The First Noble Truth

For the aspiring Buddhist:

What is the Noble Truth of Suffering? Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, and death is suffering. Disassociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in short the five categories affected by clinging are suffering.

There is this Noble Truth of Suffering: such was the visions, insight, wisdom, knowing and light that arose in me about things not heard before.
This Noble Truth must be penetrated by fully understanding suffering: such was the visions, insight, wisdom, knowing and light that arose in me about things not heard before.
This Noble Truth has been penetrated by full understanding and suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing and light that arose in me about things not heard before.
[Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11]

The 'First Noble Truth' with its three aspects is: ‘there is suffering, dukkha. Dukkha should be understood. Dukkha has been understood.’
This is a very skillful teaching because it is expressed in a simple formula, which is easy to remember, and it also applies to everything that you can possibly experience or do or think concerning the past, the present, or future.

Suffering, or dukkha, is the common bond we all share. Everybody everywhere suffers.
To let go of suffering, we have to admit it into consciousness. But the admission in Buddhist meditation is not from a position of suffering, because we are not trying to identify with the problem but simply acknowledge that there is one. It is unskillful to think in terms of: 'I am an angry person; I get angry so easily; how do I get rid of it? - That triggers off all the underlying assumptions of a self and it is very hard to get any perspective on that. It becomes very confusing because the sense of my problems or my thoughts takes us very easily to suppression or to make judgments about it and criticizing ourselves, we tend to grasp and identify rather than to observe, witness and understand things as they are. When you are just admitting that there is this feeling of confusion, that there is the greed or anger, then there is an honest reflection on the way it is, and you have taken out all the underlying assumptions - or at least undermined them. So do not grasp these things as personal faults, but keep contemplating these conditions as impermanent, unsatisfactory and non-self. Keep reflecting on them as they are. The tendency is to view life from the sense that these are my problems, and that one is being very honest and forthright in admitting this. Then our life tends to reaffirm that because we keep operating from that wrong assumption. But that very viewpoint is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self.
'There is suffering' is a very clear, precise acknowledgement that at this time, there is some feeling of unhappiness.
[quoted from 'The Four Noble Truths' as translated by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho]

When will they ever learn?

When will the age old axiom that 'you can't take it with you' be heeded as fact. 'God' did not design this material body to suffer stress...stress that has been linked to so many diseases and illnesses. We are here in order to improve our 'self' in order to get back homeward. In my humble opinion.

See previous post.

So very, very sad

A canon and purport from the Tao Te Ching as translated by James Legge:

"The text's emphasis on calmness, quietude and intuiton thus appeals to modern people constantly pushed for increase consumption, i.e., the urge to always have more. When the text says 'know when it is enough,' we understand that there is a level of material wealth and internal satisfaction that requires one to relax into the present moment and let go of advancement and progress. There is a point when an increase in consumption, a rise in a position, or a multiplication of wealth will add nothing further to one's community status or internal well-being but only create complications and difficulties that make one feel worse, not better."


David B. Kellermann committed suiced by hanging apparently due to the stress of his job as acting CFO of the troubled financial institution Freddi Mac. He was 41 years of age, and leaves behind a wife and 5 year-old daughter


(Photo and linked article from New York Times)

Random Thoughts of Lunar Grandeur

...or something equally meaningless like that...

‘That’s a good question’ really means ‘I have no clue how to answer you’

The Woodcock family of Appalachia – Lucky, Lottie, lil’ Lotta, Willa Mae, Ima Jean, Willy, Woody, Rooster, Cousin Peabody, Red, Uncle Henry, and Grandpa Younger

‘weapons of mass destruction’, ‘Islamic Fascism’, ‘Jihad’, ‘they hate us’, ‘they want to kill us’, ‘threat level elevated’, ‘threat level orange’, ‘terror alert’, ‘terror attack’, ‘war on terror’, ‘they hate our way of life’, ‘they want to kill us’, ‘sleeper cells’, ‘watch lists’, ‘IED’s’ – and box-cutters… words I hear every day

I feel like I am screaming for help, and no one can hear me

If I am not crazy, then the world must be insane

Nothing I do seems to make sense anymore

If I had lost my mind, how would I know?

What is the damage done by nothing?

From whence came the seed bearing plant?

When do you know if the mind’s eye is crying?

Let the perfect man instruct me on my flaws

That sense is common is perhaps the greatest paradox

If the self learns from past mistakes, then how is it that the self keeps coming back?

If one meditates on nothing, does one then attain nothing?

If one offers too much paradox to the mind, then the mind becomes riddled with paradox

Terse allusions - effectively concise indirect references

If the perception of what I perceive is to be altered so that my current perception is no longer what I perceive, then my current perception must be that of the past which is being perceived in the future

The paradox of choice

ah....this could go on for hours....I'll see ya' later

My PC - by A. Rant

Just a footnote: if my machine gets any slower, I'm going to rename it 'snail'.

Where are the police who police the freaks who propagate the worms that eat my memory full of holes like a cheese of Swiss? Man, this just perturbs me to no end in sight.

Currently Under Destruction

time to clean up the act to something more spiritual and uplifting...though I will still keep a journal, which will still keep the focus on daily thoughts and current topics, though likely some measure of energy will still be expended towards rage against the machine, the emphasis of this site will be placed upon the poetry. I am going to...