Truths are a core aspect of the Buddha’s teaching. In this four part series, we bring them alive as a practice to meet each moment’s arising.
The Four Noble Truths are a core aspect of the Buddha’s teaching. In this four part series, we bring them alive as a practice to meet each moment’s arising. The First Noble Truth, Dukkha, has both obvious and unconscious elements. The unseen expression of dukkha drives our lives and is the foundation of the other types of dukkha. Ultimately, this fundamental dukkha arises when we hold ourselves separate from the unfolding expression of each moment and is based in the formation of the sense of self.
The Four Noble Truths are a core aspect of the Buddha’s teaching. In this four part series, we bring them alive as a practice to meet each moment’s arising. In the second Noble Truth, we explore tanha, or thirst, as the origin of dukkha. Directly seeing the first form of tanha, the thirst for sense pleasure, allows us to sense the deeper levels of tanha, the thirst for becoming and for non-existence. We start to see that the deep urge to claim ownership of the sense of self is what gives rise to dukkha.
As we explore the Third Noble Truth, Nibbana, we see how the cause of suffering is integral to the end of that suffering. Our day to day approach to the cause of suffering revolves around situations, circumstances and relationships. Therefore getting rid of that suffering means changing those external or internal factors. To transform our understanding of suffering and its cause into the Four Noble Truths, we must understand the cause of suffering to be ignorance. Then we understand embodied wisdom to lead to the end of suffering.