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| There is a worldwide boob industry worth billions in annual sales for everything from beer to bras, bikinis to cars, self-esteem to plastic surgery, magazines, ad nauseum (si.com). |
Dukkha is a terrible thing, so terrible it sent the young, handsome Prince Siddhartha out of Central Asia into India to "find himself," to discover an "end to suffering. The solution to the problem of suffering can only be understood and appreciated by understanding how serious and deep the problem is. That is exactly what we will not
ordinarily do.
But when suffering gets so bad, it is possible that we might actually listen and open internally to what we fear. The Buddha gave the problem and solution in the form of an ancient Indian physician, according to the ancient medical model of the day:
- There is a problem: diagnosis
- There is a cause: etiology
- There is (or is not) a solution: prognosis
- There is a course of treatment: prescription
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| Ahh, nirvana transcends it all! |
The problem is disappointment, the inability to be fulfilled by anything. There is a cause, craving (supported by delusion and aversion). There is a solution to this peculiar disease (nirvana, the end of all suffering, rebirth, and craving or the beginning of all peace, ease, and fulfillment). There is a course of treatment, a prescribed set of eight factors (known as the
ennobling or enlightening Eightfold Path). You have just learned a deeper meaning of The Four Noble Truths.
How to be happy
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| How can I be happy and satisfied? |
So the practical upshot of this is,
If Emily Ratajkowski (pronounced radi-
cow-ski)
is not happy -- with all of her fame, riches, youth, beauty, and influence -- how are we going to be? Well, there is a way, a Middle Way. Emily will lose all five. They are already dwindling away. We will lose them. So what can we keep? Enlightenment is permanent.
Nirvana is the supreme realization
 |
| Inquire within. |
Nirvana -- being neither a place, "thing," nor nothingness -- is unending. It is called the Unconditioned Element because, unlike all of the conditioned (composite) things we are familiar with, it alone is different. At one time the Buddha (then only a Bodhisattva) asked, If I [
all the transitory things that are clung to as "self"] am impermanent, unsatisfactory, and
impersonal, why do I chase after things that are also impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal? It would be better to go after something higher, something lasting, something liberating. He found it when he became enlightened and thereby came to be called the "
Awakened One."
