Recalibrating our Response to the World with the Four Nobel Truths
~ By Ajahn Pasanno ~
It’s been another week in quarantine, of sheltering in place. It’s kind of like the movie Groundhog Day: waking up and it's the same day; it’s the same thing; it’s the same old life all over again — not going anywhere.
Of course we were never going anywhere anyway, really. The world and life in general is kind of geared to creating an illusion of security, an illusion of progress, an illusion of some sort of meaning and purpose. That’s what it is extremely good at. And of course the Buddha said a long time ago that this was not the case: "There’s a problem here — hey, hey, there’s actually a problem here.”
People just sort of ignored it. They continued to go after that illusion of security, that illusion of gratification. But this is a circumstance where we are forced to reflect, forced to see things in a different light. And of course there’s some suffering in there, which is exactly what the Buddha used as his foundation: there is suffering.
He gave us the Four Nobel Truths. There is dukkha (suffering). There is a cause to dukkha and an origin. There is cessation and an ending. And there is a path leading to the ending of dukkha.
This is a “how" approach, whereas the habit of the world tends to be “why." Why is this happening? Who is to blame? Why me? Why are we born… why, why, why? People have been answering these questions for a long time, as have most religions. The Buddha sidestepped all of that “why.”
That’s one of the hallmarks of the Buddha's teachings. He's trying to get us to look at “how." How do we work with things? How do we see? How do we investigate? What is this experience of suffering, dissatisfaction and stress? How do I deal with a life that’s gone all pear-shaped? How do I deal with a mind that is reacting out of fear, getting stuck in loops of frustration? How do I look at things from the perspective of seeing them in a different light? How to recalibrate our perspective, recalibrate our response to the world rather than reacting from our biases?
(From ‘Turning Inward,' a Dhamma talk offered at Abhayagiri Monastery on 2 May 2020.)
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For other recent videos of Dhamma teachings at Abhayagiri Monastery (California, USA), please see Abhayagiri Monastery Youtube.
Photograph: From Abhayagiri Monastery Website.