Four Noble Truths
3November 26, 2010 by styagi68
August 3, 2013: I have written another post on Satipatthana Suta which talks about the Four Noble Truths as part of the sermon on attaining enlightenment.]
Recently read a book by Dalai Lama called “Cultivating a Daily Meditation.” It is about 25 years old and presents a detailed discussion that a group of followers had with him at that time over three days.
A few interesting things that I learnt:
1. Buddhists do not believe in a “creator.”
2. They do believe in rebirth
3. Though they do not believe in a separate Self –“atma”–in the Hindu tradition
In the first sermon after enlightenment, Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths. (these are well structured, and inherently appealing to a former consultant who was taught the “Pyramid Principle”).
1. There is suffering in the world
2. Suffering has a cause (the samsara which has cause and effect and resultant rebirth cycle)
3. Suffering can be stopped
4. Path to stopping the suffering is defined (understand the real nature of things which is emptiness (wisdom) and work with altruistic motivations for the liberation of all sentient beings from suffering (form))
If only we add the objective statement–“All sentient beings seek happiness and avoid suffering” we have a complete logical statement of religious, moral structure.
I do not agree with the rebirth argument. It does not seem to stand to reason. How is the population of human beings increasing? What happens to us between one birth and next? How does consciousness carry memory from one life to another (since there is no matter transfer) ?
There is quite detailed argument on the nature of consciousness. And the nature of things. Actually self-grasping (believing that self is separate) and object-grasping (non understanding that no object is permanent) causes all the suffering. It seems to be leading to the argument that it is all an illusion.
I will be editing this space over next few weeks. Welcome comments and discussion.
Analytical Faith 
What an excelent precis of Buddhist philosophy, though I have to disagree with a couple of your points.
Rebirth explains a lot of questions. How child prodigies such as Mozart have so much skill at such an early age, how people can be regressed into previous lives etc. As we are all basically a quantity of energy, in one form or another, that energy cannot be either created or destroyed, but simply changes form. There is no need for matter to be transferred for memory to persist. Does you radio or your tv ‘remember’ what program has been transmitted to it? Obviously not, the signal (pure energy) from the transmitter carries all the information needed to reproduce the images and or sounds at the other end. This also explains why there is an increasing population, energy can exist in many forms, so in the last life you may have been an animal or a tree, they are just another form of the same energy.
All life is suffering sounds terrible, but it’s closer to the truth than we often care to accept. Your team wins, you’re happy, your team loses, your unhappy, but it’s more to do with the Ten Worlds and which World you are in at any one time. Accepting that your mood (or World) is in your own hands makes a huge difference. Once you understand that you can choose to be happy or sad, you have it cracked.
Life is not an illusion, it’s the usual perception of it that is the illusion. Life and Death are a cycle, Death being the time for rest (a little like sleep) that we take between physical lives. Knowing that our Earthly demise is not the end makes everything we do in this life important, because Karma, the causes we make now, for effects in the future, stays with us for eternity.
I love the simplicity of your blog, clear, concise and to the point. I look forward to your future posts.
Namaste,
Anupadin
Dear Anupadin,
Nameste!
Thank you for reading my post and sharing your thoughts. Cconventionally, I accept your argument that information can be transmitted without matter (TV signal). However, information can’t be STORED without matter. Energy itself has no state hence no information can be stored. The state comes from altered state of matter. So we run into an issue of Also it appears that consciousness will be something then matter and energy. Energy is not “sentient”. So whatever makes us sentient has to be different from matter and energy. In the book, Dalai Lama states that there is no consciousness apart from the form aggregate. But it probably is something different from a dead body. So the dead and alive are same in form but different in consciousness.
A very sound argument. Energy isn’t sentient and information can’t be stored without matter, at our current point of development.
I would rather assume that there is much more to learn about energy, the Universe, everything. Let’s not constrict our thoughts to what we know, rather expand our thoughts and expect science and Buddhism converge still further in the future.
Bearing in mind that this whole topic is largely hypothetical, let’s wonder at the known Universe (in all it’s aspects) and look forward to the next amazing discovery. As a rather simplistic example, just look at the advances in personal computers. Years ago disk drives were the size of a brick and could store 10Mb if you were lucky. Now I can hold a solid state drive, storing 10Gb in the palm of my hand. The difference between the two devices is simply our ability to use less energy (in the form of matter) to store the same data. So where will it end? I don’t know. nobody does, but it wil be science that takes us along that timeline.
Namaste,
Anupadin