2022-04-29 Satipatthana (66)-Knowing the Four Noble Truths

10:19PM Apr 29, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

suffering

understand

knowing

conscious

practicing

freedom

deep

strain

pay

four noble truths

effortless

noble truths

wonderful

noble truth

mindfulness

welfare

talks

week

aware

dukkha

I wanted to read a wonderful passage from the teachings of the Buddha that the Buddha talks about, he says it is enough, it's enough to do this, this is a good enough wonderful life. This is enough, just if you just do this with your life, somehow, something like that. So rather than thinking of this as like a high standard, something, but maybe it is, but this is enough, this is, this is a wonderful way he this would be enough, if you just did this, it would be enough. Practicing for your own, for your own welfare is enough. Practicing for the welfare of others, is enough. Practicing for the welfare of both the self and others is enough. There's a little bit more, it's a little bit more than that it was a little bit of a paraphrase of the text. But here we are practicing hopefully for the our welfare and the welfare of others. And we're this week we looked at the Four Noble Truths. And the wording of the Four Noble Truths is, to me is very simple, the wording itself, but very evocative. So one way it's evocative is that there are no pronouns in it. It says, one understands the noble truth of suffering, when understands the noble truth of the arising of suffering, when understands the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, and one understands the, the noble truth of the practice leading to the cessation of suffering. And there's no pronouns there's not, it's not emphasizing one's own suffering, or the suffering of others. And I like to interpret this to mean that, when we practice, we are available to be to recognize suffering wherever it is, in ourselves and the world around us. And, and that we can, it can be equally our care, to care for the suffering of others, it is care for ourselves. Each of them is enough, this little Tex sukha says, and in some of that's in, its in the samudaya, book, 12, sukha, sutta, 22. And it's a, so each each is each is enough. But whatever we're at paying attention to the suffering of others, if that's what salient, that's what's prominent. That's enough, that's good. Paying attention to our own suffering, that's good as well. Doing both here, it says is enough. But I think that doing both is really the best. Because if we only pay attention to the suffering of others, but not our own, we can easily say and act in ways that caused more harm for ourselves and for others. If we only pay attention to our own suffering, then it's too easy for that to be to reinforce self involvement, self preoccupation, selfishness of a certain kind. And it's too easy to then to not pay enough attention to the suffering of others, to similarly cause harm because we don't understand people we don't know the impact we're having or what is supportive for people. But to be able to do both, is a phenomenal thing. And one of the phenomenal aspects of the keeping the Four Noble Truths at the center of Buddhist practice. It's a form of self protection and protection for others. Because the ways because we'd notice, when we start becoming conflict, uncomfortable, tense, stressed,

distressed, we stop and pay attention to that. This is worth understanding, this is worth looking at. And that's a very different approach than just barreling ahead with the suffering. Kind of being preoccupied with in a way that reinforces it. But with this special awareness, we're developing in mind mindfulness, the ability to kind of in a metaphorical way step Back and know it, be conscious of it, were being no knowing and unconscious of it is, in some ways more important than the content and what's happening, where the knowing of it is where some freedom is found. And where the knowing of it gives us information about how maybe to correct your course correction, how to, you know, if you notice the shoulders are tense, maybe we that's maybe simple to relax the shoulders, if we notice were attached to some outcome, maybe that's not so easy to let go of that. Or we're holding on to some pain, you know, attached to suffering. That's not so easy to let go of. But slowly, we begin to learn that to have this different relationship to suffering, where, where it doesn't, it's not driving the show, it's not confusing us or, or preoccupying us in some deep way. We're learning this ability to step back and be conscious. So that in that consciousness, there are some ease some freedom. And there's the information we need to maybe do course corrections. So that's how it's protective. So that works. For example, in meditation practice, at some point, we become aware that we're straining, maybe we're trying too hard, or we have an expectation that should be different. We have this idea that I'm not doing it well. Those kinds of thoughts. And those kinds of things, that that kind of a strain, probably, you can feel some discomfort around having them some dukkha some strain or stress. And if you notice it, then you're, you're on the road to becoming free of it, especially if you've developed this capacity to be consciously aware, in this very clear way that we're talking about today. And so this is a this and then, and then we can make a course correction, we can maybe change what we're doing as well. So we're not so much focused on the content of what we know. And we're not necessarily focused on the process of what's happening. But we're, we're prioritizing, being conscious of it. Some people might feel that that's not enough that that's not you know, that's dangerous, or we're not going to take care of ourselves properly. But what happens is, as we can be relaxed and open and conscious in this kind of effortless way, that then we have access to deeper places of wisdom within deeper knowing deeper, we have time for some deeper process to unfold and, and, and enter a reference, how we what we say and what we do, we can reference it with, against or with this freedom or this spaciousness or this ease of this kind of knowing. So, so to be so the Four Noble Truths and instead of trying to understand what they mean, which is appropriate to help you under, you know, understood more this week, what it mean. But to also remember how important the word, to understand, to know, to know each one, and the knowing, grows, the capacity to know present moment, awareness, present moment, conscious awareness can grow. So it becomes a place of abiding of resting, a place of freedom, where we discover that in a deep way, what we're looking for and practice in a deep way, the freedom, the piece that deep we're looking for, maybe is not found in what we're trying to understand. But it's found in our capacity to understand

is not found in what we're trying to know. But it's found in the knowing itself. And that's a paradigm shift. May you appreciate your knowing your key, your ability to be conscious, to be attentive to be aware. May you over this weekend. Try to go through the day periodically Tapping into or exploring what I talked about today. But this value of understanding, knowing and this being conscious in this kind of effortless way we're used to receive and see what you learn and see what you learn how difficult it is when it's easy. What benefits come from it, even if you just have little hints of it from here and there. And then Monday, we'll start the last week on these, the four foundations of mindfulness. Now that we've gone through all the exercises, there's a foundation for for bringing it to a close. So thank you very much and look forward to Monday.