THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
there is:
1) Suffering or dis-satisfactoriness
2) The cause of suffering
3) The end of suffering
4) The path that leads to the end of suffering.
The fourth noble truth is
The Buddha’s Noble Eight-fold Path
that leads to suffering’s cessation:
1. Right view
2. Right intention
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration
For a deeper introduction:
https://mauimarryingman.com/category/buddhas-noble-eight-fold-path/
Resolve
I strongly recommend developing the freedom to
choose what happens in your life, which comes from discipline.
While people often think of discipline as being contrary to freedom,
I equate the two in many ways.
Discipline and resolve allow us to make choices about what we do,
and allow us to stay strong in the face of difficulties.
Thus,
I recommend that when you set aside a period for a specific training,
you resolve that for that period you will work on the
specific training you have set out to work on,
and that you will work on it wholeheartedly.
I have found it extremely valuable,
particularly when sitting down to do formal meditation,
to state to myself at the beginning of the session
exactly what I am doing, with the volition to attain by it, and
why attaining that is a good idea.
I do this formally and clearly, either aloud or silently to myself.
Having done practice with and without such resolutions,
I have come to the definite conclusion that
they can make a huge difference in my practice.
One of my favorite resolutions goes something like this:
I resolve that for this hour I will consistently investigate
the sensations that make up reality
to attain to liberating insights for the benefit of myself and all beings.
a senior teacher straightened me out and convinced me to
ground my mind in the specific sensations that make up the objects of meditation
and examine impermanence.
After some days of consistent and diligent practice using correct technique,
I began to directly penetrate the three illusions of
permanence, satisfactoriness, and self,
and my world began to be broken down into
the mind-moments and vibrations
that I always thought were just talk.
By paying careful attention to bare phenomena arising and passing
moment after quick moment,
I progressively moved through the stages of insight
and got my first taste of awakening.
It doesn’t matter what the quality of your mind is,
or what the sensations of your body are;
if you directly understand the momentary sensations
that make these up to be
impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not a self
or
the property of any self, then you are on the right path,
the path of liberating insight.
However,
off the cushion the quality of your mind, your reactions, your words and deeds
all matter.
There is no contradiction.
Insight practice is about ultimate reality,
the true aspects that apply equally to all sensations regardless of what they are.
~~~
Morality and concentration are about relative reality,
about creatively crafting a mind, body, and karmic traces
that are as good and skillful as we can make them,
and thus
the specifics are everything.
Learning to be a master of both ultimate and relative
is what mastery is all about.
There are only three doors.
I don’t care what tradition you subscribe to, what practice you do,
or who you are,
there are only three basic ways to enter the attainment of
fruition, nirvana, nibbana, or whatever you want to call it.
These doors relate directly to profound and direct realization of
the three characteristics of
impermanence, dissatisfactoriness, and no-self,
and you must understand the heck out of these
to join the ranks of the awakened ones.
~~~
“But there are many valid traditions that do not talk about
the three characteristics!”
That may appear to be the case, but
if the tradition is a valid one, you will find these teachings there somewhere,
in some other language or formulation, as these are the only way.
You will find them in the works of Rumi, Kabir, and Krishnamurti.
You will find them in the Bible and the Koran.
You will find them in the writings of St. John of the Cross
and many other Christian mystics.
You will find them in all the branches of Buddhism.
You will find them in the Upanishads.
You will find them wherever you find a true spiritual path,
and that is just all there is to it.
~~~
It can help to consider that to completely understand compassion
is to understand suffering and vice versa,
as these are really two sides of the same coin.
Also,
to understand true-self practices to their end
is the same as understanding no-self practices,
as these are also two sides of the same coin.
Should you gain ultimate realizations,
it will be through one of the three doors.
This is just the way it is. It is not negotiable.
The natures of the mind and reality are just
the natures of the mind and reality.
You cannot change this, but you can realize it.
~~~
Clearly penetrating the nature of your actual experience just as it is.
Nothing helps in the end like
understanding the wisdom-producing aspects of our experience,
that is,
the three characteristics.
Goals tend to involve a heavy future component.
That future component, poorly related to, can fry insight practitioners.
The trick is to add a component that relates to the here and now as well.
For instance,
we could wish to become awakened.
This is a purely future-oriented goal.
We could also wish to understand the true nature of the sensations
that make up our world so clearly that we become awakened.
This adds a present component
and makes the whole enterprise much more reasonable and workable.
We could simply wish
to understand deeply the true nature of the sensations
that make up our world as they naturally arise and vanish
in that practice session or throughout that day.
This is a very immediate and present-oriented goal,
and a very fine one indeed.
It is also method-oriented rather than result-oriented.
This is the mark of a good goal.
Wishing to become awakened or more awakened
is only helpful if it leads us to live in the present as it is.
Stay present-oriented whenever possible, and
always avoid purely future-oriented or results-oriented goals!
~~~
Clearly understanding the truth of our humanity and life.
Becoming fluent in the true nature of all categories of sensations,
including the sensations that make up all categories of emotions,
is a particularly good idea and highly recommended.
Those who are passionate about practice
and learning to practice correctly
are much more likely to make progress
than those who are not.
Those who can channel
rage, frustration, lust, greed, despair, confusion, and anguish
into trying to find a better way
are more likely to have what it takes to finally attain freedom.
Those who can sit with the specific sensations that make up
rage, lust, anger, confusion, and all the rest with
clarity, precision, acceptance of their humanity, and equanimity
are even more likely to get enlightened.
The Buddha also recommended the formal concentration practices called
the brahma viharas, or “divine abodes”,
which are to be cultivated toward all sentient beings:
(1) loving-kindness;
(2) compassion;
(3) empathic joy; and
(4) equanimity
At each progressive stage,
certain unhelpful patterns of identifying with experience
are forever eliminated or overcome,
sort of like channeling a river through one part of the stables,
but many more remain until awakening.
Thus,
the mind becomes progressively clearer, more spacious, more still,
and those unskillful thoughts and other sensations
that we do still subtly identify with and that do still arise
are more likely to be caught and monitored before they can do damage.
Thus,
those who wish for the end of suffering should strive to be kind,
or at least deeply non-harming, to stabilize the mind,
and to carefully and precisely understand
the actual truth of their experience in each moment in a way that goes beyond content.
This article was Inspired by
Buddha’s step by step instructions to obtain Enlightenment
as refined by The Arahant Daneil M. Ingram.
