One More Cause

There is something about beliefs that we grow up with, and never question, that drive us like nothing else. Most of us are liberal, somewhat. There is a issue with labels, for it is each issue that needs the label, not the entire person. Some of our concepts are liberal, once we move to a society, we as a species became liberal and progressive; we always were adaptive. Some of these liberal attitudes take us too far, then we need to cut off that concept, back up the damage, and revise.

One such concept that I gathered from others is that I should never be hungry. This is problematic for me because I seem to be hungry all the time. Buddha said that "life is suffering."  This can be translated as unsatisfactory, problematic, painful, discomfort, from physical and emotional pain, stress, chaos, life in general. Hunger is just one more of those things. Is it all about learning to live hungry? Here is the first noble truth.

Unsatisfied is our natural state. We are a liberal species. The discomfort I feel is a result of my thinking about the subject, not the situation or condition. The cause are my delusion about what life should be and my expectations of what life should be. It is my thinking that is the problem, something that I did not learn as small child. I was taught to develop expectations and now need to understand that what I was taught was just wrong. It is all about our individual thinking. Much of it is just wrong, and when I considered this, one line at a time, one concept at a time, it becomes clear: life is suffering caused by my thinking. It is not the situation, but my thinking about the situation. Here is the second noble truth.

There is a solution, and that is the third noble truth. I can develop a "grateful martyr" attitude, all the while knowing that it is just a thought defense. It is a struggle to go against society predominant idea or situation, even when it is wrong. Oh well, we live until we die, and are no more. Nothing lasts. Impermanence. Change. Birth - life - death cycle, and from the remains of our spices, the next may come... or not.

The solution is to follow a plan, and ignore the discomfort, because the discomfort is from my thinking about the problem, not the actual problem. There may also be some minor discomfort from the actual problem, but this is beyond my control... but could eat... and that is the other problem... so I must choose the lesser weevil... or for the grammar police evil. Essentially, this is the fourth noble step, but the plan is a specific part of the eight fold path. Here endith the lesson for today.