Monthly Archives: December 2014

The Four Truths

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The Four Truths are most frequently heard referred to as the Four Noble Truths, although a more accurate translation would be Four Arya Truths.  In brief, the Four Truths are:

  1. There is suffering
  2. Suffering has an origin
  3. Suffering has an end
  4. There is a way to end suffering

 

The Four Truths are a concise description of the worldview that leads to liberation.  Part of the attainment of stream-entry is the realization of these truths (hence the name Four Arya Truths).

The Buddha in his first teaching (Dhammacakka Sutta) said the following about the First Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

The Second Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of the origin of suffering: It is craving which produces rebirth, bound up with pleasure and greed. It finds delight in this and that; in other words, craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence or becoming and craving for nonexistence or self-annihilation.

The Third Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of the cessation of suffering. It is the complete cessation of suffering, the giving up, renouncing, relinquishing, detaching from craving.

and The Fourth Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering. It is simply the Aryan Eightfold Path, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration.

The first book that I picked up on Buddhism was Venerable Rewata Dhamma’s The First Discourse of the Buddha.  I highly recommend it.  It is a pith book that clearly outlines the Arya Eightfold Path and has a nice section on “right concentration” that describes the jhanas and other essentials.

Reference:  Rewata Dhamma (1997) The First Discourse of the Buddha.  Wisdom Press, Somerville Massachusetts.


Arya

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An ayra or stream-enterer is a person that has eliminated the first three fetters.  These are

  • view that one is a separate self
  • belief that rites and rituals alone could lead to liberation
  • doubt or uncertainty, especially about the teachings regarding liberation (i.e. the noble eightfold path)

 

When we run into the word “noble” as in the eightfold noble path or the four noble truths, these are unfortunate translations of the word arya.  While an arya is noble, they are not nobility in our normal use of the word to mean royalty or a member of the aristocratic class.

The classic method of attaining stream-entry (aryahood) is to experience ultimate reality directly.  During this experience all cognition and sensing naturally ceases.  It is unclear how one know something has happened, but people do.  This experience can lead to a deep realization of how things really exist and the four arya truths (four noble truths) that the Buddha taught.  After the experience the practitioner has confidence in the path to liberation and although they experience themselves as a separate self, they no longer believe it at all.

An arya is called a stream-enterer, because they have reached a state which naturally flows to liberation.  The arya cannot fail to become enlightened, although I suppose it is possible to purposely revert back.

 

The Man Who Dreamt He Was a Butterfly

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Perhaps you have heard this quote by Master Zhuangzi, or at least part of it.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and moon and butterflythither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Master Culadasa once remarked that one cannot really know if they are dreaming or awake since the distinction is unclear.  I thought this was curious.  Having had some experiences with lucid dreaming I knew it was possible to make a distinction between being awake and being asleep dreaming.  Further, my dreams seemed to be marked by a lack of clarity or the sense that things only existed where I was looking and could change or disappear if I looked away.

Last night I had a dream that shifted my perspective on this matter.  I just ordered another book on lucid dreaming that has not arrived yet, but when reading reviews of various books one person mentioned a technique of getting into the habit of asking yourself during the day, “Am I dreaming?”  and then following with a second questions, “Am I sure?”  Once the habit of questioning is established, it will follow into your dream state and allow you to “wake up”.

Last night I was in a dream and I stopped and asked myself if I was dreaming.  I answered myself, “no”.  Then I reminded myself that I needed to ask the second question to be sure.  I scanned the area I was in (some type of fair with booths) and concluded, “Sure, not dreaming.”  I asked myself several times during the course of the dream, telling myself, “I need to practice this so that when I’m dreaming I’ll remember to do it.”

The funny thing is that the dream had so many clues that I wasn’t awake.  First my dead brother was in it.  Second one of the people I work with was in it and was Iranian and not native Hawaiian like she is.  Third, my brother connected me up to start working at one of the booths.  And get this:  It was a Lucid Dreaming booth. LOL

Anyway, I need to have a strategy to use during the dream to decide whether I am sure or not sure I am dreaming.  Apparently just scanning my immediate surroundings is not enough.

There is continuity in my awake life that is not present in my dreams.  My mind seems to stream in a cohesive way when I am awake.  I can remember going to sleep, waking up, meditating, and sitting down to blog.  In a dream things are more disjointed.

Leonardo Dicaprio captures it best in Inception when he says,  “Dreams, they  feel real while we are in them, right?  It is only when we wake up that we realize that something was actually strange.  You never really remember the beginning of a dream do you?  You always wind up right in the middle of what’s going on.”  At this point the person he is talking to, Ellen Page, realizes she is dreaming and the dream “explodes” or falls apart.

This may be a clue I can use.  The trick to being sure if I am awake or dreaming is to ask myself if I can remember how I got to the place I am dreaming I am.

More from Master Zhuangzi on dreaming:

How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king’s bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears.

How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming.

We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.