The Four Noble Truths Programme one - Stephen Batchelor We live in an unstable world.

By the time I reach the end of this sentence, the Milky Way will have travelled one hundred and twenty miles closer to the centre of its galaxy cluster, the Earth twenty miles in its orbit around the sun, while your brain will have generated millions of firing patterns. We inhabit the universe of relentless motion and flux, in which everything from an idle thought to a solar system comes into being, then hastens to its end. While this way of seeing things might induce a sense of religious awe, it can also send a chill of terror through one. ne is unsettled by the sheer groundlessness and vastness of nature!s unfolding. What can I depend on here" What can I trust" #his way of looking at human existence illustrates what Buddhists call !#he $uffering of %hange!. #he instability and contingency of things provoke a brooding dis&uiet that hovers in the background of our lives. We know that our presence on this Earth is not as secure as we would like it to be, but we tend to ignore this fact and lose ourselves in the more pressing issues at hand. 'aradoxically, though, to confront such inescapable truths may turn out to enrich our existence, rather than undermine it. I did not choose to be here, but now I cannot accept the thought of not being here. (owever certain I feel about the necessity of my existence, the only certainty I face is that this seemingly necessary being will perish, this heart will cease pumping blood, these lungs will cease drawing air, these neurons will cease firing in my brain, my body will rot or be consumed by fire, and within a matter of years, I will linger on only as a memory in the fading minds of those who once knew me. #his is a place where things happen that we don!t want to happen. %ars skid on ice and swerve off roads into trees, instead of reaching their destination. )our rival wins the hand of the person you love. *loods and earth&uakes destroy in moments what years of labour have created. +t times, I feel hemmed in, inwardly sub,ected to the vaguaries of a fragile body and fickle mind, outwardly overwhelmed by the demands of a suffering world. + contradictoriness penetrates to the very core of what I feel to be my true and independent self. !I yearn to be free of pain,! wrote the -th %entury Indian Buddhist monk, $hanti .ayvah, but rush straight into it. !I long for happiness, but trample on it.! #his observation is dis&uieting. $hanti .ayvah is not talking about an occasional moral lapse that could be corrected by fear of punishment or a timely boost of righteousness. (e is pointing to a conflict that seems knit into the very fabric of our existence. +ccording to legend, $iddartha /autama, the prince who was to become Buddha, was raised in palaces, where his attention was constantly diverted from the contingency, transience and unreliability of his existence. #hen one day, he made the mistake of asking his father to let him see the world outside the palace walls. .espite the 0ing!s efforts to ensure that no distressing sights would spoil the young man!s en,oyment, $iddartha chanced upon a person crippled with age, another ridden with disease, and a corpse. *or the first time, he was struck by the impermanent, finite and tragic nature of human life. (e realised that once born on this Earth, one will inevitably age, fall ill, suffer accidents and die.

+ privileged upbringing in a prosperous, 12st %entury society bears striking parallels to that of 'rince $iddartha in 3orth India five hundred years Before %hrist. ur attention, too, is constantly diverted, this time by a bombardment of information that keeps the desires and fears that hold us captive in a constant state of agitation. We each aspire to a virtual palace that promises the fulfilment of our longings and the elimination of our pain. $ickness, ageing and death are likewise concealed from us, where they!re hidden away inside hospitals, homes and morgues, or obscured by cosmetic surgery or an undertaker!s art. Ill, decrepit and dead bodies are kept out of sight. While we might ruefully reflect from time to time on this web of deceptions that surrounds us, it is rarely enough to prompt a radical change in how we live, but this is the effect it had on $iddartha /autama. #he contradiction between his pursuit of pleasure and power and his awareness of the contingency, transience and anguish of life became intolerable for the young man. #hese uncensored glimpses of existence startled and perplexed him. 4ather than regarding his life as a compilation of more or less interesting facts, it became a pressing &uestion for him. 3o longer could he rely on his commonsense convictions to ,ustify his existence on this earth. *or the certainty of being $iddartha /autama, son of 0ing $hudu .anah and heir to the throne, was a hopelessly inade&uate answer to the &uestion posed by the sheer fact of being born and having to die. #o stay with this &uestion, rather than getting diverted again by the more manageable problems of daily existence is almost impossibly demanding. + 5en Buddhist meditation manual asks that one pose this &uestion through the pores of one!s skin and with the marrow of one!s bones. $iddarta!s perplexity was not a philosophical or religious curiosity. It gripped him in such a way that nothing else seemed to matter until he had resolved it. When he returned to his palaces, he felt, in the words of his $anskrit biographer, +shfa /osha, !like a lion pierced deeply in the heart by an arrow.! 6ate one night, when his courtiers and courtesans were asleep, he slipped away into the surrounding forest, discarded his royal garb and assumed the life of a wandering ascetic. $ix years later, after much effort and disappointment, in what seems like a final act of desperation, he vowed to sit beneath a tree and not stand up again until he had resolved his dilemma. $even days later, he experienced an awakening, often translated as !enlightenment!, that at last provided an ade&uate response to the &uestion posed by the riddle of birth, sickness, ageing and death. (e thus came to be known as !Buddha!, which simply means !+wakened ne!. *or the next forty years, he taught his followers how to reach awakening through cultivating a middle way of ethical integrity, meditative stillness and penetrating in&uiry. #his awakening was not, however, a shattering, mystical revelation of the #ruth with a capital !#!. When asked what he had understood, /autama would characteristically reply7 8$uffering and the cessation of suffering.8 (is awakening entailed coming to terms with the complex of four inter9related #ruths7 suffering, its origins, its cessation and the path that leads to that cessation. 8It was not until I grasped these four #ruths,8 declared /autama, that I could consider myself fully awake. #hese #ruths revealed to him both the nature of the human dilemma, as well as the possibility of its resolution. +s a response to the &uestions raised by the contingency, transience and painfulness of life, his awakening illuminated the nature of suffering as vividly as it did the way to resolve it. #he path that brings such anguish to an end, he discovered, starts by ga:ing unflinchingly into the heart of suffering itself. 4ather than a set of propositions in which to believe, Buddha presented these four truths

as in,unctions upon which to act. Each truth demands its own corresponding response. *or example, suffering, the first #ruth, demands to be fully known. 4ather than spending our lives trying to avoid and ignore the underlying instability and unease of our condition, Buddha suggests instead that one calmly focus attention on this aspect of existence in a sustained and reflective manner. In this way, we begin to shift attention away from an obsession with self and contemplate instead the fluctuating matrix of contingencies from which this play of me and mine continuously emerges and vanishes. %ommonsense suggests that meditating on the transience of life would only make one morbid and depressed. In contrast, Buddha compared sickness, ageing and death to divine messengers that open our eyes to truths that can liberate us from anguish. ur lives become flat and depressed, he maintained, because we refuse to heed their message and remain stubbornly committed to sustaining the fiction of being permanent and necessary. By accepting our mortality and contingency, though, we may find ourselves infused by the sheer exuberant astonishment of being alive now in this moment. ;nderstanding and embracing our condition in this way is the first step towards releasing the attachment we have to being a fixed, unchanging ego. #his process of coming to terms with existential unease is comparable to following a course of medical treatment. Buddha referred to himself as a healer and his teachings as a course of treatment. What he taught was intended to be theraputic, rather than consoling. (e wanted people to apply his teachings in a way that made a difference to their lives. #he path he described offered no miracles. It was up to each person to work out their own salvation with diligence. #o illustrate his approach, Buddha told the story of a man who is seriously wounded by an arrow, but says to his friends7 8I will not let the surgeon pull out the arrow until I know the name and clan of the man who shot it, whether his bow was a longbow or a crossbow, whether the arrow was hoof9tipped, curved or barbed.8 #his absurdly inappropriate demand is, however, no different from someone else saying7 8I will not follow the path until Buddha declares to me whether the world is finite or infinite, whether the soul is the same as, or different from, the body, whether an awaked one continues or ceases to exist after death.8 #he pursuit of such metaphysical &uestions is ,ust a high9minded distraction from the more pressing issue of confronting the dilemma of one!s existence here and now. It really doesn!t matter who shot the arrow or how it got there. #he crucial thing is to recognise that it is there. We might then realise that a great deal of our suffering stems from a tight, existential grip, embedded like an arrow in the core of ourselves. #his grip is so intimately familiar, that for most of the time, we fail to notice it. It holds us in a kind of spasm that solidifies our experience in such a way that everything, including ourself appears inert, opa&ue and lifeless. nly after a close shave in a car accident or when a friend is diagnosed with a terminal disease, do we feel its cold, implacable constriction. #he task, however, is to find a way to release this grip, thereby removing the arrow, and that for Buddhists is called !3irvana!. $tephen Batchelor, #he #ruth of $uffering

The Four Noble Truths Programme two- Robert Thurman #he Buddha!s two foremost disciples were $hari 'utra and Modi +liaiana. #hey started out their search for an enlightened teacher long before they met the Buddha. ne day, they met an old monk whose name was +shva <id, who had been one of the Buddha!s first disciples. (e had a kind of light about him, he looked good, and so they asked him7 8Well who is your teacher and what does he teach"8 (e told them he was a simple mendicant and that he couldn!t really say much and they should go and meet the $akyamuni Buddha themselves and ask him, but they insisted that at least he must be able to give them some epitome of the Buddha!s teaching, so finally he did, and what he said was7 =$peaks in $anskrit>. I repeat this in $anskrit ,ust for good luck over the airway, because over millennia, this has become a mantra of the Buddha teaching. )ou find it painted on the back of #ibetan thangas. )ou find it embedded on scrolls inside Buddhist stupas all throughout +sia, and what it actually says is very, very surprising. #he translation is !+bout all things that arise from cause, the enlightened 6ord declared what those causes are, and also how they reach cessation. $uch is the teaching of the /reat #ranscendor.! 3ow, this in a way, expresses the essence of the Buddha!s teaching, his discovery of causation. #he second of his noble truths, which is our task today to discuss, is the noble truth of causation. #he Buddha, therefore, is celebrated in a root mantra of his tradition, not as a religious saviour, not as a deity, but as the planet!s first discoverer of causation, a century or so before (ippocrates and many of the /reek philosophers and scientists. Why is discovery of causation a momentous thing" Because before that, people tended to feel that their fate was controlled by a deity. (uman beings felt helpless. #hey had to go to the priest and have the deity placated by some ritual. In a sense, they felt helpless before unknown powers. nce they discovered causation, which happened Eurasia9 wide, not only in /reece, as westerners tend to think, they began to assert a certain amount of control over their lives. #hey began to try to analyse things in terms of how they happened, and this enabled them then to interfere with those processes of causation and to create a better outcome for themselves. 3ow, when the Buddha gave his teaching, he started out with the framework of what are called !#he *our 3oble #ruths!, although these could also be translated as !#he *our 3oble *acts!. #he first of them, which you!ve already heard about, is a recognition of the human predicament, the Buddha!s statement that the unenlightened life is suffering. #he second of them is a diagnosis of that unenlightened human condition, why we have suffering and what is the reason for it. #he third of them is the prognosis of our human potential, how we can become, what we can become if we do free ourselves from suffering. +nd the fourth of them is the therapy or methodology, enabling human beings to realise his or her potential. 'eople have often thought that Buddhism is a very depressing religion or teaching, because they hear the first 3oble #ruth as being that all life is suffering, but the Buddha didn!t really say that all life is suffering. (e said that the unenlightened life is suffering. +s the .ali 6lama says7 8#o tell people that all life is suffering when they are simply doomed to suffer, would be like going !3yah, nyah,! to those beings, like someone who

is in prison and has no way to get out and you ,ust go and wave, wave at them and say7 !(a, ha, you!ll never get out.8 What the Buddha actually said was that the unenlightened life is suffering, and therefore implying and directly stating that the enlightened life is bliss, happiness, 3irvana. #he most important of the *our 3oble #ruths, of course, is the #hird 3oble #ruth, the Buddha!s discovery that there is such a thing as complete freedom from suffering, a very unusual thing for people to claim on this Earth. Most teachings, either religious or scientific, tell people that they are doomed to a certain type of suffering. 'erhaps they can have pie in the sky after death, in (eaven, if they believe in such and such a saviour, but mainly it is suffering until they are extinguished, let!s say, in death, whereas the Buddha claimed that it is possible for living beings and especially in, from their human embodiment, to become completely understanding of their own reality, and through that understanding to become completely free of suffering. +long with the misunderstanding that the Buddha was a pessimist and a depressed person who said that everything is suffering, goes the idea that therefore, Buddhism could only have been popular in +sia, where people were depressed because +sia was underdeveloped or something, whereas the truth of the matter was that in the Buddha!s time, India was by far more wealthy than /reece or any other part of Europe, and that for a millennium or so, it was in fact more wealthy than the West, and therefore Indian people were more ,olly, less depressed actually, and therefore more open to a teaching of happiness, actually. Buddhism is the art of happiness and the concept of Buddhism as the art of happiness is not ,ust some sort of contemporary Buddhist pap. $o now with that misunderstanding out of the way, let!s look at the way in which we do become free of suffering, which is namely by understanding the cause of suffering, the $econd 3oble #ruth, and getting rid of it. #he $econd 3oble #ruth might be thought, therefore, as something very complicated, but really it is very simple. It is the truth of ignorance, really. What the Buddha discovered was that the reason that beings suffer is that they do not know their own real condition. #hey think that reality is one way, when actually, it is another, and the key element of that distorted understanding and perception of reality is that each of us perceives ourselves to be the centre of our reality. Each of us thinks that we are some sort of fixed, independent, real entity. When we hear .escartes say7 8+h ha, the one thing I can be sure of, is I think, therefore I am,8 and that, that effect that !I am! is the one indubitable thing in the universe. #he Buddha said that is a perfect expression of ignorance, of misknowledge, as he would put it, a wrong knowing of the nature of the world. #hat wrong knowing of the nature of the world puts us in an impossible situation. What is the impossible situation" Well, if I!m the one really true thing and I!m the most real thing in the world, that makes me the most important thing in the world to me. It will be universally recognised that not a single other person in the world will agree with me on that point, that they believe they are the most important things in the world. #he world itself is a giant bunch of rocks and dust, the material world anyway, and it doesn!t pay that much attention to me as some sort of embodiment, and time doesn!t pay much attention to me as a temporary, ephemeral embodiment or mind and body complex, and therefore the world in a way is against the reality that I perceive to be what is most important, so therefore I am in conflict with the world all the time, from my basic perception of things, and being in conflict with the world, which includes other beings,

which includes inanimate things, I am going to lose that conflict always. If you think you!re the greatest, the most important, the most real and the world disagrees, you are going to lose that argument with the world, you will die, you will get sick, you will not prevail, people will not like you, people will not do what you want, and you will be forced to do what they want and so on, and therefore you will suffer? and so that!s really very simple, and in fact, if it was true, the way we habitually perceive ourselves that we are the most important things, we are the real things here in the world, that other things are less real than us, then we would be doomed to eternal suffering, in fact. It would be logical that we would con,ure up an image of some being who is more important than the world, as many of the world!s religions do, and somehow feel that that being will take care of us. It sort of fits with our feeling of ourselves being more important, then we kind of can collapse that into this imaginary being that is more important, and by being saved by that being, then we are somehow going to be 0 some other time, but Buddha did not settle for such a solution, because he didn!t consider it realistic. Instead, he investigated the nature of himself, he investigated whether it really was true that he could not doubt about his own real existence, and what he discovered was that he very much could doubt how real was his existence. (e could look for himself as being there in that independent, self9sufficient way that he habitually was feeling, as we habitually feel, and when he did so with great concentration, with great investigation, with scientific exploration, thought experiments and so on, that sense of self that he held, dissolved and disappeared, and he was liberated from that sense of separated self. nce liberated from that sense of separated self, did not mean that he became non9 existent, simply, that he, sort of he and the world were obliterated in some sort of happy annihilation. 3ot at all. But it meant that he now began to perceive himself as part of the world, as one sort of relational element in the world, not more important than the world, not in conflict with the world, sometimes perhaps under some stress, but capable of harmony with the world, harmony with other beings, harmony with the inanimate elements in the world. #hat discovery, apparently, I know it sounds a little incredible, but that discovery of something not ,ust simple oneness and not ,ust simple difference, but a kind of complex, relative difference within ultimate oneness, that discovery gave him the supreme bliss, the total cessation of suffering, and that!s why that wonderful smile is on the face of the Buddha as we see in all of his representations in art and in history and in legend. #he happy Buddha comes from that realisation, the overcoming of the state of stress and conflict, of being in competition, let!s say, with the universe. $o that, therefore, really is the truth of causation, that once we perceive ourselves as a separate, real being and that we come into disagreement with the universe, when we are in disagreement with the universe, we fight with the universe. When we fight with the universe, we lose. #he only way we can get out of that is not ,ust by believing that we are one with the world or something, or going against our habitual perception of ourselves as separate from the world, but it is by investigating our habitual perception, analysing it, and experiencing its falsity, which we can empirically do. #he Buddha assured us that over the centuries, many millions of Buddhists also tried this methodology and also assured us that it worked to some degree or another, and thereby achieved some degree or another of freedom from suffering.

3ow, the last thing I want to say is that the fact that this is called !#he 3oble #ruth of %ausation, the 3oble #ruth of $uffering,! et cetera, means that the Buddha in telling us this is aware that this is not true for people who are not yet noble. In his meaning of the world !noble!. #hat is to say, for people who are ordinary, that is to say ordinary, egocentric persons, it isn!t true that I am only a relative entity in the world and not an absolute independent, self9sufficient, self9centred being. #o me, that!s not true. It!s also not true that everything about my life is suffering, even though I!m unenlightened. When I have some relief from some immediate pain, when I have some pleasure, I feel that I am happy, so that!s why he called it !3oble #ruth!. nce I realise, though, the higher happiness of being truly relational with the universe, of realising other beings as in some way inseparable from myself, of liberating thereby my true feeling of compassion and love for those beings, and a feeling of friendliness from those beings, because no longer feeling so threatened by them, then I become really happy in a new way, in an inner dependent, an inner directed way, not into some, depending on some temporarily pleasant stimulants? and at that time, I perceive my old way of being as, even when I was having temporary pleasure, I perceived that as being unhappy, actually, and I realised that is was a suffering.. #hey say that for the ordinary person, the state of suffering is like when you have a grain of sand on the palm of your hand. )ou don!t really know that it!s suffering, because it doesn!t really bother you on the palm of your hand, but they say that when you become a noble person and you have a higher sensitivity and sense of reality to the world, what was formerly pleasure is like a grain of sand in your eye, your sensitivity is so much greater, it bothers you so much more, and that!s when you become aware of the truth of that 3oble #ruth.

The Four Noble Truths Programme three - Christina Feldman #he essence of Buddha!s teaching can be described in this simple statement7 8I teach ,ust one thing. #here is suffering and there is an end to suffering.8 #he cessation of suffering is the #hird 3oble #ruth and lies at the heart of all Buddhist practice and teaching. #he #hird 3oble #ruth is inextricably linked to the first two 3oble #ruths. #here is unsatisfactorineness in life and there is a cause of suffering. +ll the varieties and dimensions of pain and unsatisfactoriness we can experience in this life, are not independently arisen, but can with wisdom and clarity be traced back to the roots of ignorance and craving. When the cause of suffering is penetrated and dissolved with wisdom, we can discover a way of being in this world and in ourselves, in which suffering ends. More than twenty five hundred years ago, the young 'rince $iddartha sat down beneath a Bodi #ree in India, with the resolve to remain unmoving until he understood the nature of genuine freedom. #hroughout the night, he was besieged by the forces of Maura or illusion, in the guises of lust, anger, fear, craving and doubt. #he 'rince remained still and unshakeable. *acing Maura without flinching, able to say simply7 8I

know you.8 +s the night went on, $iddartha!s meditation deepened and he began to understand the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering, freedom from suffering and the path to the end of suffering. When he rose in the morning from his night of meditation, he said7 8My liberation is unshakeable. I have done what needs to be done.8 #hroughout his life, the Buddha described his enlightenment as the understanding of the deathless, as unconditioned, timeless, the highest peace and happiness, the end of all suffering and as 3irvana. #he volumes of words written about 3irvana are only signposts, directing us to deeply understand the nature of ourselves and our life. + wakening for each of us is a profoundly intuitive path that asks us to dive deeply into our own hearts and minds to see for ourselves where suffering is, how it!s caused and to see its end experientially. 3o one can substitute for us on this ,ourney. +ll the knowledge or opinions we can gather about awakening will not bring suffering to an end. In discovering for ourselves the profound freedom of heart and mind, through letting go of the causes of suffering, we!re liberated and our understanding is unshakeable. $iddartha!s experience beneath the Bodi #ree was not the first of his awakenings. In his life as a prince, sheltered from the storms of life in his palace, he!d come to understand that none of his wealth, possessions, or the spectrum of pleasure and distraction that filled his life, could protect him from the realities of change, ageing, sickness and death. It was this first profound realisation that motivated him to enter a homeless life. (e understood that genuine liberation, peace and wisdom lay within in his own heart and not, as he!d previously believed, within the multiplicity of events and things he could gain or possess. #he #hird 3oble #ruth is the teaching that!s continued to inspire the spiritual ,ourneys of countless people over the centuries. +s human beings, we long to be free, to find the end of pain and discover an abiding peace and balance. #he #hird 3oble #ruth affirms that this is a genuine possibility for all of us. #he Buddha taught that the causes of sorrow and the causes of ,oy lie within our own hearts. $uffering, the Buddha taught, is not a life sentence or a terminal condition. Its continuation relies upon the continuation of ignorance and craving. Its end comes with the cessation of ignorance and craving. ;nderlying all the debates and arguments about the nature of liberation, there are several key elements of agreement. #he Buddha stressed repeatedly that freedom is not reserved for a fortunate minority of people, who have the appropriate portfolio of spiritual achievement. 6iberation, he emphasises, is available for anyone willing to commit themselves wholeheartedly to cultivating goodness of heart and depth of understanding. We can all learn to let go in this life. We can all cultivate the honesty, integrity and dedication that makes us more enlightenment9prone, rather than prone to confusion and suffering. We can learn to be awake in our lives, present and curious, to the moment9to9moment arising and passing of suffering. #oo often, we!re so involved in trying to escape from pain, struggle and anguish, that it doesn!t occur to us that it might be a good idea to stop running. ur willingness to be present with curiosity, commitment and calmness in all the moments of our life, is the first step on the path of liberation and understanding of

cessation of suffering. Integral to the Buddhist teaching of freedom is the emphasis upon immediacy. Enlightenment is not some distant goal, its realisation to be postponed until we have the ideal life and accomplishments. #ime is not intrinsically a factor in awakening. In teaching the path of awareness, the Buddha instructed that this is a direct path to the surmounting of lamentation and sorrow, to the disappearance of pain and grief, for the realisation of 3irvana. +nother key element in the discovery of liberation is the enduring encouragement of the Buddha to turn towards our life, to discover the freedom we seek for. It!s not a teaching of transcendence, that demands that we divorce ourselves from the world. 3or is liberation described as some separate dimension. In everything he taught, the Buddha invited us to embrace our bodies, hearts and minds with mindfulness and investigation. It is here we discover unshakeable liberation, the liberation of our hearts through loving kindness, the liberation of our minds through wisdom. %ontemplating the nature of our bodies, minds and hearts, we contemplate the nature of all life. Within our life, we see the truths of change, of suffering, its cause, and the absence of any enduring sense of self. #he implications of this understanding are profound. Within the unalterable waves of change, we can never find any enduring refuge or freedom. Much of the suffering in our life is optional, born of grasping, clinging and the demands that life conforms to our desires. $eeing the absence of any enduring centre of self is an understanding that has the power to liberate us from fear, from self9protection, and to see the transparency of all the painful divisions that live between self and other. 3irvana is the cessation of clinging, craving and ignorance. It doesn!t e&uate with annihilation. 6iberation!s not a device to make life go away, nor will it guarantee that we will then have a continuum of only pleasant sensations experienced as thoughts and feelings. #he Buddha!s enlightenment, it didn!t exempt him from an ageing body, illness and death. It did allow him to meet all of life!s adversity, challenge and unpredictability with e&uanimity, compassion and balance. It is the cessation of clinging, demand and attachment, born of understanding, that allows us to embrace all the moments of our life with poise, fearlessness and care. Enlightenment is not the same. It!s not caring. It!s not clingy. #here are moments in all of our lives when we catch a glimpse, no matter how fleeting, of the deep freedom that is the nature of letting go. We emerge from bouts of obsession or anxiety, letting go of the thoughts and fears that have gripped us, and we feel ourselves emerging into a sense of freedom. We open a clenched fist, breathe out after moments of holding our breath, feel able to relin&uish some demand or goal that has consumed us. In all of these moments we have a taste of freedom. +t times, the Buddha described enlightenment as !awakening from a dream!. It!s a dream born of ignorance. Ignorance in Buddhist teaching is not a personal insult or intended to imply an absence of knowledge. It!s the ignorance of not understanding the way things actually are. #hrough contemplating our life on a moment9to9moment level, we are learning to penetrate the veils of ignorance that can create so much unnecessary sorrow. #he Buddha defined ignorance in a number of ways7 mistaking pleasure for genuine

happiness. We can spend our lives prowling the world in pursuit of a succession of pleasant sensations, events and experiences. We can be e&ually intent on avoiding the unpleasant. We can feel so gratified and bolstered by the pleasant and e&ually threatened by and fearful of the unpleasant. It!s the birthplace of craving and aversion. 3o matter how successful we are in avoiding the unpleasant and attaining the pleasant, somehow the &uest for enduring happiness remains unsatisfied. %raving is an un&uenchable thirst and one of the building blocks of pain. We try to hold onto and maintain what we cherish, want and depend upon, yet we see that none of our clinging prevents the crumbling of everything that arises. It really only takes a few moments of contemplation for us to see experientially that everything that arises in this life will also pass. *or every birth, there is a death. Impermanence is a simple but profound truth from which nothing in this world, including ourselves, is exempt. Ignorance is a denial of this reality. We seek the unchanging within the changing, the eternal within the ephemeral, the constant within the fluid, and so we struggle and suffer. We think that we suffer because of change. In truth, we suffer because of our refusal to embrace the truth of change. .emanding that life stands still for us, trying to grasp the ungraspable and demanding immortality within the mortal, is a recipe for endless, unnecessary pain. #he implications of deeply embracing the reality of change are that we learn to let go more freely and fully in this life. It!s an act of compassion for ourselves. We are letting go of ignorance and suffering. We can go through life living within a constructed illusion of being an independent, unchanging self, living within a world of e&ually independent selves, separate and apart from us. We can feel so confined and limited by the solution, yet it!s also one we fiercely protect. +s we contemplate our sense of self, we see that it!s constructed essentially of everything we grasp hold of. If we were invited to write a short autobiography, each sentence beginning with the words7 8I am,8 what we most dearly grasp hold of would be revealed to us. We identify with our bodies, our emotions, our perceptions, states of mind, our opinions, our gender and race. $ome of this identification has a long history, some of it borne on a moment9to9moment level. We see that each moment we grasp hold of a thought, a feeling and a body sensation, our personal story of the moment is born, and with it born, the limitation of confinement of that story. +s we explore this sense of self more closely, we also see that it changes according to the grasping of the moment. ur sense of self in the midst of sadness may be so radically different than how we would describe ourselves in the midst of exhilaration. With mindfulness and e&uanimity, the tendency to grasp hold of anything at all within the changing world of experience is released. $o, too, is the suffering born of grasping. #he cessation of ignorance is a cessation of suffering, separation and struggle. It!s the liberation of the heart and mind, the highest happiness and peace, the unshakeable refuge and the birthplace of compassion.

The Four Noble Truths Programme four - Ajahn Sucitto What if by contemplating your own thoughts, actions and feelings and by noticing their causes and effects, you can establish ease and confidence in life. What if, without belief, supposition or ideology, you could find out how you get stressed and frustrated and put an end to all that" +t any rate, since you!re living your life, you might as well pay attention to it, so why not fully awaken to what!s happening in and around you" In exploring these possibilities, millions of people throughout the world use the teachings of the Buddha. $ome shy away from calling themselves !Buddhists!, feeling that such a label might compromise the authenticity of their in&uiry. *rom a Buddhist point of view, there!s no problem with this. #he main point is to listen to the Buddhist teachings, mull them over, put them into practice and feel out the results. #he teachings, called !a dharma! are likened to medicine, and everyone who practises dharma can choose the medicine that they need in accordance with the nature of the problem that needs curing. But the general theme that covers all duma teachings is their aspects of the four noble truths, dukkha or suffering, its ceasing, and the path which leads to the end of suffering. #his is called !the 3oble Eight9fold 'ath!. #he eight factors of this eight9fold path are 4ight @iew, right intent, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. I!ll give details on these factors later. But the first, the most important point is they are a way of living. #hey!re not philosophical concepts, beliefs or descriptions of an ultimate truth or divinity. #hey lead to an awakening to ultimate truth, but do not define it. #he Buddhists! realisation was that the experience of ultimate truth was consonant with the ending of duka, and duka, whether this be depression, anxiety, frustration or a more general sense of pointlessness, concerns us all in the here and now of our lives. It!s not a matter of belief, nor in Buddhism do you have to believe that there is such a thing as liberation or ultimate truth. <ust put an end to suffering and stress, but you know truth for yourself. $o the Buddhist approach is through direct experience, in which the first thing to consider is where both our innermost pain and our most reliable sense of well9being are to be found. %ircumstances such as illness or good fortune come and go, but what lingers with us are internal conditions, a sense of being trusted and at peace or having regret or hatred gnawing away at our hearts. If we have peace of mind, we can weather through the rough patches, but guilt, hatred or depression can cloud the brightest day. + millionaire or a king can be beset with worry and mistrust, but a painless monk, like the Buddha, can dwell in ease and fulfilment. $uffering and cessation line our minds and hearts. Mind and heart, we have an awareness that!s affected by and responds to experience. #his awareness is what the Buddha would encourage a listener to attend to when putting the teachings to the test. In dialogue, you would encourage the in&uiry7 !(ow does it feel if someone abuses you, kills your friends and relatives" Is that suffering or not" +nd how is it when people treat you with generosity and kindness, and if you act in either of these ways, which brings about the results that would give you the most well9being" *rom using your own wisdom, how should you best act"! +pplying reasoned in&uiry in this way, the Buddha was sketching the outline of his dharma. (owever, for myself, as for many people, Buddhism began with meditation. I had

graduated from university, had a head full of ideas and ,ust as many &uestions as to what life was about, and before following any particular career, it seemed best to get my own take on what I really wanted. I eventually arrived in #hailand and happened across a class in Buddhist meditation being given in English. #he venue was a room in a Buddhist monastery that had a few mats to sit on and nothing much else. It was lit by a lamp, which was placed next to the meditation teacher, who was sitting up front beside a window. (e was a westerner, who was wearing the ochre9brown robes of a Buddhist monk. Being a monastery in the tropics, there was no glass in the window and flying ants were coming in, attracted to the light. + few fluttered over the monk, but I noticed as he spoke, he wasn!t put off by the ants moving over his arms and ,ust occasionally picked one carefully off his face, which seemed in danger of going into his mouth. (e wasn!t getting agitated and he picked each ant off with specific awareness of its fragility, without losing the thread of what he was talking about. In the same situation, I would have killed a few ants, got irritated about the lack of glass and definitely lost the gist of what I was talking about. But the stress that I had got into would have been self9 induced. #he ants weren!t actually doing any harm. It was more a matter of responding to the sensation of full awareness, rather than reacting to it, which was a good introduction to what meditation was about, in the larger sense to what the Buddhist path was all about. In a nutshell, the Eight9fold 'ath can be seen as covering ethics, meditation and understanding. In the class in #hailand, that meant don!t kill flying ants, be with what!s happening and guide your responses with an understanding of how to let go of the stress. Easy enough in theory, but I could see I needed some training. Meditation takes us to where we!re really being affected, but that!s why we tend to react blindly. #o respond clearly to experience, we need to establish guidelines. #he foundation for such guidelines is 4ight @iew. !4ight @iew! is the recognition what we do counts. We!re not in a pre9determined cosmos. We can be effective. We can be a source of benefit or harm for ourselves and others, but such a responsibility is not so much a moral obligation as a mandate. If we develop clarity and kindness, we can live with that kind of mind. If, however, we sustain pre,udices or indifference, we become narrow and insensitive. We can act clearly and be at peace with ourselves or we can act out of compulsion and get stuck, because compulsion leads to addictive behaviour and loss of personal authority. In all cases, the chances are we!ll end up being associated with people who mirror our attitudes, so 4ight @iew is the recognition that our own integrity has to be the centre of our lives and that feels empowering. !4ight Intent!, sometimes called !4ight #hought! proceeds from and understanding of cause and effect. It means setting up the intention to bring around skilful results through body, speech and mind and to relin&uish the unskilful ones. #his is the foundation of the teachings on action or !0arma! as it!s called in Buddhism, for which mental intention is the agent. $ince actions of body and speech proceed from mind states and emotions, if we can get the mind and heart clear, we can both act from a place of balance and be able to discern the results of our actions. #his is the case with 4ight $peech and 4ight +ction. We give up stealing, deception and violence and cultivate honesty and words that are worth treasuring. !4ight 6ivelihood! means avoiding trade in arms, prostitution, animal slaughter and it also broadens out into how one shares one!s life with others. ur relationships with other people profoundly influence our minds, so on occasion, the Buddha gave attention to husband and wife relationships, parenting, mutually supporting norms for employer and employee as well as on the benefits and &ualities of

friendship. 4ight @iew, 4ight Effort and 4ight Mindfulness underline every other factor. *or example, with 4ight $peech, one starts with 4ight @iew by recognising that how our talk affects others. We could bring something of value into someone!s mind with a well9 attuned remark or we could ruin their day and we could be left with regret and mistrust, or with openness and peace of mind. *rom there, !4ight Effort! means doing the work of steering one!s actions, while 4ight Mindfulness entails being fully there with what we do or say and what effects it has. + resolve to all this is we avoid distress and participate in something of immediate benefit. #his is the process of the entire Eight9*old 'ath. Mindfulness and the last path factor, 4ight %oncentration, take us into the domain of meditation, the cultivation of awareness. #hese factors are often what people are struck by in Buddhism, because they offer powerful deepening of the inner life, the possibilities of great serenity and ,oy, and the unconditioned peace that is called !3irvana!. When this deepening begins, it is maintained with mindfulness, which entails being simply and purely present to what is going on. If I go back to that first notation class in #hailand, the monk gave us some advice on how to sit upright in a state of relaxed alertness and start paying attention to the sensations that accompany the process of breathing. I couldn!t have filled up more than a breath or two before my mind was wandering. In fact, it was careening on a wave of speculations, memories and analyses. Every now and then, I would steer my attention back to the breath sensations and be able to maintain that for a few seconds before a fresh tide of thoughts came washing in. #his is pretty much the standard beginners! meditation. 3evertheless, what struck me deeply was that here I was witnessing my mind, and it was strangely peaceful, even reassuring. $omehow I didn!t have to make anything out of my thoughts or even out of my mind. It was ,ust something happening. Moreover, if I was witnessing my mind, who was I and whose mind was this" #he Buddha reckoned these to be unanswerable &uestions. Whatever you think or say you are, there is ,ust more event passing through your mind. 3ow, the point is that there is always this present awareness, for what passes through it is changing and not what you really are, but the more you centre on that present awareness, whether using a focal point like the sensations of breathing to help you do that, the steadier and clearer you feel. )ou can let go of the impulses and sensations that come up or, as I learnt later, you can focus on them and allow the steadiness or awareness to bring them into harmony, which is what happens, whereas with practice, you can stop struggling with your body and your moods and that very &uality of non9struggle to infuse and settle them. $o bringing attention to the present is mindfulness and result. + steadiness that pervades the body and mind is concentration or somadi. $omadi is not a concentration that you do. It!s a centred and pleasurable unity that occurs as a result of 4ight @iew, 4ight Effort and 4ight Mindfulness. +ll the practice of mindfulness and concentration is immensely remedial, in terms of clearing out stress, worry and obsessive moods. It has a further development, which is the understanding that liberates the practitioner from the very source of suffering and stress. #his understanding, called !insight!, both attunes you to the ephemeral nature of what is happening and puts you in touch with the steady ever9presence of awareness

itself. $ensing this time and time again, an involuntary shift takes place. )our centre moves to that pure awareness. In daily life, you can act from that awareness with compassion and clarity and in meditation, you can let all the events subside and dwell in the bright, unhindered presence. #his leads to 3irvana, the fulfilment of the Eight9*old 'ath. +s you get to sense this, even in glimpses, you don!t get caught up in hankering and de,ection. #here!s no frustration, no need to defend and nothing you have to prove. <ust this is an end to suffering and stress. *or me, personally, this is the best option which human life affords, but as the Buddha recommended, it!s up to each of us to know it for ourselves.