When we don't get what we expect

No! We don't want to ever suffer! - Calm down, crybabies. Here's the solution: NIRVANA.

(Buddhism Podcast) Live with what we can't change? No, there's much to do beyond that

Accept what we cannot change? No

Why do we fall into the trap of our expectations? The Truth is much better.

Cry, Homer. But it's okay. It'll all be alright.

(Buddhism Podcast) When life, which is full of disappointment (dukkha), is not what we expected.

There are Four Ennobling Truths, four realizations that lead to enlightenment here and now and awakening in this very life, with spiritual liberation and freedom for all time. What are they?

1. This is disappointing, incapable of ever fulfilling us.
2. This is how pain/disappointment/suffering originates.
3. This is the cessation of all suffering (nirvana).
4. This is the Path to the cessation of all suffering.

• Craving, grasping, lust, longing, "thirst": taṇhā
• The Three Marks (Characteristics) of Existence
• Things keep changing, hurtling towards destruction
• The Eight Worldly Conditions: praise and blame...

Wait, remind me. What is "suffering"?

Many people misunderstand Buddhism because the word "suffering" comes up so much that it seems that's all there is -- depressing talk about pain. This is very misleading. Buddhism is ALL about bringing about the END of all suffering.

I'm not like this. I'm just having a bad day, k?

That is nirvana, attainable here and now, no having to wait till death, which is actually a lot late to be starting to do anything about all the suffering that awaits us for remaining ignorant and asleep. So since we don't suffer, we dismiss anything they Buddha said, thinking it doesn't apply to us. But do we suffer? Well, that depends on, What is "suffering"? The Buddha defines what he is calling suffering (dukkha):

Various sutras sum up what unpleasant things and experiences in countless rebirths we undergo. It is not just the pain that touches us in this life; the process rolls on and on in the "continued wandering on" of saṃsāra.

Oh, the Buddha found the end to all pain?

This process itself (the Five Aggregates clung to as self) is suffering, is unsatisfactory, is disappointing, is liable to great pain, is utterly incapable of ever fulfilling us. Rebirth is suffering (unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, unfulfilling) as are growth (maturation), aging (slowly breaking down), illness, death, loss, sorrow, crying (lamentation), physical pains, grief, and despair.

Contact with unpleasant (hateful, unloved, unwanted, repulsive) things suffering, as are being separated from the pleasant (wished for, loved, wanted, attractive). Not getting what we want, getting what we don't want, never being satisfied with anything we get, always longing and craving for more...all of it is unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, suffering.

Things we can control

US killer survives torture with slave philosophy

Stoic philosopher/pilot James Bond Stockdale

And it all comes back to a more fundamental disappointment beneath it all -- the Five Aggregates clung to as self: body (form); feelings (sensations), perceptions, formations, and consciousness clung to as "self."

Emphasis in Buddhism is NOT on belief. That's nearly useless and only preliminary. The emphasis is gnostic like the ancient Gnostics, for whom direct personal experience of the Truth is everything. Part of that is cultivating insight (vipassana, lit. "clear seeing") into the nature of this "suffering" along with the other two marks of existence.

List: Seven Stages of Insight

The process of craving, grasping, and clinging starts with sense-contact, part of the Five Aggregates clung to as self, and how this corruption, this misapprehension, this forming of wrong view, this distorted seeing can be overcome by progressive training of the heart/mind, culminating in progressive insight, which can be remembered as the Seven Stages of Insight.

This begins by moral restraint (virtuous conduct, sila), which makes meditation (the absorptions, jhanas) possible, which makes mindfulness into the four foundations (body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects) possible.

This brings us back to the basics, the foundational summary, of what we need to penetrate -- not memorize, recite, "believe," argue about), the Teaching of the Four Ennobling Truths. What's "noble" about them or about suffering? They are not noble in the English sense of the word. The Buddhist sense of noble is arya or Aryan, which means "enlightened" or "enlightening."

The list is not a formula but a very general outline of the reflections that bring about what the historical Buddha called "enlightenment" (bodhi, "awakening"). We would rather stay asleep and perchance dream a pleasant fantasy full of pleasure and sensual experiences, delights, happiness in all its forms, of which there are many.

But this dreaming is very prone to nightmares, for in pursuit of pleasure, we ill-conduct ourselves and those karmic deeds come to fruition and ripen in great suffering, unimaginable suffering. We already taste that now, when we would dream and be full of pleasure and happiness all the time or, at least, at will. But that doesn't happen. We can't make that happen. We think we can so, like a donkey after that carrot, which is just right there in front of us, we keep going, pulling a heavy load of a cart laden with more and more karma (all our actions).

Buddhist sutras, or discourses, show the broad meaning of "suffering," from the slightest agitation to the greatest agony, coming in three categories:

• dukkha-dukkha, aversion to physical pain – which includes physical and mental suffering, such as rebirth, aging, illness, dying, distress due to the undesirable.
• viparinama-dukkha, the frustration of disappearing happiness – which is the suffering of pleasurable, pleasant, and happy experiences changing to painful, unpleasant, and miserable ones when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasurable are exhausted or lost.
• sankhara-dukkha, the disappointment and unsatisfactoriness of transient, changing, impermanent "things" – the inability of [conditioned] things to give us constant, lasting pleasure and happiness.

So there is an END to all this suffering, now?

This includes a fundamental, inescapable unsatisfactoriness that pervades all things in and states of existence, all situations and future lives in any world (of which there are countless), any plane (of which there are 31), and any sphere (of which there are three), because all things all the time are incapable of fulfilling us and are always changing, hurtling towards destruction, and are ultimately impersonal, not ours, not under our absolute control.

At this level, the term dukkha, "suffering," indicates a lack of any lasting satisfaction, any ultimate fulfillment, any that things can ever measure up to our expectations. More

What is the point of all this talking about or even mentioning "suffering"? Yeah, yeah, we get it; we know we suffer, duh! Can't we just talk about nice things -- bliss, lights, expanded meditative states, magical powers, insights into all physical and mental phenomena, joy unending, nirvana-fication, quenching thirst, dousing the flames of greed, hatred, and smoldering delusion, stuff like that? Suffering is the problem that pleads for a final solution, a state and trait, a condition in need of a cure, an unbearable thing that we at some point have to deal with and bring to a final end.

Four truths to freedom

There's much to do to be free.

The first ennobling truth is the recognition that there is suffering, not because there is but because we don't even recognize it. We think we do. As soon as it pops up, we turn away, move on to something else, jump for distractions. We have next to no idea what it really is or what is causing it.

That is the second ennobling truth: What is causing it? The ROOT cause, the fundamental cause, the ultimate cause is? It is not craving (desire, wanting). It is ignorance (avijja), manifesting as wrong views (miccha-ditthi) and delusion (moha), confusion about reality.

The solution is? Awakening to the Truth, the ultimate truth (paramattha), enlightenment right now -- through realizing the causal links of Dependent Origination, the process by which this suffering is arising. Among those 12 links, of which ignorance is the ultimate cause, is one the Buddha singled as the one we can actually do something about right here and right now directly, and that is craving (tanha). Why do we crave? Ignorance, which is the same reason we have aversion and why we are deluded. The Buddha singles out craving to work on undoing the causes and conditions bringing about suffering. Why?

That is the third ennobling truth: What is not-suffering? Nirvana. Nirvana is the end of all suffering. How do we realize nirvana, directly perceive and experience it here and now?

That is the fourth ennobling truth: There is a Path to the end of suffering. What is it? It is outlined in general in the Ennobling Eightfold Path. However, to be more specific and less general, the Buddha spoke of 37 "things pertaining to enlightenment," the bodhipakkhiya-dhamma, for immediate development to know-and-see nirvana.

• Buddhism Podcast (videos); Dhr. Seven (text), Ashley Wells (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

How'd Buddhism get so 'way out'? (funny)

(exurb1a) Buddhism is kinda out there, Man a whimsical survey of the various Buddhisms (major Buddhist schools), repeating many popular misconceptions but in a very entertaining way.

(Dropout) Facebook Quote Buddha | College Humor original video

The Sickest Buddhist (rapper)

(ARJ Barker) Comedian Arj Barker gets real

If life is short, what really matters?

(Buddhism Podcast) If life is so short, what really matters? A Buddhist perspective

Householder happiness? Marriage troubles in American Suburbia (Falsettos)

(JF) FALSETTOS: "I'm Breaking Down" by Barbara Walsh

LYRICS: "I'm Breaking Down"

(Genius) I'd like to be a princess on a throne/ To have a country I can call my own/ And a king who's lusty and requires a fling/ With a female thing/ Great, men will be men/ Let me turn on the gas/ I caught them in the den with Marvin grabbing Whizzer's ass/ Oh sure, I'm sure, he's sure he did his best/ I mean he meant to be what he was not/ The things he was are things which I forgot/ He's a queen I'm a queen/ Where is our crown?/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ My life is shitty/ And my kid seems like an idiot to me/ I mean that's sick/ I mean he's great/ It's me who is the matter/ Talking madder/ Than the maddest hatter

If I repeat one more word/ I swear I'll lose my brain/ Oh, what else should I explain?/ Oh, yes, it's true/ I can cry on cue/ But so can you/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ Down, down/ You ask me, "Is it fun to cry over nothing?"/ It is, I'm breaking down/ Now let's consider what I might do next/ I hate admitting I've become perplexed/ I'm bereaved/ I've cried, I've shook, I've yelled, I've heaved/ I have been deceived

As enemies go Whizzer is not so bad/ It's just he's so damn happy/ That it makes me so damn mad/ I want to hate him but I really can't/ It's like a nightmare how this all proceeds/ I hope that Whizzer don't fulfill his needs/ "Don't" is wrong/ Sing along!/ What was the noun?/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ I'll soon redecorate these stalls/ I'd like some padding on the walls/ And also pills/ I wanna sleep Sure, things'll probably worsen/ But it's not like I'm some healthy person/ I've rethought my talks with Marv/ And one fact does emerge/ Oh, I think I like his shrink/ So that is why I might turn to drink/ I'm on the brink/ Of breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ Down, down/ I only want to love a man who can love me/ Or like me/ Or help me/ Help me!

Marvin was never mine/ He took his meetings in the boys' latrine/ I used to cry/ He'd make a scene/ I'd rather die/ Than dry-clean Marvin's wedding gown/ I'm breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ It's so upsetting when you've found/ That what's rectangular is round/ I mean it stinks/ I mean he's queer/ And me, I'm just a freak/ Who needs it maybe every other week/ I don’t know/ I've rethought the fun we've had/ And one fact does emerge/ I've played the foolish clown/ The almost virgin who sings this dirge/ Is on the verge/ Of breaking down/ I'm breaking down/ Down, down/ The only thing that's breaking up is my family/ The only thing that's breaking up is my family/ But me, I'm breaking Down!

Craving for nirvana is obstacle to it?

Behind the scenes look | Panaprium

(One Timeless Witness) He meditated for 20 years [seeking moksha or liberation] then the Buddha said "stop," an apocryphal tale to make a point.

Bhava-taṇhā is "craving for becoming," grasping leading to "clinging" (upādāna), which inevitably results in disappointment, dissatisfaction, misery, suffering...not getting what one wants, getting what one doesn't want, all of which is dukkha.

Bhava-taṇhā ("craving for becoming") [5] is craving to be or become something, to unite with an experience [16].

This is ego-related, says Buddhist scholar Peter Harvey, the eternal seeking for identity and the desire for some type of rebirth or other [5].

This last donut will fulfill and satisfy me!

Other scholars explain that this type of craving is driven by the popular wrong view of permanence and Eternalism (Sassatavada, the view that a "soul" or "self" never dies because something survives, as if consciousness unchanged carries on, never realizing that what carries on through the "continued wandering on" of saṃsāra is an impersonal PROCESS clung to as "self") [4, 17].

• The opposite wrong view is Annihilationism (Ucchedavada), the wrong view that there is something that is annihilated at death, which is a transition, passing from one state to another, of an impersonal process. But Western "logic" tells us it has to be one or the other: either we carry on or come to an end. How could both be wrong? This is what the Buddha tried to explain, and he succeeded by explaining Dependent Origination. If there is no self, of course it does not carry on in samsara. But a process carries on, so there must be "self" doing the carrying on, right? No, for in every moment and submoment, phenomena arises  

It is not eternal life for an eternal soul, not an independent ego, not something personal, not a "self" or "soul" -- without actually living up to the definition of "soul" or "self" we have always assumed is there). More

How to reach enlightenment here and now (an over-explanation for non-practitioners)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (DBM), COMMENTARY FOR WISDOM QUARTERLY

What is the true nature of all things, of all phenomena? They are (1) impermanent, (2) unsatisfactory, and (3) impersonal (not-self).

But it is foolish to assume that this "impermanence" is eventual. In fact, it is radical (from the Latin radix, at its "root")! From moment to moment, things do not stand. They constantly fall away. They are always arising, turning, and passing, not only at every moment but at every submoment.

In a "moment," such as a citta or "mind-moment," there are three phases: (1) arising, (2) turning, (3) passing. The exact same thing is true of physical particles, rupa kalapas (form phenomena).

This impermanence goes by so quickly that it is not possible to see directly, but there's a trick. The arising and falling away is recorded by the mind and can be reviewed (replayed) in slow-motion to observe the process.

(Dhammavihari Buddhist Studies) Analysis of the Causes of Rūpa Kalāpa

• One would learn this in a monastery  that knew what it was doing -- such as those in the lineage of the great Pa Auk Sayadaw -- from a long line of practical advice handed down from accomplished teachers to students. So far as we can determine, it is not recorded in the texts, either discourses or commentaries. This seems to be the case with the practical application of many of the teachings mentioned in the Pali canon sutras. The Path of Purification is a compendium of Buddhist meditation practices, and some things are explained there. But it is so dense, in addition to being awkward in translation, that good luck making sense of it.

• 

  It's too confusing, too much to think about!

  You know, "Buddhism" was much more fun when we were just joking about Zen (Taoism, always asking, "What is the Tao, what is Tao?" a question the Buddha never asked) and chitchatting about koans. Who knew the Buddha really taught something and that there was an actual path-of-practice to enlightenment (bodhi) and liberation (nirvana)? Shouldn't this be easy, and shouldn't it be that Buddhist monastics are wasting their time with all those pesky rules and meditations? Now we see there was a point and there was no time to waste. How long would it take to calm down (samadhi, jhana, stillness), how long would it take to develop insight (vipassana) through systematic mindfulness?
• Of course, all of this will seem impossible, but come and see. The process of purification gives the mind incredible powers it does not now possess. This defiled, corrupted, dissolute mind can't see these thing, but that purified, clarified, intensified mind can. The ignorant, uninstructed person cannot see, but an instructed disciple can. That is what the Buddha has been saying all along.

(Dhammavihari Buddhist Studies) Analysis of Rupa Kalapa(s)

What do kalapas look like? Embers scattering.

This is what we do not understand, what we do not directly know-and-see, until we develop the path of purification and dispassionately look on at all phenomena (as explained in detail in "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourse" or Satipatthana Sutta).

When we are finally able to see things (cittas and kalapas, mind-moments and material particles) behaving as they have always behaved when we were blind to and deluded about what was really there all along, the mind/heart automatically lets go. There is no effort to do so. Seeing their true nature, we stop clinging.

Furthermore, when we see that all things are utterly incapable of ever fulfilling, satisfying, or doing anything but being ultimately disappointing, we stop craving, stop expecting any new thing to be any different.

Moreover, when we finally know-and-see as it truly is that what we thought (assumed) was personal and self is not, what in the universe (with three spheres of sensual, fine material, and immaterial worlds -- with "heavenly" places in each) is there to cling to?

Why have we been holding on to suffering (dukkha, this unsteady, askew cartwheel making the road so bumpy and painful) and to things always hurtling towards destruction? It is exactly because we did not see, did not know.

I get it! Now I know and see!!

And now are we undeceived, having seen things as they really are and always have been, there is no "effort" to let go. Letting go happens naturally and one knows-and-sees the ultimate, nirvana. This process is "awakening" (bodhi, enlightenment).

Then it is as if everything -- all ignorance and darkness -- dissolves (nirodha), and light arises, and there is awakening out of painful ignorance to ultimate unending bliss. This is the bliss of nirvana, the highest happiness and peace. There is no use in describing it, but it can be directly experienced here and now, free of concepts and views.

• The Buddha's Path to Deliverance (PDF)
• Overcoming rebirth by path realization Dhammadhatu DD - Independent Researcher

What's special about human life? (Blind Turtle)

SUTRA: The hole in the ring

Who would ever become a Buddhist monastic?

"Meditators, suppose that this great earth were completely covered with water and a person were to toss a ring with a single hole onto the surface.

 

"A wind from the east would send it west, a wind from the west would send it east, a wind from the north would send it south, and a wind from the south would send it north.

 

"Moreover, suppose there were a blind turtle that surfaced only once every 100 years.

"Now, what do you think? How likely is it that that blind turtle, coming to the surface only once every 100 years, would ever stick its head through that ring?"

 

"It would be very improbable, venerable sir! It would only be by chance that a blind turtle, coming to the surface only once every 100 years, would stick its head through that ring [being tossed around by wind]."

"Likewise, meditators, it is very improbable, mere chance that [at any given time] one obtains a human rebirth.

"Likewise, it is very improbable, mere chance that a Tathagata [a fully enlightened teaching buddha], worthy and rightly self-awakened, ever arises in the world.

"Likewise, it is very improbable, mere chance that a Doctrine and Discipline [Dhamma-Vinaya] expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.

"But now this human rebirth has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy and rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A Doctrine and Discipline expounded by a Tathagata has appeared in the world.

 

"Therefore, take as [an extraordinarily rare and] sacred duty to contemplating [these four enlightening/liberating truths]:

1. 'This is [the meaning of] suffering...
2. This is the origin of suffering...
3. This is the end of suffering.'
4. Undertake the duty of contemplating: 'This is the path-of-practice that leads to the end of suffering.'"

In retrospect, the historical Buddha might have said:

1. This is pleasure (sukha)...
2. This the origin of pleasure...
3. This is the end of pleasure (dukkha)...
4. This is the path-of-practice that leads to more and more pleasure [until one reaches the ultimate and unsurpassable bliss of nirvana.]

• Why didn't he? It must have occurred to him. One very likely reason is that this is not the path of hedonism (pleasure-seeking as the ultimate good). Making an end of 

1. What is "suffering" and could we talk about pleasure instead?

Don't cry for me, Goddess of Compassion. (Tears of Mary of Clopas/wiki)

.

What is dukkha (disappointment, distress, unsatisfactoriness)? There is no need for confusion about dukkha or displeasure with translating it as "suffering." It is the nature of Pali and Sanskrit that a term has a RANGE of meaning, from agitation to agony.

All of these are dukkha, which could be rendered "off-kilter," like the wheel of an ox-cart that is off center and making for a bumpy and unpleasant ride. The Buddha defines exactly what he means by the word: "Not getting what one wants, getting what one doesn't want, being separated from or losing what one loves, being joined with what one detests." In short, the Five Aggregates clung to as self (the khandha or skandha) are disappointing, painful, unable to ever fulfill, and are thus unsatisfactory and suffering.

(Wiki) According to Monier Monier-Williams, the actual roots of the Pali term dukkha appear to be Sanskrit दुस्- (dus-, "bad") + स्था (sthā, "to stand") [9, Note 2]. Irregular changes in the development of Sanskrit into the various Prakrits [ancient hybrid languages] led to a shift from dus-sthā to duḥkha to dukkha.

Western Theravada Buddhist monk Analayo

Western scholar-monk Ven. Analayo concurs, stating that dukkha as derived from duḥ-sthā, "standing badly," conveys nuances of "uneasiness" or of being "uncomfortable" [16].

Silk Road philologist Christopher I. Beckwith elaborates on this derivation [17]. According to him: "...although the sense of duḥkha in Normative Buddhism is traditionally given as 'suffering,' that and similar interpretations are highly unlikely for Early Buddhism.

"Significantly, Monier-Williams himself doubts the usual explanation of duḥkha and presents an alternative one immediately after it, namely: duḥ-stha "'standing badly,' unsteady, disquieted (literally and figuratively); uneasy," and so on.

"This form is also attested, and makes much better sense as the opposite of the Rig Veda sense of sukha, which Monier-Williams gives in full [11, Note 3].

Translation

The literal meaning of duḥkha, as used in a general sense, is "suffering" or "painful" [Note 4]. Its exact translation depends on the context [Note 5].

Contemporary translators of Buddhist texts use a variety of English words to convey the [many] aspects of dukh.

Early Western translators of Buddhist texts (before the 1970s) typically translated the Pali term dukkha as "suffering." Later translators have emphasized that "suffering" is a too [harsh and too] limited translation for the term duḥkha and have preferred to either leave the term untranslated [15] or to clarify that translation with terms such as

• anxiety,
• distress,
• frustration,
• unease,
• unsatisfactoriness,
• not [getting] having what one wants,
• having what one does not want, and so on [19, 20, 21, Note 6].

In the sequence "[re]birth is dukkha," it may be translated as "painful" [22].

The opposite of pleasure

But I want what I want when I want it!!!

When related to vedana ("sensation" or "feeling") dukkha ("unpleasant," "painful") is the opposite of sukha ("pleasure," "pleasant"), yet all feelings are dukkha [unsatisfactory, disappointing] in that they are impermanent, conditioned [impersonal] phenomena, which are unsatisfactory, incapable of providing lasting satisfaction or actual enduring fulfillment.

The term "unsatisfactoriness" then is often used to emphasize the unsatisfactoriness of "life under the influence of afflictions and polluted karma" [23, 24, 25, 26, 27, a], but it would equally well -- though much less obviously -- apply to sukha.

All pleasure ultimately fails to fulfill, satisfy, make us happy exactly because the nature of ALL conditioned (dependently originated or co-arisen) phenomena is beset by what the Buddha described as three universal characteristics or the Three Marks of All Conditioned Existence (ti-lakkhana) and transient states.

Early Buddhism

Dukkha is one of the three marks of existence -- namely anicca ("impermanent"), dukkha ("unsatisfactory"), anatta ("impersonal," "not-self," "empty," devoid of an enduring essence) [Note 7].

Various Pali canon sutras (discourses) sum up how cognitive processes result in an aversion to unpleasant things and experiences (dukkha), forming a corrupted process together with the complementary process of craving and clinging to pleasure (sukha).

What does dukkha mean?

This is expressed as saṃsāra, an ongoing process of [re-]death and rebirth [Note 8], but also more pointedly and non-metaphysically in the process-formula of the Five Aggregates clung to as self (skandhas):

1. [Re-] birth is dukkha (disappointing),
2. aging is dukkha,
3. deteriorating is dukkha,
4. illness is dukkha,
5. death is dukkha;
6. sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are dukkha;
7. association with what we don't like is dukkha;
8. separation from the liked is duḥkha;
9. not getting what is wanted is dukkha.
10. In summary, the Five Aggregates clung to as self (khandhas) are dukkha. More

• Hawaiian green sea turtle Chelonia mydas swimming in turquoise waters (AI generated 32475192 stock photo at Vecteezy)
• AI generated Hawaiian green sea turtle (37750217 at Vecteezy)
• Swim with turtles in Waikiki | Honolulu, Hawaii (Giftory)
• Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Chiggala Sutta: "The Hole" (SN 56:48) based on a translation by American Thai Theravada monk Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff, abbot, Wat Metta, CA), Wiki edit dukkha

Eckhart Tolle: Remove 95% unhappiness now

(Eckhart Tolle) February 4, 2026: Remove 95% unhappiness

Why don't all Buddhists believe in God?

(Serene Mind) Why Buddhists do not all [necessarily] believe in God | The truth behind Buddhism

• Nontheistic religions
• Nontheism
• A God in Buddhism: Maha Brahmā
• Secular Buddhism
• Engaged Buddhism
• The many heavens and gods in Buddhism
• A judge after death: Yama, king of the dead
• Buddhist cosmology: 31 Planes of Existence
• The Divine Abidings of the Supreme (Brahma)

Christians: These other religions are false

Nice Jesus the Anointed One, the Christ (Kristos) loves a prosperity gospel in his name?

Why Christians say these 10 religions are false

Is this fool's gold? It looks so shiny and pure.

For millions of faithful followers calling themselves "true Christians," truth isn’t a spectrum but a line drawn by scripture, and these ten belief systems cross it in ways they say matter eternally. [Should other religions be banned when Trump is installed as True Leader before Christmas 2026?]

Religion is often a hot topic at dinner tables across the country, especially when beliefs clash over who holds the ultimate truth about life and the afterlife.

Hey, you Goddamned sinners, send me $$!

For many Christians, their Bible serves as the final rulebook, the final truth, and any belief or faith that deviates in the slightest from [their translation and interpretation of] its core teachings is frequently viewed as missing the mark ("sinful").

This perspective stems from a deep belief and conviction that spiritual truth is not subjective but a narrow path defined by specific scriptures, some of which are apocryphal or not really found written anywhere, like the details of the "Rapture" to come.

While modern human society often encourages a flexible approach to spirituality, orthodox Christianity draws hard lines in stone regarding the nature of God and what counts as "salvation." Everyone else is wrong.

This often leads to strong disagreements over the validity of other faith systems (and often bigger fights within a single system, sect, or Christian denomination, some of which have no right to even call themselves "Christian"), from ancient traditions to newer spiritual movements.

Here is a look at ten belief systems that Christians often reject, along with the theological reasons they push back against them....

1. Mormons and Latter-Day Saints
2. Islam and the Prophet Mohammed [PBUH]
3. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower
4. Scientology and Thetans [but genocidal Ziontology is okay]
5. Hinduism and the many gods [here's looking at you, Usha]
6. Buddhism and the Path to Nirvana
7. Wicca and Modern Paganism
8. New Age Spirituality
9. Unitarian Universalism
10. Atheism and Secular Humanism.

Coming in at Number 6, Buddhism and the Path to Nirvana: While Christians often respect the ethical discipline of Buddhism, they reject its central non-theistic stance (which many take as atheistic).

Buddhism does not acknowledge an ultimate Creator God (like Maha Brahma, the "Great Supremo" who imagines himself the Creator of all things), which is the very foundation of the Christian worldview

• [with their Demiurge Yaldabaoth the vengeful Judge Yahweh/Jehovah of the Old Testament, even if Jesus spoke out against this impostor in the name of the True God of Light that stands behind everything, a kind of Brahman figure behind the illusion of Maya, if one only took Gnostic texts into consideration as was the case before the official Church banned and burned any such gospels and teachings by Jesus].

The Buddha taught the Path to Nirvana

The ultimate goal of Nirvana (the "Deathless," "freedom from all suffering and further rebirth"), which is the cessation of craving and cycling and wandering through the illusory and miserable Wheel of Life and Death (Samsara), is viewed as a hopeless end compared to the Christian promise of eternal life.

Christians also disagree with the idea that suffering is something to escape solely through human effort and mental cleansing. They believe that suffering has purpose and that God is present with believers through their torments, trials, and tribulations. [Smile, the Christian God wants you to suffer.]

A study by Arizona Christian University found that only 4% of American adults hold a biblical worldview, which might help to explain why Eastern philosophies (such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Sufism to some extent) are gaining traction over traditional church teachings.

• [Adding an "-ism" to any word or doctrine is a good way to discredit it right off the bat, at least in the imperial Christ-ism/ propaganda we are fed in the West.]
• MSN (Why Christians say these 10 religions are false) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

When we see clearly, nothing bothers us

(Buddhism Podcast)

• The Three Marks or Characteristics of All Existence: anicca (all things are radically impermanent); dukkha (all things are unsatisfactory, incapable of fulfilling us); anatta (all things are impersonal in an ultimate sense).
• Sammāditthi Sutta: the "Discourse on Right View"
• Sallatha Sutta: "The Arrow Discourse" (SN 36.6)

Mental proliferation: papañca

Things just keep dividing, growing, proliferating

What is (Pali) papañca or (Sanskrit) prapañca? In Buddhist doctrinal usage, [puh-pon-chuh] signifies the proliferation, expansion, differentiation, "diffuseness," and "manifoldness" of the world. It may refer to the "phenomenal world" in general or to the mental attitude of "worldliness."

In A. IV, 173, it is said: "As far as the field of sixfold sense-impression extends, so far reaches the world of diffuseness (the phenomenal world, papañcassa gati). As far as the world of diffuseness extends, so far extends the field of sixfold sense-impression. Through the complete fading away and cessation of the field of sixfold sense-impression, there comes about the cessation and the coming-to-rest of the world of diffuseness (papañca-nirodho papañca-vupasamo)."

The opposite term nippapañca is another name for nirvana (Pali nibbāna) (S. LIII) in the sense of "freedom from samsaric diffuseness."

Dhammapada 254: "Humankind delights in the diffuseness of the world, whereas the Perfect Ones are free from such diffuseness" (papañcābhiratā pajā, nippapañca tathāgatā).

The eighth of the "thoughts of a great person" (mahā-purisa-vitakka, A. VIII, 30) is: "This Dhamma [Teaching, Truth, Doctrine] is for one who delights in non-diffuseness (nirvana, the unworldly); it is not for one who delights in worldliness (papañca)."

For the psychological sense of "differentiation," see MN 18 (Madhupindika Sutta): "Whatever a person conceives (vitakketi) that one differentiates (papañceti). And what one differentiates, by reason thereof ideas and considerations of differentiation (papañca-saññā-sankhā) arise in one."

On this text and the term papañca, see Dr. Kurt Schmidt in German Buddhist Writers (BPS.lk, Wheel 74/75) p. 61ff. See DN 21 (Sakka's Quest, Wheel 10).

In the Commentaries, one often finds a threefold classification (tanhā-, ditthi-, māna-papañca), which probably means the world's diffuseness created hy craving, wrong views, and conceit. See MN 123; A. IV, 173; A. VI, 14, Sn. 530, 874, 916.

Ven.  Ñānananda Bhikkhu, in Concept and Reality: An Essay on Papañca and Papañca-saññā-sankhā (Kandy 1971, Buddhist Publication Society), suggests that the term refers to the human "tendency towards proliferation in the realm of concepts" and proposes translating the term as "conceptual proliferation," which appears convincing in a psychological context, for example, in two of the texts quoted above (A. IV, 173 and MN 18).

The threefold classification of papañca, by way of craving, wrong views, and conceit is explained by the author as three aspects, or instances, of the foremost of deluded conceptualizations, namely, the ego-concept, the belief in a permanent, unchanging "self" or "soul." See anatta.

• Buddhist Podcast (video); Ven. Nyanaponika (Buddhist Dictionary) edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How much PAIN would you rather? (sutra)

Ven. Sujato (trans.) Salla Sutta (SuttaCentral.net) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

“Mendicants, an unlearned ordinary person feels pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. A learned noble disciple [one anywhere along the four stages of enlightenment] also feels pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. What, then, is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an ordinary unlearned person?”

“Our teachings are rooted in the Buddha. …”

“When an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings, she or he sorrows and wails and laments, beating the breast and falling into confusion. One experiences two feelings, physical and mental.

One is bad enough. Why make it worse?

“It is like a person who is struck by an arrow only to be struck with a second arrow. That person experiences the feeling of two arrows.

“In the same way, when an unlearned ordinary person experiences painful physical feelings, one sorrows and wails and laments, beating one’s breast and falling into confusion. One experiences two feelings, physical and mental.

“When one is touched by painful feeling, one resists it. The underlying tendency for revulsion [aversion, resistance, hate, dosa] towards painful feeling underlies that.

“When touched by painful feeling, one looks forward to enjoying sensual pleasures. Why is that? It is because an unlearned ordinary person does not understand any other escape from painful feeling apart from [the temporary and unfulfilling distraction of] sensual pleasures.

“Since one looks forward to enjoying sensual pleasures, the underlying tendency to greed [lust, craving, grasping, clinging, lobha] for pleasant feeling underlies that.

“One does not truly understand feelings’ origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape. The underlying tendency to ignorance [delusion, confusion, wrong view, moha] about neutral feeling underlies that.

“If one feels a pleasant feeling, one feels it attached. If one feels a painful feeling, one feels it attached. If one feels a neutral feeling, one feels it attached.

“One is called an unlearned ordinary person who is attached [clinging] to rebirth, old age, and death, to sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, one who is attached to suffering [disappointment, unsatisfactoriness], I say.

Noble disciples

“When a learned noble disciple experiences painful physical feelings, one does not sorrow nor wail nor lament, beating one’s breast and falling into confusion. One experiences one feeling: physical, not mental.

“It is like a person who is struck by an arrow but not struck by a second arrow. That person would only experience the feeling of one arrow.

“In the same way, when a learned noble disciple experiences painful physical feelings, one does not sorrow nor wail nor lament, beating the breast and falling into confusion. One experiences one feeling, physical, not mental.

“When one is touched by painful feeling, one does not resist it. There is no underlying tendency for revulsion towards painful feeling underlying that.

“When touched by painful feeling, one does not look forward to enjoying sensual pleasures. Why is that? It is because a learned noble disciple understands an escape from painful feeling apart from sensual pleasures.

“Since one does not look forward to enjoying sensual pleasures, there is no underlying tendency to greed for pleasant feeling underlying that.

“One truly understands feelings’ origin, disappearance, gratification, drawback, and escape. There is no underlying tendency to ignorance about neutral feeling underlying that.

“If one feels a pleasant feeling, one feels it detached. If one feels a painful feeling, one feels it detached. If one feels a neutral feeling, one feels it detached.

“One is called a learned noble disciple who is detached from rebirth, old age, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress, one who is detached from suffering, I say.

“This is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an unlearned ordinary person.

Summary in verse

“A wise and learned disciple is unmoved

by feelings of pleasure and pain.

This is the great difference in skill

between the wise and the ordinary.

A learned disciple who has appraised the Teaching

discerns this world and the next.

Desirable things do not disturb the mind

nor is one repelled by the repulsive.

Both favoring and opposing

are cleared and ended and are no more.

Knowing the stainless and sorrowless state,

one who has gone beyond rebirth

understands rightly.”

• SOURCE: Sallatha Sutta: "The Arrow" (SN 36.6) Pali language sutras