A Second Look at Buddhism

Picking up where I left off, I want to finish a brief post on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The stuff on the First Noble Truth is repeated, but this post contains the last three truths:

Let me paraphrase what the First Noble Truth teaches in a nut shell (because that’s all I can handle.) Here it is: LIFE STINKS. It is suffering through and through. It begins in suffering, prolongs itself in suffering, and it ends in suffering. Any momentary pleasures or joy is exactly that--momentary. Pleasure and joy only serve to add to suffering because they are illusory.

Where does this suffering come from? The Second Noble Truth answers this question. Suffering is rooted in the human tendency to DESIRE. We desire but cannot attain fulfillment. Life is dissatisfying, ultimately. If we can overcome these desires, instead of seeking their fulfillment, we will be well on our way to enlightenment.

The Third Noble Truth teaches us that, we can escape suffering by attaining Nibbana (Nirvana). This is apparently a state of mind where all the plagues of being unenlightened are pushed back, and a complete state of mental health is attained. The person is in the now. He or she has finally escaped.

The Fourth Noble Truth is a Path that leads to Nibbana. If we want to get there, we have to know the way, right? So the Fourth Noble Truth telescopes Buddhism into several more insights, including an apparently strong morality.

I hope I have fairly communicated these introductory concepts.

As I read them, a blizzard of responding thoughts kicked up in my mind. Christ has given us a completely different vew of the nature of suffering, the source of suffering, and the deliverance from suffering. I’ll post some thoughts on these later.