Everyone You Meet Could Be Your Teacher

Everyone you meet could be your teacher or "Guru". Everyone has their place in this world whether we like them or not. We all belong here and now. Buddhism is all about becoming aware and waking up. Become aware of what life is teaching you.

Awaken to Your Life

I'll go over some "real" life examples for you;    

• Your boss who treats you terribly everyday at work, he is part of your Sangha.... He is teaching you Tolerance.
• The elderly store clerk, you know the one who takes an hour to ring up one customer.... That clerk is a teacher of Patience.  
• Every town has them no matter how hard many people try to pretend they are not there, the beggars that harass everyone passing by for a dime....You guessed it, hello my "Guru" thank you for the lessons in Humility, and Generosity.
•  Ladies I hope you forgive me for this one, but the husband who leaves the toilet seat up. Well please understand he is accidently teaching Tolerance. I know some of you ladies are thinking why can't men just become more AWARE right. LOL.
• Your server in your local restaurant who never gets your order right......Acceptance.
• The neighborhood old lady who has nothing, never complains, is always cheerful, and wanting to feed you. She has two lessons for you.....Selflessness and Gratitude.

This is your life, the world is your "Sangha", and everyone is your teacher. You only have to be aware. I hate to disappoint but there is no great, hidden answer to life's troubles. Instead learn to see the things you have already available to you, Before thinking about all the things you want. Remove the blindfold from your eyes to reveal this life and all the wonderful things it has to offer. Be Alive, Be Aware. 

Your World is Waiting For You

Mindfulness....What, Why, How Part 3

Part 3 of 3

How Do I Cultivate It?

Jon Kabat-Zinn emphasizes that although mindfulness can be cultivated through formal meditation, that’s not the only way. “It’s not really about sitting in the full lotus, like pretending you’re a statue in a British museum,” he says in this video. “It’s about living your life as if it really mattered, moment by moment by moment by moment.”

Here are a few key components of practicing mindfulness that Kabat-Zinn and others identify:

Pay close attention to your breathing, especially when you’re feeling intense emotions. Notice—really notice—what you’re sensing in a given moment, the sights, sounds, and smells that ordinarily slip by without reaching your conscious awareness. Recognize that your thoughts and emotions are fleeting and do not define you, an insight that can free you from negative thought patterns. Tune into your body’s physical sensations, from the water hitting your skin in the shower to the way your body rests in your office chair. Find “micro-moments” of mindfulness throughout the day to reset your focus and sense of purpose.

To develop these skills in everyday life, you can try these exercises used in Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR program and elsewhere:

Mindfulness....What, Why, How Part 2

Part 2 of 3

Why Practice It?

Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness, even for just a few weeks, can bring a variety of physical, psychological, and social benefits. Here are some of these benefits, which extend across many different settings.

• Mindfulness is good for our bodies: A seminal study found that, after just eight weeks of training, practicing mindfulness meditation boosts our immune system’s ability to fight off illness. Practicing mindfulness may also improve sleep quality.
• Mindfulness is good for our minds: Several studies have found that mindfulness increases positive emotions while reducing negative emotions and stress. Indeed, at least one study suggests it may be as good as antidepressants in fighting depressionand preventing relapse.
• Mindfulness changes our brains: Research has found that it increases density of gray matter in brain regions linked to learning, memory, emotion regulation, and empathy.
• Mindfulness helps us focus: Studies suggest that mindfulness helps us tune out distractions and improves our memory, attention skills, and decision-making.
• Mindfulness fosters compassion and altruism: Research suggests mindfulness training makes us more likely to help someone in need and increases activity in neural networks involved in understanding the suffering of others and regulating emotions. Evidence suggests it might boost self-compassion as well.
• Mindfulness enhances relationships: Research suggests mindfulness training makes couples more satisfied with their relationship, makes each partner feel more optimistic and relaxed, and makes them feel more accepting of and closer to one another. Mindful couples may also recover more quickly from conflict.
• Mindfulness affects the way we see ourselves: More mindful people have a stronger sense of self and seem to act more in line with their values. They may also have a healthier body image, more secure self-esteem, and more resilience to negative feedback.
• Mindfulness makes us more resilient: Some evidence suggests that mindfulness training could help veterans facing post-traumatic stress disorder, police officers, women who suffered child abuse, and caregivers.
• Mindfulness can help combat bias: Even a brief mindfulness training can reduce our implicit biases and the biased language we use. One way this works, researchers have found, is by attenuating the cognitive biases that contribute to prejudice.
• Mindfulness is good for business: Mindfulness training could help make leaders more confident, improve creativity, reduce multitasking, and improve client satisfaction.
• Mindfulness is good for parents and parents-to-be: Studies suggest it may reduce pregnancy-related anxiety, stress, and depression in expectant parents, and may even reduce the risk of premature births and developmental issues. Parents who practice mindful parenting report less stress, more positive parenting practices, and better relationships with their kids; their kids, in turn, are less susceptible to depression and anxiety, and have better social skills. Mindfulness training for families may lead to less-stressed parents who pay more attention to their kids.
• Mindfulness may be beneficial to teens: Practicing mindfulness can help teens reduce stress and depression and increase their self-compassion and happiness. Once teens arrive at college, it could also reduce their binge drinking.
• Mindfulness helps schools: There’s scientific evidence that teaching mindfulness in the classroom reduces behavior problems, aggression, and depression among students, and improves their happiness levels, self-regulation, and ability to pay attention. Teachers trained in mindfulness also show lower blood pressure, less negative emotion and symptoms of depression, less distress and urgency, greater compassion and empathy, and more effective teaching.
• Mindfulness helps health care professionals cope with stress, connect with their patients, and improve their general quality of life. It also helps mental health professionals by reducing negative emotions and anxiety, and increasing their positive emotions and feelings of self-compassion.
• Mindfulness helps prisons: Evidence suggests mindfulness reduces anger, hostility, and mood disturbances among prisoners by increasing their awareness of their thoughts and emotions, helping with their rehabilitation and reintegration.
• Mindfulness helps veterans: Studies suggest it can reduce the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the aftermath of war.
• Mindfulness fights obesity: Practicing “mindful eating” encourages healthier eating habits, helps people lose weight, and helps them savor the food they do eat. Pregnant women who practice mindful eating gain less weight during pregnancy, and have healthier babies.

Click Here for part 3 of 3

Mindfulness....What, Why, How Part 1

What Is Mindfulness?     

Part 1 of 3

Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.

Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than reliving the past or imagining the future.

Though it has its roots in Buddhist meditation, a secular practice of mindfulness is in the American mainstream in recent years, in part through the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which he launched at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. Since that time, thousands of studies have documented the physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in general and MBSR in particular, inspiring countless programs to adapt the MBSR model for schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and many more.

What We Still Don’t Know about Mindfulness Meditation

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During the past three decades, a lot has been discovered about mindfulness—and specifically meditation, which is one of the best ways to cultivate moment-to-moment awareness of ourselves and our environment. 

Research has suggested that in a few short weeks, mindfulness meditation practice can bring about physiological, psychological, and social benefits in our lives. From increases in gray matter in the brain to alleviating physical ailments such as migraines and fibromyalgia, the benefits of mindfulness and meditation practice more generally have been touted for everyone ranging from executives to schoolchildren.

While some have been critical of the science behind mindfulness meditation due to poor study designs and small effect sizes, this hasn’t curbed mainstream interest. A recently published study sought to examine the print media coverage of meditation between 1979 and 2014 and discovered that there’s a near inescapable global amount of positive coverage of meditation.

With so many positive claims about mindfulness meditation, it can be difficult to decipher which claims have the most research behind them and which are still preliminary or speculative. In fact, there is a great deal we don’t yet understand about mindfulness and meditation. 

What are the actual benefits of mindfulness meditation?

Just recently, I’ve seen headlines promoting how mindfulness and meditation practices may “decrease your risk of cancer,” “reduce holiday excess,” and help athletes rise to the top. Are these claims true?

A recent analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine caused a bit of a stir in the meditation community. This analysis examined 47 randomized controlled trials of mindfulness meditation programs, which included a total of 3,515 participants. They found that meditation programs resulted only in small to moderate reductions in anxiety, depression, and pain. The authors note that although these effects are small, they are “comparable with what would be expected from the use of an antidepressant in a primary care population but without the associated toxicities.”

Surprisingly, this review showed low evidence of improvements in quality of life. Furthermore, there was also low, insufficient, or no evidence of meditation programs’ effect on positive mood and feelings. According to the authors, meditation programs were not shown to be more beneficial than active treatments—such as exercise, therapy, or taking prescription drugs—on any outcomes of interest. But, Meditation did not seem to be harmful.

While it’s possible that the benefits of mindfulness practice and meditation generally may be more modest than originally assumed, several important barriers to the study of contemplative practices influence the quality of research being conducted. Most notable are the lack of funding (which influences number of participants, study length, and design) and poor measurement tools (which have been limited primarily to questionnaires of varying quality, an issue also likely tied to the lack of funding). While private and federal research grants are indeed awarded to the study of contemplative practices, these grants are typically much smaller than those awarded to more traditional research (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy or pharmacology trials).

Nevertheless, the consensus from this analysis is that while there are some benefits, mindfulness meditation programs are not a cure-all to every modern-day ailment.

How much practice is enough?

“How much meditation practice is enough?” Most people are looking for a CDC type of response(e.g., 3 times a week for 45-60 minutes), There is an old Zen saying: “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day—unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” To date, researchers have yet to arrive at a consensus about how much is “enough.”

Many meditation programs suggest that participants practice formal meditation (the “on the cushion” practice) anywhere from 15-30 minutes per day, 5-7 days per week. Many research studies, including some published research at Stanford University on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Compassion Cultivation Training, have found that some (not all) of the benefits from these programs are “dose dependent”—meaning that the participants who report the greatest amount of meditation practice are the ones who show the greatest gains. This is not universally true; there are some outcomes that do not seem to be influenced by minutes of practice. As is often the case, the research is mixed.

Aside from the raw number of minutes, other factors may interact to influence the benefits of mindfulness practice: the type (e.g., formal sitting meditation practice vs. informal meditation practices, mindfulness vs. compassion, etc.), the frequency (e.g., multiple times a day, multiple times a week), and the quality (e.g., sitting and actually doing the practice vs. doing the practice “on the go”). Using the analogy of going to the gym: It’s not enough to simply think about going to the gym, or talk about going to the gym, or wear gym clothes around town, or only go to the gym for a few weeks after making New Year’s resolutions. In order to gain the most benefits out of going to the gym, one has to really show up and do the exercises on a regular basis.

While it’s possible that in the next 10-15 years we will see a CDC-style recommendation regarding meditation practice, to date, the empirical data on the topic are still inconclusive. So my recommendations (for the time being) are to try out different durations, types, and frequencies of meditation and jot down how you feel before and after the practice. It’s even important to experiment with different times of the day. Making time to intentionally reflect on your experiences with the practice is key. The only way to find out what’s right for you is to experiment. 

Is there a dark side to meditation?

One of the big misconceptions about mindfulness practice and meditation more generally is that they will induce a sense of peace, calm, and stress reduction. While this can be the experience for some, it is not the experience for all. At times, sitting quietly with oneself can be a difficult—even painful—experience. For individuals who have experienced some sort of trauma, sitting and meditating can at times bring up recent or sometimes decades-old painful memories and experiences that they may not be prepared to confront.At times, it may be appropriate to seek outside support when practicing meditation, such as short-term psychotherapy, support groups, or meditation sangha groups. It’s also possible that some practices are more “difficult” than others. For example, practices where you visualize yourself as a small child might be particularly difficult if you experienced some sort of abuse as a young child. Rather than powering through the practices, be willing to gauge whether a particular type of meditation is suitable for you at this time in your life.

Mindfulness..... What, Why, How Part 2 of 3

The Self Proclaimed Solitary Buddhist

The Self Proclaimed Solitary Buddhist

The Four Noble Truths 

This is the very first teaching the Buddha offered following his enlightenment. The three major branches of Buddhism, Theravada (Hinayana), Mahayana, and Vajrayana (Tantric), generally share very similar interpretations of The Four Noble Truths, though in some schools they are emphasized more than others.  Mahayana and Vajrayana interpretations tend to add an extra element or understanding rather than revise.  I speculate that where they are less emphasized in favor of other more intellectual concepts, such as emptiness or non-self.

Theravada

Theravada Buddha's in Colombo, Sri Lanka, by Arthur Chapman via Flickr

The Four Noble Truths are presented in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma (Dharma) in Motion” in the Pali Cannon.  Dukkha sometimes translated as “suffering” is often also called “stress” or “unsatisfactoriness.”  I’ll use the word suffering as the most common translation of the original term.

The difference between The Four Noble Truths and so many other religious doctrines is that these are not beliefs.  Rather, this is a description of the way the world exists.  Likewise, one doesn’t have to believe in gravity to be affected by it at all times.  Suffering is, it’s as simple as that.  

The Truths are traditionally rendered as:

1. The Truth of Suffering (Dhukka):  All living beings suffer.
2. The Truth of the Cause of Suffering (Samudaya): Suffering is caused by desire.
3. The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering (Nirodha):  Suffering can end.
4. The Truth of the Path to End Suffering (Magga):  Following the Noble Eightfold Path leads to the end of suffering.

Some non-believers say that by starting out with suffering, Buddhism presents a basically pessimistic view.  However, study of any of the world’s great religions will by and large reveal that they are all attempts to answer that same question: Why do we suffer?  In the Abrahamic faiths this is explained by human beings’ estrangement from God and God’s will, so naturally they start out by talking about God.  In Buddhism, we can skip that step, seeing as the very idea of a singular creator god was unknown in India during the Buddha’s lifetime (though the Buddha did address the then current conception of Brahma, which is slightly different).  So rather than being pessimistic, The Four Noble Truths address the problem directly, like a doctor who must first understand the disease in order to offer a cure.  Furthermore, the Third Noble Truth, is entirely uplifting.  It tells us suffering is optional and, moreover, that we have the power to end it ourselves.  How much more optimism do we need?

Notable Theravada teachers have this to say about The Four Noble Truths:

“Each of these truths entails a duty: stress is to be comprehended, the origination of stress abandoned, the cessation of stress realized, and the path to the cessation of stress developed. When all of these duties have been fully performed, the mind gains total release. … Thus the study of the four noble truths is aimed first at understanding these four categories, and then at applying them to experience so that one may act properly toward each of the categories and thus attain the highest, most total happiness possible.” – Thanissaro Bhikku

“Now the Four Noble Truths are: there is suffering; there is a cause or origin of suffering; there is a end of suffering; and there is path out of suffering which is the Eightfold Path. Each of these Truths has three aspects so all together there are twelve insights. In the Theravada school, an arahant, a perfected one, is one who has seen clearly the Four Noble Truths with their three aspects and twelve insights. ‘Arahant’ means a human being who understands the truth; it is applied mainly to the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. … We use these Four Noble Truths for our development. We apply them to ordinary things in our lives, to ordinary attachments and obsessions of the mind. With these truths, we can investigate our attachments in order to have the insights. Through the Third Noble Truth, we can realize cessation, the end of suffering, and practice the Eightfold Path until there is understanding. When the Eightfold Path has been fully developed, one is an arahant, one has made it. Even though this sounds complicated – four truths, three aspects, twelve insights – it is quite simple. It is a tool for us to use to help us understand suffering and non-suffering.” – Ajahn Sumedho

“Shortly after his Awakening, the Buddha delivered his first sermon, in which he laid out the essential framework upon which all his later teachings were based. This framework consists of the Four Noble Truths, four fundamental principles of nature (Dhamma) that emerged from the Buddha’s radically honest and penetrating assessment of the human condition. He taught these truths not as metaphysical theories or as articles of faith, but as categories by which we should frame our direct experience in a way that conduces to Awakening. …  Because of our ignorance (avijja) of these Noble Truths, because of our inexperience in framing the world in their terms, we remain bound to samsara, the wearisome cycle of birth, aging, illness, death, and rebirth. Craving propels this process onward, from one moment to the next and over the course of countless lifetimes, in accordance with kamma (Skt. karma), the universal law of cause and effect. … The Buddha discovered that gaining release from samsara requires assigning to each of the Noble Truths a specific task: the first Noble Truth is to be comprehended; the second, abandoned; the third, realized; the fourth, developed.” – John T. Bullit

“…the fundamental meaning of the first noble truth, is the unsatisfactoriness and radical inadequacy of everything conditioned, owing to the fact that whatever is conditioned is impermanent and ultimately bound to perish. … Itself the product of ignorance, an unawareness of the true nature of things, craving springs up wherever there is the prospect of pleasure and enjoyment, bringing along with it the multitude of mental defilements responsible for so much human misery: greed and ambition, hatred and anger, selfishness and envy, conceit, vanity and pride. … Since suffering arises through craving, with the destruction of craving, suffering too must cease: a relationship as tight and inevitable as logical law.  The state that then supervenes, the goal of all striving for Theravada Buddhism, is nirvana, the unconditioned, the deathless, the imperishable peace beyond the round of birth and death.” – Bhikku Bodhi (An Introduction to the Buddha and His Teachings,  pages 62-64)

Mahayana

Mahayana Buddha at Kamakura by Chaojikazu via Flickr

Mahayana and Theravada teachings largely agree in their interpretation of The Four Noble Truths.  Where they differ is in their use.  While Theravada sees realization of the Truths (in all their simplicity and complication and via various methods of mental cultivation) as fully effective for achieving arhat-ship (the endgame of Theravada practice, amounts to buddha-hood or bodhisattva-hood in Mahayana), Mahayana holds that the Truths and the Path were merely “the first turning of the wheel of Dharma” (Pali: Dhamma).  In other words, the Buddha saved his “highest and best” teaching for later.  One of the most revered Mahayana texts, the Lotus Sutra (Sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra), states:

In early passages, the Buddha tells the assembly that his earlier teachings were provisional. People were not ready for his highest teaching, he said, and had to be brought to enlightenment by expedient means. But the Lotus represents the final, highest teaching, and supersedes all other teachings.

We suffer, the Buddha says, because the nature of existence is impermanent (when we want permanence) and permeated by self (when no such self exists).  As Bikkhu Bodhi has sad, the nature of things are “conditioned,” that is, the result of causation and therefore subject to change. Rather, all things are interconnected, interdependent, and co-arising.  This is where Mahayana makes the leap from enlightenment (arhat-ship) for oneself to enlightenment for all sentient beings, which is the goal of the bodhisattva.  Seeing as we’re all interconnected, we can’t really get enlightened unless everyone gets enlightened.  So the bodhisattva seeks, and at a certain point attains, enlightenment, but then reenters the stream of rebirth, the world of samsara, to teach other sentient beings until such time as we all achieve enlightenment, i.e. Third Noble Truth: the cessation of suffering.

Now, some Mahayana teachings may even seem to deny the Four Noble Truths, stating that they are not truths at all.  After all, how can suffering be a “truth” or “law” of existence if we have the ability to stop it?  Some Mahayana teachers characterize the four noble truths thus:

1. Suffering is not permanent, but the Buddha is.
2. The origin of suffering is not eternal, but the Buddha is.
3. The cessation of suffering is not unchanging, but the Buddha is.
4. The path to the end of suffering is not peaceful, but the Buddha is.

In these sentences, Buddha may be exchanged with buddha-nature, that is, the inherent or potential enlightenment within all sentient beings.  The Mahayana are consistently more optimistic on a person’s ability to attain buddha-hood, often in a single lifetime, than the Theravadans.  Scholars speculate that the Mahayana trend to stress buddha-hood for all contributed to its popularity. 

Here is what some notable Mahayana teachers have to say on the issue:

“After realizing complete, perfect awakening (samyak sambodhi), the Buddha had to find words to share his insight.  He already had the water, but he had to discover jars like the Four Noble Truths and the Nobel Eightfold Path to hold it. … The First Noble Truth is suffering (dukkha).  The root meaning of the Chinese character for suffering is ‘bitter.’  Happiness is sweat; suffering is bitter.  We all suffer to some extent. … The Second Noble Truth is the origin, roots, nature, creation, or arising (samudaya) of suffering. After we touch our suffering, we need to look deeply into it to see how it came to be. …  The Third Noble Truth is the cessation (nirodha) of creating suffering by refraining from doing the things that make us suffer.  This is good news!  The Buddha did not deny the existence of suffering, but he also did not deny the existence of joy and happiness. … The Fourth Noble Truth is the path (marga) that leads to refraining from doing the things that cause us to suffer.  This is the path we need the most.”  – Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Buddha’s Teachings, p. 9-11

“It is important to understand that an intellectual grasp of the four noble truths is not considered sufficient; following the Buddhist path requires great effort on the part of the individual, leading to a realization of the truths for oneself.  This realization requires the practice of meditation and is associated with Buddhist monastic practice rather than lay Buddhism.  Although Mahayana Buddhism accepts the four noble truths as the basic teachings of the Buddha, they are not generally a primary topic of Mahayana teaching, nor are they typically the focus of Mahayana meditative practices.  While lay followers of Theravada Buddhism are familiar with the four noble truths, most Mahayana Buddhists are not.” – Helen Josephine Baroni, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism, p. 98

Vajrayana

Vajrayana Buddha in Lhasa, Tibet, by Jowo Sakyamuni via Flickr

Vajrayana recognizes The Four Noble Truths as the first teaching of the Buddha.  The Vajrayana characterizes itself as a “swift path” (the word “Vajrayana” is sometimes translated as “lightning vehicle”).  “This swiftness of the Vajrayana path does not derive from a profound philosophical outlook, but because of the practice of most profound and sophisticated meditative methods,” according to the Institute of Tibetan Classics. Vajrayana, sometimes called Tantra, Tantric Buddhism, or Esoteric Buddhism, holds the same Bodhisattva ideal as the Mahayana, however, it takes skillful means (upaya) to an unprecedented level through complex ritual,  various esoteric forms of yoga and meditation, and the recognition of both relative and ultimate truth.  Even The Four Noble Truths are subject to understanding via the Two Truths (relative and ultimate).

Suffering is a relative truth.  Nirvana (the cessation of suffering and state of enlightenment) is the ultimate truth.  Ignorance is a relative truth.  Buddha-nature is the ultimate truth.  The Vajrayana therefore is a path by which one must cultivate one’s apprehension of the ultimate truth.  One becomes a buddha by being a buddha.  For this, Vajrayana employs a multitude of techniques including (but by no means limited to) Dzogchen, ngondro, deity meditation, mandalas, and Mahamudra.

Prominent Vajrayana teachers have this to say on the subject:

“When the great universal teacher Shakyamuni Buddha first spoke about the Dharma in the noble land of India, he taught the four noble truths: the truths of suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path to the cessation of suffering. … We experience many different types of suffering. All are included in three categories: the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change and all-pervasive suffering. … Now, desiring liberation from the first two categories of suffering is not the principal motivation for seeking liberation; the Buddha taught that the root of the three sufferings is the third: all-pervasive suffering. … This third, all-pervasive, suffering is under the control of karma and the disturbing mind … of previous lives: anger and attachment arise simply because we have these present aggregates. The aggregate of compounding phenomena is like an enabler for us to generate karma and these disturbing minds… Even if you take your own life, this life, you will have to take another body that will again be the basis of suffering. If you really want to get rid of all your suffering, all the difficulties you experience in your life, you have to get rid of the fundamental cause that gives rise to the aggregates that are the basis of all suffering. Killing yourself isn’t going to solve your problems.” – The Dalai Lama

“If the Buddha had taught his disciples principally by demonstrating his miraculous abilities and various powers, it would not have been the best way to establish them on the path of liberation. The best way to bring them to that wisdom and liberation was to point out the very truth of things; to point out the way things really are. So this is what he did: He showed the truth through the four noble truths and the two truths (relative and absolute truth). By seeing the way things really are, the students learned how to eliminate their mistakes and their delusions. Eliminating one’s mistakes and delusions automatically destroys the causes of one’s suffering and hardships. This allows one to progressively reach the state of liberation and great wisdom. That is why the four noble truths and the two truths are the essence of the first teachings of the Buddha.” – Thrangu Rinpoche

The Solitary Buddhist Summary

So what does all of this BOIL (I'm from South Louisiana, we BOIL everything) down to?

1. Life sucks.
2. Life sucks because we want stuff, more stuff, it's never the right stuff.
3. Life doesn’t have to suck.
4. There’s a Path to free us from the suckiness of life.

Basically, pain is a factor of living.  You stub your toe, you slam your hand in a car door, you get old, sick, and you die.  We all do it.  The suffering bit, that’s optional.  You curse at the coffee table you stubbed your toe on.  You yell at the spouse who closed the car door too quickly.  You hate fate or God or life when you get old and sick.  We all fear death.  We don’t have to curse, get angry, hate, or fear.  All we have to do is stop wanting the coffee table to have magically been elsewhere, our spouse to have been a little more attentive, stop not wanting to age or get sick, and not to die.

First of all, what’s done is done.  We can still work for a better future, but there’s no use getting pissed about the past or stressing about the future.  Ask your spouse to be more careful when closing the car door, but don’t spread the suffering around in such a way that they get mad at you for being mad at them for what was clearly an accident.  And there’s no use getting upset about things we can’t change.  We’re all gonna die. Sure, we can work to be healthy, do everything right, and try to live a good long life (or get hit by a bus tomorrow).  But we can't avoid the fact we all go through some form of suffering and eventually die.

So you don’t want to suffer? Who does? The path for that (The Eightfold Path) is one of right view and thinking, right speech, action, and livelihood, and right diligence/effort, mindfulness, and concentration.  Basically, do good not only for your own sake, but for others as well, because we’re all in this together.  Doing good will make you feel good and helping others will make you feel your own problems less.  It works.  I’ve tried it.

Now, there’s one last conundrum. How do you stop suffering if wanting leads to suffering but you want to stop suffering and if you didn’t want to stop suffering you wouldn’t be trying to stop wanting?  Well, the Buddhists have a saying: You only need a boat to cross an ocean.  After you get to the other side, you leave the boat behind.  So that one kind of desire, the desire to end suffering, can be useful.  

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.

May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.