Buddhism Views on Suffering
The religion of Buddhism has a very different approach to that of Catholicism, in which the main goal of followers of the Buddhist faith is to escape the suffering which exists in the world. 2500 years ago Buddha himself said, "I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That's all I teach” (BBC, 2009). In the case of Buddhism, human suffering causes Buddhists to have faith towards a new stage, called enlightenment, where all suffering no longer exists. The key Buddhist teaching called the Four Noble Truths, is the essence of Buddha’s philosophies and outlines four stages of suffering. According to the BBC (2009), a well-known news source, “In the first two Noble Truths he (Buddha) diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified its cause… The third Noble Truth is the realization that there is a cure… and the fourth Noble Truth, in which the Buddha set out the Eightfold Path (another teaching), is the prescription, the way to achieve a release from suffering.” The Four Noble Truths are often also referred to as the four realities of life, by people of the Buddhist faith who are spiritually aware. These four realities are given the titles of: the truth of suffering, the truth of arising, the truth of cessation, and the truth of the path (Hardy, 2008). Ultimately, the goal of Buddhism is to reach the end of all suffering. Buddhist believe this can reached by following the teachings of the Four Noble Truths, and then the Eightfold Path, but also by living an ethical and spiritually aware lifestyle (BBC, 2009). Buddhist scholar Donald Lopez says, "If it is possible to identify a particular contribution of the Buddha to the philosophies of his day, it would be the thoroughgoing emphasis on causation as an inexorable force whose devastating effects can be escaped by understanding its operation. That is, everything is an effect of a cause. If the cause can be identified and destroyed, the effect is also destroyed" (Hardy, 2008). This mentality of diagnosing, understanding and prescribing a cure to suffering, is what the Four Noble Truths focus on. It is evident that Buddhism does not see suffering as a way to connect with God, but as an opportunity to redeem one’s self to escape the process of ongoing pain.
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THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS:
- The First Noble Truth: Suffering (Dukkha) - Suffering comes in many forms. Three obvious kinds of suffering correspond to the first three sights the Buddha saw on his first journey outside his palace: old age, sickness and death. - But according to the Buddha, the problem of suffering goes much deeper. Life is not ideal: it frequently fails to live up to our expectations. - Fortunately the Buddha's teachings do not end with suffering; rather, they go on to tell us what we can do about it and how to end it. - The Second Noble Truth: Origin of suffering (Samudāya) - The Buddha taught that the root of all suffering is desire, tanhā. This comes in three forms, which he described as the Three Roots of Evil, or the Three Fires, or the Three Poisons. - These are the three ultimate causes of suffering: - Greed and desire, represented in art by a rooster - Ignorance or delusion, represented by a pig - Hatred and destructive urges, represented by a snake - The Third Noble Truth: Cessation of suffering (Nirodha) - The Buddha taught that the way to extinguish desire, which causes suffering, is to liberate oneself from attachment. - The Buddha was a living example that this is possible in a human lifetime. - The Fourth Noble Truth- Path to the cessation of suffering (Magga) - The final Noble Truth is the Buddha's prescription for the end of suffering. This is a set of principles called the Eightfold Path. - The Eightfold Path is also called the Middle Way: it avoids both indulgence and severe asceticism, neither of which the Buddha had found helpful in his search for enlightenment. via... http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml |