Our Busy Daily Lives

Integrating the Four Noble Truths into Our Busy Daily Lives

 A Brief History of Buddha

There lived a prince named Siddhartha, born to King Suddhodana, who ruled the kingdom of Kapilavasthu in the 6th century BC. As the prince grew up, he questioned his luxurious lifestyle within the royal palace. Despite his status and princely lifestyle, Siddhartha was not impressed by the materialistic culture of the royal family. During one of his excursions outside the palace, he encountered three significant experiences- a woman giving birth, a corpse on a deathbed, a disease-stricken person, and an old man using a walking stick. These encounters profoundly influenced the young prince’s mind. The prince discovered the reality of suffering outside the place, forcing him to go on a spiritual quest. 

The king noticed Siddhartha’s discontent with palace life and reluctance to assume responsibility for the royal legacy, which worried the king. This unusual behavior of the prince distressed King Suddhodana, who hoped to convince his son to embrace his future role. The king ordered all his ministers and royal attendants to organize a grand feast at the palace to encourage him. A day-long celebration ensued and was completed with a royal orchestra, dancers, musicians, and beautiful companions. However, despite his father’s efforts, Siddhartha remained uninfluenced by the material world’s pleasures and the transient beauty of the material world.

After the ceremonial festivities, in the middle of the night, while everyone was exhausted and asleep, Siddhartha decided to leave the palace. Accompanied by his charioteer, the prince sneaked through his private compartment and left the palace. Upon reaching the desired destination, he sent the charioteer back and continued his spiritual journey alone. This marked the beginning of the Buddha’s spiritual quest away from his home amidst wilderness. Siddhartha did not leave the palace and his family out of strong resentment toward his parents or the royal lifestyle; rather, he wanted to seek answers to profound questions about birth, old age, sickness, and death.

In his spiritual quest, Siddhartha consulted many don-Buddhist teachers from the Brahmanical tradition and other precursing schools, hoping to find the answers he sought. The prince traveled extensively, participating in traditional rituals and rites performed by esteemed sages of the Brahmanical culture and other non-Buddhist practitioners living in the locality then. However, after several years of self-denial and severe physical austerities, the questions remained unanswered, and his pursuit of the ultimate truth was unfulfilled. Ultimately, Siddhartha decided to forsake these extreme practices and began to explore different spiritual approaches.

He then journeyed to the banks of the Neranjana River, near present-day Bodhgaya, where he meditated for six consecutive years until he could break through the hardest shell of negative emotions and discover the inherent nature of himself. After this period of rigorous and strenuous meditation practice, he traveled to Bodhgaya and sat under the Bodhi tree in a meditation posture. On the night he began his meditation under the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha made a solemn promise not to rise from meditation until he gained insight into the true nature of the mind and all things. It is believed that throughout the night, Mara(evil spirits), the embodiment of temptation and distraction, attempted to interrupt Siddhartha’s meditation progress by attacking him with sharp spears and weapons. However, his deep sense of compassion and the power of strong meditative concentration transformed these intimidating weapons into a shower of flowers around him.

At dawn, Siddhartha gained profound insight penetrating the true nature of all things, and achieved enlightenment, becoming the historical Buddha Sakyamuni. He understood and saw the nature of his past, present, and future lives. Some historical accounts even suggest that the Buddha entered the 22nd dimension, after his enlightenment,  calling upon the earth and the heavens as witnesses to his enlightenment. According to Buddhist scripture, all future Buddhas must achieve this same realization under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, India. After attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya the Buddha remained silent in the grove for forty-nine days, contemplating whether anyone would comprehend the profound truths he had discovered through years of practice.

The Buddha expressed, “Profound and serene, unadorned by complexity, and pure luminosity. I have found a nectar-like Dharma. However, if I were to propagate it, no one would understand it. Therefore, I will choose to remain silent in the grove,” as recorded in the Lalitavistara Sutra. Eventually, as requested by the celestial King Indra and Brahma, the Buddha agreed to share the Dharma with others. He delivered his first sermon called, ‘The Four Noble Truths,’ in Sarnath, Varanasi, India. It is believed that the sound of a conch blown by these divine beings resonated throughout the universe as they requested the Buddha to preach the Dharma.

The Four Noble Truths

In general, all religions share a common goal of achieving happiness and avoiding suffering. However, the Buddhist approach differs in that Buddhists believe the origin of misery or dissatisfaction lies in the illusory nature of the mind. This confusing state of mind can only be dispelled through understanding its true nature, which is innately clear and untainted by negative emotions. The Buddha’s message is clear that one cannot overcome suffering without understanding the true nature of the mind through genuine Dharma practice.

Nirvana (Buddha-hood) and Samsara (cyclic existence) are not separate from the mind, they are rather states of our mind. The entire teachings of the Buddha are summarized in the idea of the Four Noble Truths. To attain liberation, we must understand these truths with the help of a qualified and experienced Dharma teacher. The nature of Samsara is suffering, and there is no place in it where people do not experience misery. We are continuously tormented by suffering from birth until death, though some degree of suffering often goes unnoticed. The Buddha highlighted various forms of suffering: giving birth is suffering, falling sick is suffering, growing old is suffering, dying is suffering, not being able to attain what we desire is suffering, and separating from loved ones is suffering.

The Buddha compared the truth of suffering to illness, emphasizing the importance of recognizing it. Having a clear idea or understanding of the illness you are experiencing is crucial. If you are unaware of any illness, you cannot seek to be free from it. Once the problem is diagnosed and you know you are unwell, you need to identify the cause of your sickness. Understanding this cause allows for the possibility of appropriate treatment and recovery. When you heal, you can live in peace and a healthy life. This is called ‘The Second Noble Truth,’ the truth of the origin of suffering.

If a sick person is to recover and live healthily, they should consult a reliable doctor and follow medical advice and treatment. This represents the third noble truth of the path to liberation. If an individual considers their lifestyle, such as the activities they engage in, the food they consume, and the medicine they take. Then they will likely find relief from ailments and any kind of diseases.  Practicing this combination of mindful living and a disciplined life is essential for achieving good health and well-being.

Similarly, when encountering life’s challenges and difficulties, it is vital first to identify the nature of the problem and its cause before attempting to resolve it. Identifying and addressing the problem is crucial; we cannot overlook the difficulties we face but we can find ways to deal with them effectively. We suffer because we fail to recognize the nature of suffering and its causes. A being continues to wander through cyclic existence due to karma and will continue to suffer unless we break this Karmic chain. In Buddhist scriptures, it is mentioned that cause and effect should be perfectly aligned with one another and if we embrace this principle and understand it well, we can ensure that our ethical conduct will become morally sound. Therefore, this is one of the reasons why the Buddha’s teachings during his first turning of the wheel of dharma, the four noble truths, are closely connected to moral conduct.

The suffering and displeasure we constantly undergo in this human world is not something that comes without a cause. It comes as a result of coming together of certain causes and conditions. According to Buddhist teachings, nothing comes into existence independently without depending on certain causes and conditions. Whatever exists, arises from causes and conditions, one is dependent on the other, and one supports the other. Both the mind and the physical world arise as a result of conditions and dissolve instantly when the causes and conditions are insufficient to exist. Once the causes and conditions are exhausted, things stop manifesting and we no longer experience the same thing this idea is called change from a Buddhist standpoint. Similarly, suffering is temporary and it fades away as it has no inherent or substantial nature, allowing the mind to experience pleasure.  Thus, the Buddha taught the theory of dependent origination or the fundamental Buddhist principle of the twelve links of dependent origination(Pratityasamupada).

Through understanding these realities we will gain insight into- what we truly are, what we experience around us, how and why we react to what is within and around us, and what we should aspire to live a peaceful life. As we grow older, it’s clear that our physical bodies become weaker, and we often fall ill. However, the Buddha, with his all-knowing mind, recognized that suffering goes beyond just the physical state. Human beings also go through mental suffering, where our minds endure more pain than our bodies do, often afflicted by adventitious negative emotions. The Buddha sought to help individuals understand this truth, so they could avoid falling from one unsatisfactory situation to another and instead comprehend the root causes of their suffering. 

The first teaching the Buddha shared after attaining the perfect state of enlightenment addressed the three root causes of suffering: anger, greed, and delusion. Because our minds remain clouded by negative emotions, we become trapped in a lower realm known as Samsara for countless eons and this will continue until we remove negative emotions and Karma. We often crave material possessions and feel anger or disappointment when we don’t get what we want or when our expectations are not met. These reactions stem from the delusional perception that happiness can be found in material things. We will never achieve lasting happiness as long as we remain bound by our attachments to external things or sensual pleasures of the external world. Thus, the vicious cycle of Samsara will continue. However, the Buddha’s teachings can only help us end suffering if we genuinely practice them and apply the methods he provided to work towards achieving liberation.

The Buddha’s third noble truth, “The End of Suffering,” outlines the method to overcome our attachment to material things and the cravings that bind us to this cyclic existence. He taught that it is essential to let go of our reliance on external possessions and to adopt skillful means to free ourselves from desires. By doing so, our minds can be liberated from bondage, enabling us to achieve enlightenment, a state free from all forms of suffering. In the noble language of Sanskrit, the term Nirvana means “extinction.” It represents a state that can be attained by permanently removing the three root causes of suffering: desire, anger, and delusion. According to Buddhist scriptures, when a person’s mind reaches Nirvana through diligent training and disintegrates from the physical body, it is liberated from the fetters of Samsara. This means the individual no longer needs to undergo cycles of existence or experience suffering. However, letting go of these negative attachments is not easy and it requires a lot of effort, which is why the Buddha identified a path to reach awakening, known as the fourth noble truth, ‘The Noble Truth of Path’.

The Buddha’s first sermon is known as ‘The Four Noble Truths’ because these truths can only be realized by noble beings, or Arhats, who have attained a certain level of spiritual understanding. Ordinary people, like us, do not have an opportunity to grasp these truths as our minds are clouded by mental afflictions, preventing us from penetrating this deeper realization. It’s similar to how we cannot feel a single hair on our palms, but when that hair gets into our eyes, we become instantly aware of it. In the same way, noble beings can realize these profound truths.

Conclusion

The Buddha did not mean that we should abandon our homes, children, spouses, or material possessions to isolate ourselves and practice Dharma at a temple. Instead, the Buddha encouraged us to change our perspective on these material things. It’s important not to become overly attached to temporary things. We should rather strive to understand and realize the true nature of things as they are, without getting distracted by their outward appearances. By doing this, life becomes easier and we can lead a happier and more peaceful existence.

Buddhism is rooted in compassion, wisdom, and ethical conduct, which sets Buddha’s teachings apart from those of other religions. A true Buddhist is someone who disciplines themselves ethically, trains their mind for positive growth, and asserts certain truths based on logic and intelligence. These three moral principles are the fundamental precepts in Buddhist teaching and are crucial in our daily lives. The Buddha identified three essential parts of training that uphold his entire teaching. Unlike many other religious beliefs, Buddhism encourages all living beings to make individual efforts to achieve liberation. Buddhism teaches that Buddha nature(a seed for becoming a Buddha) pervades every living being. All we need to do is recognize it through genuine practice to activate or awaken this Buddha nature and attain enlightenment. Without sincere practice and proper guidance, we will not be able to recognize our true nature or free ourselves from this suffering world. Therefore, the Buddha, known as the awakened one, taught us the best methods for eliminating suffering and its causes. To avoid suffering, the Buddha emphasized the importance of understanding its root causes and addressing them. To convey this, he introduced the first wheel of Dharma, known as the Four Noble Truths.

In our daily lives, when we feel stressed, burdened by our activities, disappointed, or incomplete, it’s important to analyze the situation before surrendering to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. There is a solution to every problem we encounter, and the stress we experience is temporary. These negative feelings often cloud our minds, but once we understand their origins and apply effective strategies to address them, we can free ourselves from various entanglements. The Buddha, who was once an ordinary human being like us, practiced for many years and ultimately discovered the true nature of reality. He unearthed a fundamental truth: nothing can deny the insights he gained. When we are liberated from our temporary mental afflictions, which obscure our true nature, our minds can break free from the grip of negative emotions. This liberation allows us to rise to a higher state of consciousness and can ultimately lead to enlightenment. The Buddha emphasized that what he discovered was neither a religion nor a philosophy, it was rather the result of his own direct experience. He encouraged others to make individual efforts toward achieving their liberation.

Nima Gyelpo