The Central Teaching of Buddhism is Brilliant and Can Help us All…if we Understand it Correctly
It’s about the nature of suffering.
I’m usually reluctant to write about Buddhism. It’s not that I have anything against it (I don’t). My reluctance stems from my lesser familiarity with it compared to many readers out there (I’m thinking of you, Sandra Pawula!).
Mostly this is about common misunderstandings of what the Buddha had in mind when teaching about suffering. It’s a misunderstanding I had up until recently.
By the way, the following may sound uber-obvious to some of you, but I know I wasn’t clear on it until recently, so bear with me Buddhism experts.
The Four Noble Truths
Let’s start with a quick summation of the heart of Buddhism: The Four Noble Truths.
Those are:
1. All life is suffering.
2. Suffering is caused by desire.
3. Eliminate the desire and we eliminate the suffering.
4. Eliminate the desire by following the Eightfold Path.
The mistake many make is immediately equating suffering with our conception of it: agonizing starvation of kids in Africa, people slaughtered in wars…
