Sukhi.com
The teaching of The Four Noble Truths is common to all schools of Buddhism and it looks directly at the way things are.
From edited talks given by Venerable Sumedho Bhikku (Ajahn Sumedo)
THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH
The Second Noble Truth - that dukkha has an origin - is a closer look at suffering. The Second Noble Truth is the realisation that this suffering is an arising condition. This suffering is not an ultimate truth. It's a noble truth, which is different. We're not saying that everything is miserable, but that there is anguish connected with the world and with our limitations as human beings. When we examine dukkha in this way, we begin to look at our limitations and the things to which we are attached, and to which we bind ourselves.
One of the things we attach ourselves to is our body. The body is something that is born, grows up, gets old, and dies, following the law of nature. It's not a personal thing, but we consider it to be so. For example, if you say you don't like the way I look, I think, "He doesn't like my face. This face is what I am. This is me and he doesn't like it. That makes me angry." If I am identified with this body as me, then when people insult it, I get hurt. But if I realise the body's not mine, it doesn't matter what people say about my face. This is the way my face is at this time, it looks this way, it's not personal. It belongs to nature, it gets old and dies, following the law of nature. When we become less identified with our body, we create fewer problems around this condition. It's as it is.
If we see our own body in this way, we create fewer problems around how other people are as well. We tend to create problems with each other when we believe that this is me and that is you. If we don't agree on something, we get into a terrible fight. we become very attached to our ideas of each other and then feel disappointed when others don't conform to those ideas. How many times have we been through disillusioning relationships, expecting something from the other and then feeling totally let down? Waiting, wanting, and then feeling disappointed, because somehow there's nobody in the world who can make us completely happy and satisfied.
The Second Noble Truth encourages us not to focus on our ideas about things, but rather to notice their beginnings. We don't generally look at the beginning of things. We look at something, and we either like it and follow it or dislike it and reject it. But to experience a beginning as something observable, one has to be awake and mindful. We look at suffering as something that has a beginning. Then we begin to look at it in a different way.
The Second Noble Truth reflects on beginning by looking at the three kinds of desire: kamma tanha, bhava tanha, vibhava tanha, as they are called in Pali. Kamma tanha is desire for sensual pleasure, delights of the senses, bhava tanha is the desire to become something, and vibhava tanha is the desire to get rid of something.
We can all see all three kinds of desire in our everyday life. If you are bored, you seek something to eat, or you watch television, drink something, or find somebody to talk to. These are all the desire for pleasure through the senses. But after a while you become bored with sensory pleasure, so maybe you dedicate your life to becoming a famous writer, or a good cook, or an enlightened being. These are all the desire to become. When you're tired of sensory pleasures and becoming someone, you want to just annihilate yourself. Sleeping a lot is a kind of indulgence in vibhava tanha, the desire to get rid of, the desire for oblivion. But as soon as you wake up, you have to start becoming something again, so you go eat something, smoke something, drink something, watch something, read something, think about something, until you get so worn out with it all that you go and annihilate yourself again! If you have an obsession, or fear, or anger, you have the desire to get rid of it, don't you? "I have a bad temper. I want to get rid of it." Whenever you feel anger, jealousy, fear and so forth arising in you, you try to annihilate them. That's also vibhave tanha: the desire to get rid of some mental condition that you don't like.
These three kinds of desire are beginning conditions for suffering. The Second Noble Truth tells us that attachment to desire is the origin of dukkha. When we are awake and mindful and we see the beginning of suffering, there we will see our attachment to desire.
But all these three kinds of desire have a beginning. They arise, and consequently, are not permanent eternal qualities of mind; they are not ultimate reality.
PRACTICE..
Those who deal with the world of ideas might ask, "Do you believe in God or don't you believe in God?" If you say, "I don't believe in God," they misunderstand and think you're an atheist. If you say, "I believe in God," then they think you're not really a Buddhist. The misunderstanding arises from their focusing on ideas and beliefs, instead of trying to know through direct experience. What you can know without belief is that whatever arises passes away and is not self. This is an insight you can know directly, and this is what the Buddha was pointing at.
What is it that Buddhas know that unenlightened beings don't know? They know that whatever arises passes away and is not self. That's Buddha wisdom. It sounds simple but it is everything, because everything that we can know ; perceive, conceive, and experience through the senses, everything we identify with as ourselves, as our ego, as me and mine, has this pattern of change. It begins and ends and is not self.
What then is your self? If I'm not the body or the mind, then what am I? The Buddha left it up to you to find out what you are, because he knew how it would affect you if someone told you. To know directly, that knowing has to come from direct experience, through mindfulness, and through wisdom. This is the way of the Buddhas.
Continue the practice of anapanasasi..