Fundamental Teaching of the Buddha — Four Noble Truths (1)
A Life is Full of Dis-Satisfaction
Siddhartha Gautama achieved enlightenment and became “the Buddha” after six years of ascetic practices, and he sat under the Bodhi tree for several days. He thought, “This state of nirvana is so good. Let me stay here forever.” Expected to the Buddha helping others, two Hindu deities, Brahman and Indra, rush to him from heaven and say, “Please don’t abandon people suffering in this world. You now have the wisdom to teach and save them from saṃsāra, a cycle of birth and death. The Buddha was initially reluctant to meet their expectation but eventually decided to preach to people for 45 years until he died at 80.
“This is a mythic story about the life of the Buddha,” I said to my students in the first class, “Zen and Japanese Culture,” I teach at the college — this writing series will be based on my lectures.
“OK, then what happened after Hindu deities persuaded the Buddha to teach people?” one student asked.
“According to the story, he kept sitting and enjoying nirvana. However,” I continued, “Deers approached the Buddha and sat nearby. Following them, five ascetic buddies, who once condemned Siddhartha when he took a rice porridge (or milk, depending on different stories) offered by a village girl when they were fastened, naturally sat next to him while feeling something different from their old friend freshly transformed into another being.”
Then, the Buddha naturally started to speak out about what he experienced. It was the first sermon by the Buddha at the place called “Deer Park” — that is why there are so many deers around Buddhist temples in Japan, especially in the ancient city of Nara, a 30-minute train distance from Kyoto.
It is said that the Four Noble Truths was the main topic of the Buddha’s first preach. I asked the students what was the first truth among the four. One of them immediately answered:
“There is suffering in this world!!”
“Right. But that is it?”
“Life is suffering!!” another student said with confidence.
“That sounds better. A life is full of suffering, or life itself IS suffering. Human beings were born to suffer. Is that what the Buddha meant?” I asked him back.
“I don’t think … I don’t believe so … ” Now the student lost his confidence.
At that moment, another student yelled as if he could no longer stand listening to this essential teaching of Buddhism, “It sounds unfair to say that there is only suffering in this world!!”
Another student screamed, “I completely disagree with the first truth. There are a lot of pleasures and joys in life as well!”
These are “typical” reactions from students I often encounter when I teach Buddhism. “Sure, it sounds too pessimistic worldview. For young people, such a statement is hard to make sense, of course,” I thought in my mind. Yet, I continuously asked:
“But the Buddha didn’t claim that suffering inherently exists. It is our mind that makes them like existing.”
“What does it mean? Is it a kind of idealism?” One philosophically oriented student reasonably asked.
“Yeah, kind of — did you watch the movie ‘Matrix,’ whose central theme was idealism? Keanu Reeves likes Buddhism. He also played the role of the Buddha in the movie ‘Little Buddha’,” I surprised people by introducing outdated trivia.
Generally, Buddhism doesn’t insist on a “complete” idealism that rejects everything from any perception levels, if not sub-particle level of theories discussed in a new physics. However, the Buddha wasn’t a philosopher who liked to argue an ontological issue. He was more like a psychologist (and religious teacher as an extension of psychology). Therefore, the Four Noble Truths doesn’t emphasize physical suffering caused by pain, sickness, or other hindrances. Instead, he analyzed the mechanism of psychological suffering, how it occurs, and how we can overcome it.
“Psychological suffering? For example?” One student asked.
“The Buddha talked about several examples of such psychological suffering. People can suffer when they meet unpleasant people.”
“Did the Buddha mention it?” One student laughed.
“I don’t know if he really said that, but it is described in one of the Sutras, ‘records of the Buddha’s teachings.’ But isn’t it true that we always have someone who annoys us in an office, school, wherever we are?” When I made a half-joke yet serious fact, many students nodded with joy.
“Besides such an example,” I continued, “the Buddha also mentioned the psychological pain we experience when separated from our beloved. There is nobody who can avoid this. It is one of the saddest things I can think of. I can’t imagine the situation that I have to say goodbye to my wife and kid forever!!” The air in the classroom was frozen.
However, the primary suffering the Buddha wanted to argue in the Four Noble Truths was the psychological suffering people encounter when they can’t get something that they desire. According to the Buddha, life is full of such kind of psychological suffering.
“Well, I admit that I sometimes feel that kind of mental suffering, but not always!!” The student still couldn’t be satisfied.
“In most situations in our life scenes …” I continued, “as long as we expect something, we inevitably suffer with no exception.”
“What do you mean? We always expect something and behave according to the expectations, don’t we?” a student said.
I replied, “But what if the result of our behavior didn’t match our expectations? Isn’t that an experience we always have? How do you feel if there is a gap between ‘ideal’ and ‘reality’?”
“I would feel frustrated,” she answered.
“Right?” I agreed and continued, “I would say that it is a better way to express the duḥkha, the original Sanskrit word in the Four Noble Truths, usually translated as ‘suffering’ in English. But, I think that duḥkha should be understood as the mental state of frustration, stresses, or dissatisfaction in modern psychological terms.”
“So, a life is full of dissatisfaction!!”
“Yes. Don’t you agree with that? People always complain about something.”
“But I know how to satisfy!!” Another student still wanted to challenge the Buddha.
“Maybe, at the moment,” I said and continued, “But don’t you expect something else immediately after satisfying with something? We never stop looking for something, don’t we? According to the Buddhist saying, our mind is like a monkey restlessly moving from one branch to another.”
We don’t know how to maintain a satisfactory status. That is what the Buddha wanted to say. That is the main argument of the Four Noble Truths. Today, we will finish our class by confirming the better translation of the first truth: ‘A life is full of dissatisfaction.’ In the next class, we will focus on investigating the second truth.
