“When You Have Yin You Must Have Yang, When You Have Yang You Must Have Yin, They Mutually Kind Of

Four Noble Truths

Life on planet Earth will always have an element of unsatisfactoriness. This may range from full-blown hellish suffering to simply wanting more despite having so much already. There is no creature on this Earth that is without some form of suffering.

The cause of the unsatisfactoriness is existential confusion. Because we don’t know what we are, we take ourselves to be what we are not: a body, a mind, an agenda, a history with an intended future, a personality. All creatures seek happiness and avoid suffering. But what we think will bring us happiness and what we think will cause us suffering both depend on who we think we are. If we do not know who and what we actually are, we will never know how to really be happy and how to truly be free from suffering.

Existential confusion is not permanent and can be ended. Over the millennia, there have been humans who have realized enlightenment and became free. There is nothing preventing you from doing the same.

There is a path available that features deliberate practice to end existential confusion: the Dharma. Dharma is the no-nonsense, just-the-facts approach to finding insight into your existential condition and enjoying freedom from its limitations. More information and guidance is available today than any other time in history.

Some people suffer too much and it makes it almost impossible to practice the path. If you are one such person, do not give up. There are adjustments you can make to support you. And it is our job to find ways to help reduce your suffering so that you can practice.

Other people suffer too little. Due to their privilege and/or immense good fortune, they have not suffered enough in this life to allow them to realize something is wrong. They haven’t noticed this sense of unsatisfactoriness even though it drives much of their daily activity.

However, the majority of humans fall in-between those extremes. So why are they not on the path?

Either they haven’t encountered clear and true teachings, they were never told freedom is possible, they have yet to see clearly their own suffering, or they have yet to clearly discern the cause of their own suffering.

These Four Noble Truths of the Buddha are The Good News that buddhists offer the world. Contemplate each for yourself:

Are you suffering? Are you unsatisfied? Do you feel a lack of wholeness? What elements of your daily life trouble you? Why?

Regarding your answers to #1, ask yourself how your identity plays a role. How might your sense of self, your sense of being an individual, be a cause behind your suffering?

Have you ever tasted freedom from your sense of self? Or tasted a freedom that is beyond this human world and its unsatisfactoriness? Think about what that was like and how it differs from your ordinary feeling of pleasure or happiness from daily life.

Ask yourself what you are doing to free yourself. Is it working? Does it make sense in light of the contemplations of #1-#3? Are you feeling enthusiastic about your path and practice? If you lack energy or motivation, it can help to return to these contemplations.

The Noble Truths were the first teaching of the Buddha and you can see why. It establishes the reasons to practice the path in earnest. 🙂

May all beings be free.

LY

The basic problem is that one believes that everything is real, and thus everything is treated as such.

- Kalu Rinpoche

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.

-Eckhart Tolle

You are going to laugh until your stomach hurts again. You're going to be in awe of a sunset. Watch your favorite show while you eat your favorite food. Find money on the street. Discover a great band you haven't heard of before. You will find your way back.

If we are completely present to whatever is arising, we can stretch beyond our self-imposed limits; we can endure what may seem unendurable.

- Shinge Roko Cherry Shayat Roshi

Forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time.

Your life is now. Your life situation is mind-stuff.

Your life is real.

— Eckhart Tolle

How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.

Eckhart Tolle

“I can disagree with a political leader’s actions. I can legislate. I can do civil disobedience if I think what they support is wrong. I can disagree with actions that are not compassionate. But I want to keep my heart open. If I don’t, I am part of the problem, not part of the solution. And that’s just not interesting enough. That’s what the inner work is—to become part of the solution.

You don’t have to act out of anger in order to oppose something. You can act to oppose something because it creates suffering. You can become an instrument of that which relieves suffering, but you don’t have to get angry about it.

Social action does not have to be pumped up by righteous indignation or anger. That’s working with the dark forces. That’s working with fear. You can work with love. You can oppose somebody out of love. You can do social action out of love. And that’s the way you win the whole war, not just the battle..."

~ Ram Dass