"What Buddha Taught"
by Dr. Rahul
A man has a faith. If he says, "this is my faith," he maintains the truth. However, by that he cannot proceed to the absolute conclusion: "this alone is the Truth, and everything else is False."
The ideas produced here are a man's faith. Thinking about them and applying them to one's life, one may find the Truth and happiness.
In order to be happy in life one must understand the four noble truths:
(1) Sorrow (Dukkha)
(2) Origin of sorrow
(3) Freedom from sorrow
(4) The path to the freedom from sorrow
THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH
SORROW (Dukkha) ‑
Everybody's life is full of mishaps and falls short of expectations. This creates a feeling of sorrow and suffering in one's mind.
Being impatient or angry at suffering does not reduce or remove the suffering. On the contrary, it adds a little more to one's troubles and aggravates an already disagreeable situation.
What is necessary is not anger or impatience, but the understanding of the question of suffering, how it comes about, and how to get rid of it. Then work accordingly with patience, intelligence, determination, and energy.
THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH
ORIGIN OF SORROW (DUKKHA) ‑
The origin of sorrow is craving, thirst, desire, or greed, which manifests itself in various ways that gives rise of all forms of sorrow and suffering.
The term "thirst" includes not only desire for and attachment to sensory pleasures, wealth, and power, but also desire for and attachment to ideas, views, opinions, theories, and conceptions.
It is the craving that bounds up with passionate greed and which finds fresh delight everywhere, namely
(1) craving for sensory pleasures
(2) craving for existence and becoming
‑ to become more
‑ to grow more
‑ to accumulate more
There are four nutriments for the existence and continuity of beings:
(1) ordinary material food
(2) contact of our sense‑organs (including mind) with the external world (3) consciousness
(4) mental volition or will
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