SPIRITUALITY REFLECTION ON FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS IN BUDDHISM

There are four noble truths in Buddhism. It’s the process of suffering cessation. I will make it short and easier to understand. The Four Noble Truths are traditionally identified as the first and most important teachings given by the Buddha. The Four Noble Truths provide a thorough explanation of human suffering, as well as a method, a path that leads to happiness, inner peace, and compassion. They are the truth of suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path that leads to the end of suffering. The Four Noble Truths are a contingency plan for dealing with the suffering humanity faces.

The four noble truths reflect four stages. The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first truth, he was diagnosed suffering an illness. In the second truth, he recognized attachment as the cause. The third truth is the understanding that there is a remedy, a cure to that suffering. In the fourth noble truth, the Buddha gives us the prescription, the antidote to achieve relief from suffering. That remedy is the eightfold Path.

1. The First Noble Truth Is About Understanding the Suffering

The Suffering to Be Investigated

Suffering, incapable of being satisfied, painful, or discontent. The First Noble Truth is a plain and obvious realization that life contains suffering at various levels. This includes physical suffering like pain, injury, illness, emotional, mental uneasiness, and discomfort. This is where you feel frustrated, depressed, and uneasy all the time. Some mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, restlessness, and depression are also a part of this.

2. The Second Noble Truth Recognizes the Sufferings in Our Life:

The Origin of Suffering to Be Abandoned

Craving, clinging, desire, or attachment. In the second noble Truth, the Buddha tells us that the root of all suffering is attachment to the desire to have or craving (sensual desires, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming), the attachment to the desire not to have or aversion (fear of getting, or to be in contact with what we don’t want or what we don’t like) and the attachment to ignorant views (one’s incapacity to see the true nature of the self and the world, to see things as they really are, without the filter of the discriminating mind).

3. The Third Noble Truth Is How to End the Suffering

There End to Suffering to Be Realized

Cessation/ending/eliminating all craving and attachment. The Third Noble Truth reveals to us that there is a way to end suffering, and we can realize this in our life. It also invites us to transform, to finally get free from our suffering and dissatisfaction. This is the most important of the Four Noble Truths because it gives us hope that inner peace, freedom, and liberation are possible. The Buddha stated that to put an end to suffering. We need to let go of our attachment to our desires. Please notice that he didn’t say “letting go of your desires” since getting rid of desires altogether is impractical and impossible. The important is not becoming a slave to our desires.

4. The Fourth Is Practicing the Path to Renounce the Suffering:

The Way to The End of Suffering to Be Developed

The path to ending dukkha – Noble Eightfold Path. The final Noble Truth is the Buddha’s prescription for the end of suffering. This is a set of principles called the Eightfold Path. Buddhism never requests blind faith from its followers, so apply the Eightfold Path to your life. You’ll be amazed to see where the self-discovery and serenity resulting from it will take you.

The Second Noble Truth Recognizes the Sufferings in Our Life

Living in our society, no matter how you live, you get to work and do something to make your living, then you need to find a job, a good job during and before you age, that’s the nature of a civilized world but also the suffering that you experience and live in life. Sickness and old age are parts of life aside, but to live, you get to support your life and others depending on you.

When you drive to buy things for your house at Home Depot, a large store chain selling raw materials and tools for construction in the USA, you can see a lot of people standing around the store in the sun, the rain, and the snow looking for temporary jobs. Others have to go far from their home country to find better jobs. Though full of willingness to work, it’s not always easy to find a job either, and people may find it very stressful and dangerous jobs. As if you have a family, you have to feed your kid. You have to feed your partner and parents at home… Not much of a choice, but it’s the way of life. It’s suffering that we are in, but we get to make it worthwhile for our spiritual cultivation. We get to use them as our lessons to learn, grow, and cultivate wisdom.

Back to sickness, when you are at a young age, you feel strong, like a superhuman. You will never get sick. Then you may think if you don’t get sick when your parents ask you to buy health insurance, you will ask them why you need the insurance. Your parents and grandparents understand why that’s the reason they push you to buy insurance. Sickness is the nature of life.

It’s also an unfortunate event in life because sickness is unpredictable. It can happen to you no matter your age and your feelings. We get to find a way to take care of ourselves if we fall sick. That’s why people have to buy insurance, as hospital bills can be extremely stressful that can ruin your life.

Just like old age, and now you start to feel suffering, and you feel discouraged, and you don’t want to take photos anymore because you look so old in the photo. I also have so many wrinkles, and my face is beginning to deform. I no longer look fresh and youthful like when I was in my 20s, though I took care of myself utmost with everything I know and am able to obtain. However, meditation and spirituality have strongly kept my stress and emotion at bay. I do look much better than others who are the same age.

Another day at breakfast, I was startled to see a tooth missing from my mom’s lower front teeth. I asked her what happened to her missing tooth. She said she touched it, and it was moving. Then she pulled it off herself. She is in her late sixties and approaching her seventies. Her teeth are already starting to fall off.

I also know many others who are younger than her. Some of them lost entire teeth or most of the teeth. So, you see, that is old age. But taking care of your teeth at a young age, not smoking too much, flossing your teeth every night before brushing, and seeing a dentist routinely surely can help to maintain not only hygiene but the health of your teeth for the long term.

In old age, falling is extremely dangerous and even called death. In sixty’s the seventies, or eighties, if you fall, surely you are going to stay in the hospital for a longer period of time or even die. You will experience pain as imminent.

You even end up in surgery beds. Then you will experience body pain to the extreme. One of my friends in his 70s, as usual, indulged in his private hot jacuzzi at home. He fell off the stair up to the pool. He broke his hip and ended up in the hospital for three months and another three months of physical therapy at home. He had all health insurance to cover the cost, but his walking is no longer stable and straight up like before the fall.

If You Don’t See the Sickness in You, Then You Think You Don’t Need to Get a Cure

Many years ago, in the early 1970s, a lot of people died of unknown causes, and body immunity went down, and it couldn’t defend the body, even a simple sickness like a cold or small infection. They didn’t know why until 1978. They just found out that it was caused by HIV. HIV is a virus that infects people, and it weakens the immunity system, so it gives the opportunity for other diseases to attack the host and kill that person. So many people died before from that unknown cause.

At that time, they were trying to identify the cause of death and why people died mysteriously, they didn't know yet, but they recognized that something was going on wrongfully. That was the reason they went deeper researching to understand the cause and next finding its cure. Relatively, we have to recognize our suffering first. If we don’t recognize our suffering, we can never understand and overcome it. Overcome is succeeding in dealing with it. That’s the cessation of the problem. But before that, we need to recognize the problem, then know the cause and understand its nature. Then, with more research, practice, and experiment follow, we may find a cure.

The Jealousy and Possession

Falling in love is a natural and the most beautiful thing that can happen to anyone. Most people are lucky to get the love of their life and have children with their loved ones, while some unfortunate ones might end up breaking up with their partners. A few years ago, one of my friends shared a story about his Filipino friend who was in his mid-20s living in California. He took his own life because his girlfriend broke up with him. However, I was curious about what had happened between them. I mean, it had to be jealousy, possessiveness, or something negative of such sort that led to their break up.

Anyone having such feelings in their heart suffers in relation to some extent. Romantically falling in love with someone is an extremely strong emotion. It’s even stronger than the love of your parents. It is intense and thought-provoking. However, too much of it can ruin a person. People start to take it as a universal truth and surround their life with this person. The pain of being cheated, rejected, or abandoned turns into jealousy and anger. Being possessive of someone suffers entirely, not to mention how insecure it makes a person.

When you are in love with someone, and that person cheats, it crushes your soul. You develop trust issues and start to feel sorrowful and depressed. Many people even kill themselves, committing suicide. They end their lives unwisely, suffering from ignorance.

The Pain of Losing a Family Member, The Pain of Losing a Loved One Through Emotional Attachment

Life is beautiful when you think you have children with someone you love very much, or sometimes you have only one son or a daughter, and you love your child more than anything in the world. When your children are young, you carry and take care of your babies until they are growing up.

Your child looks beautiful every day in your eyes. Your finance and life are also a success. You give them everything. Sounds like such a happy ending. Then suddenly, your kid gets into an accident, and then he/she dies. Seemed everything collapsed, nothing could replace your loved child, and you couldn’t even have any more kids. You are already old, and you can’t give birth to a new one because you didn’t plan and see that suffer. You fall into sorrow and pain. The more you love your child, the more you will suffer emotionally.

They came into your life and gave you a beautiful time. You enjoyed them fully. However, you took that happiness for granted, and things took a dark turn for you. Your delusion of taking uncertainty as permanent is showing its harsh reality. It’s broken, and it breaks everything you believe in and lives with.

However, if you cultivate spirituality, there are many emotional cures, though they are different realities than you know, where you have to look at different aspects of life. First, we have to recognize that your attachment is uncertain and suffering.

Life is uncertain, and so are you and your children. They are also impermanent as you, and by realizing this, spirituality will cure everything in time. If you don’t recognize the suffering, it will swallow you as a whole, and you can never remove it.

The Nature of Teenage Children Will Rebel Against Parents, Family, and Their Guardians

Even parents' love is considered unconditional, but sometimes they think of their kids as their property. They would assume they gave birth to their children, then children belong to them, and they must listen and follow their orders. In reality, if your children listen to you, that is a good thing, but imposing your opinions on them is toxic.

You would be so happy and proud. The nature of growing up children, especially in their teenage years, is often rough. They rebel against parents, family, and their guardians. But when they don’t listen to you, then you start to suffer, you become angry, worry, or even abuse them.

Kids, when they are growing up in their teenage years, are different from when they are young. They used to be obedient when they were young little, but they aren’t going to listen to you now. When your kid doesn’t come back home on time, you might complain about it. You might think he/she may be in danger or perhaps having too much fun.

At this age, they do their things without seeking permission. You become extremely worried and anxious. If you don’t love them, then you wouldn’t suffer much. This is the outcome of too much love. Sometimes it gets suffocating.

Love of Compassion

Losing a loved one allows you to suffer uncontrollably. When we love in the way of attachment and possession, we think the person we love has to belong to us only. They must be the way we want them to be. That’s a possession that’s driven by our own attachment.

If you love somebody without developing an emotional attachment, you love them for their own good, betterment, and for their own spiritual path to success. You love to guide them and let them walk on their own path to experience and learn that love is more like compassion. Love doesn’t have an attachment. You love them because they deserve love. That is compassion. You love them because they are human, living beings, animals, and they deserve a good life in their own way, and you love them that way. By loving in such a way, even if they die, you may just feel sorrowful to see them go as the sun sets in the evening. You understand it is nature, their own karma, and you won’t suffer from attachment to your own.

That love is greater because the love of compassion is the love of understanding and wisdom. Though it’s hard to put the love of family and children the same way, it’s different nature as it comes from the source of attachments and karma. It’s deeper of attachment, blood connection, and conjoint of compassion nature, but it’s still the source of suffering. However, by seeing spirituality and its impermanent nature, karma through compassion practice, one can reduce suffering.

Understand Karma Effect by Actions in Life

In life, not all families and society are perfect, as karma has ingrained deeply in the family, community, and social connection. If you have children, the children are good to you. You won’t face any karma. However, when you get old, when your children grow up, for some reason, they get angry at you, some of them even beat you up, and you can’t fight them back because you are too old, too weak to fight. It means you have been bad to them, and now karma has hit you in the face. You may have done something not wise to them when they were small. That’s when you may be suffering from your own family where you are living.

Even if you live in a community that’s safe, there is still a chance you might get hit by a truck. A while ago, there was an old Chinese man who collected trash cans in California. He couldn’t pay his bills, as he had lost his security job. But there was a bunch of thieves who came and stole his bag and even assaulted him. He suffered a severe beating. Due to his old age and weakness, he was unable to fight back. This was his karma. If you are young, I suggest you don’t harm others if you wish not to be harmed by others in your old age.

In the USA, we often hear about racism. People who are racist from a bruised self-ego and discrimination. Consequently, discrimination and racism are a cause of not only an individual but also a collective bad karma. That is the reason we see people fighting back. Black Lives Matter is a result of a karma struggle. Society suffers from chaos as an advancing society will not tolerate unfairness, inequality, and violence in any form.

Materialism – Possession – Attachment

In Materialism, possession is a strong desire and attachment of all humans in general. The more possession, the better security, and happiness that one perceives from a delusionality. Once you possess many things, you will start to become paranoid about losing them. You fear others will rob you, become envious of you and even kill you to steal. In America, most people here have guns to protect themselves for various reasons, but the main thing is to protect their property and possession from being attacked.

Because of the continuation of fear and anxiety of being robbed, attacked, and losing, they start possessing guns, but sometimes people just use guns to commit mass killings as mental problems, and because of the means of protecting possession through gun possession. That’s the suffering that our society is seriously taking as our collective karma. It returns to our individual decision to own a gun, it may give people a secure feeling, but while the ability to control emotion is limited, it may, in fact, will, bring greater danger and anxiety about owning and using it.

Living in cities, there are even more uncertainties to care about. By working for others to make a living, you are always worried about keeping your job, or if you get fired and then how you have money to spend, to pay bills, you may be evicted from your own home, “Money becomes everything about me.” It's the sense of possession, attachment, and craving, and everything you want becomes your craving for money.

And thus, you get to work and work regardless just to make your living at the cost of time scarification for spiritual cultivation. You fall into delusion, and seeing practices of spirituality and meditation is a luxury to you; instead, it’s a true life which is the path to your happiness and spiritual liberation. There we see all kinds of suffering in life through delusion. Life is truly suffering if we don’t see it another way, the spiritual way, or we will suffer.

Buddhism teaches people not to be discriminating and not to have a lot of selective preferences, which are attachments. If you have a selective preference, you demand specific things that you attach to, and without a compromise, then what happens if you don’t get it? You will be greatly suffering from dissatisfaction.

If your preference is not met, you will suffer in the term of unhappiness from being unsatisfied with your expectation. If you have too many expectations, it becomes greater suffering as you attach to your own expectations and demands. You want to be satisfied only with your own discretion, your own preference. It’s more of a priority to your demands than reality can give you.

For instance, eating vegetarian food is good for your health if you think in this term, then you stop eating meat. In the long term, being vegetarian becomes your only choice of food without a compromise. However, on occasion, when you stay in a community that is not vegetarian, you will deny other people who eat meat, or you will force others to find vegetarian food for you alone, causing problems for others and your attachment to eat vegetarian becoming troublesome, as you demand other to satisfy your preference instead joining others for easier and friendly interaction. You become the source of suffering, unhappiness, and ignorance.

In Mahayana Buddhism, monks and nuns always insist on eating vegetarian food, then they become always busy preparing their own food no matter where they come from. They become their own victims of eating culture, their own attachment. Many years ago, my mom and I went to India. For the first few days, she liked to eat Indian food, but after that, she got sick of eating Indian food, and she didn’t want to eat Indian food anymore.

She wanted to eat her usual food, noodle soup, Chinese noodle soup, or Vietnamese pho noodle. How possible could we find those there in India? We found out that Indians don't even use spoons and forks, not to mention chopsticks. They use their hands to eat food. As such, Indians don’t have the culture of eating noodle soup.

You can see that it is already suffering. Then when we went to a restaurant, I had to go to the kitchen and ask them to let me cook for her. The chef had to show me their kitchen material and equipment to cook. I had to cook fried vegetables and stuff in Vietnamese style for her to eat. If she could just enjoy the food of whatever was available to her on the trip, we wouldn’t be in any trouble looking for her food. And we could have enjoyed the local food on our trip together as I love to eat Indian food. But it’s difficult to change someone's food eating habit, which she has been living with all her life. In spirituality, a cultivator must be able to adapt to whatever environment he/she encounters, and be able to enjoy the newness, culture, and beauty.

Your Own Way, Sufferings from Attachment

Because you have your own preference, and if the reference is not met, you become unsatisfied and unhappy. Your emotions will run dry on anger and madness.

You expect that person to come that day and that time. You wait, and he doesn’t show up. You get mad because you waited the whole time expecting that person to show up to that schedule, but he/she didn’t. It’s because of the expectation of you to have him/her comply with your demand. It’s you, the one demanding caused trouble to yourself, not because that person causes your madness.

Some other times you want that person to be like this and that. You want your boyfriend or girlfriend to behave this way or that way, and if they don’t do as you wish, then you get mad, beat them up, or you even kill them. That is a kind of suffering you create for yourself. You must learn to control your ego, which is controlling you and giving you orders to fulfill, which is your delusion, thinking it’s your own order to be fulfilled by others. Thus, we have to identify the cause of suffering, and after identifying the cause of suffering, then we know that it is the cause of its attachment that brings suffering.

The Greed of Immortal

We know that birth and death are parts of spiritual cosmic nature. With our development of technology, humans always dream of creating their own immortal future through cloning, so we can change one body to another. However, is cloning life man-made? No, it’s not man-made, as we think. Because we don’t make the cells grow, no matter how we engineer cells, they grow themselves. The cell is life and has its own roles and functions in certain conditions provided. Every living thing is nature. Though we can assist and engineer biologically, that doesn’t mean we can clone nature. We are just catalyzing and interacting with nature to our own desires.

Humans can create robots with humanoid looks, but the mechanism for creating life is not, even if we succeed in cloning some living beings. They are still living natural creations. Nevertheless, nowadays, scientists and bio-corporations are not allowed to clone humans for various ethical reasons. Humans believe that children should be borne by parents.

What if a human is born in the lab whose scientist used a pigment from you, that would be your cloned human, a clone of yourself, another you. But even that clone of another you don't mean to be you. Let’s assume that you look just like your twin physically, but life’s experiences are different for each one of you and the cloned person.

However, by cloning, the cloned one would just be a baby, not an adult side human when born. That person is your child, your sibling. Never can be another you to be replaced and continue to live as you. The human clones would just be valued and respected as our children regardless of being born in a lab or not in a lab. Thus, you can never be immortal as your greed and desire.

The Third Noble Truth Is How to End the Suffering

The third noble truth is the stage of suffering cessation. Since we already know the cause of suffering, thus we have to end it. It’s like you know you are sick, and you go to the doctor to check up, then you know what sickness you are having, the doctor prescribes you medicine, then you need to take medicine. Now you know how to cure and stop the sickness.

The sickness of ignorant life is unknowingly emotional attachments. Just as Buddhism teaches the cause of suffering and to stop it, you have to learn to detach from suffering and stay away from worldly desires and greed. We have to learn to detach desires and greed when necessary. By spiritual cultivation through living, you will learn and understand the world and expand your wisdom. Then you can truly love and transform your love into compassion that will lead you all to long-lasting happiness.

With an understanding of love, you will love with compassion, which you love equally regardless of your children, friends, family, or anyone who comes to your help. Equality in our society is very important, and Buddhism, Christian often teach people to love everyone regardless of their parents. My parents, your parents, their parents, family, and friends are the same as sentient beings. That sounds more like a theory, and its fact is very difficult to truly do it than easier saying.

It's normal when you love your parents more than others. Of course, you love them more because they gave birth to you and raised you up, lived and protected you since you started to know the world, and because they are the root of the family. It’s the continuous story of how you love your children. It isn’t difficult to explain that. However, you have to practice opening your heart more to look inside your deep connection and with all the other people around you, too, so that you can understand them better. You see everything in the bond, as well as the age, the sickness, and the death, which is affected by karma in the spiritual cosmic nature.

We love them, our parents, children, and family, very much. It is an attachment. But if they have to die, then we have to accept that, now it becomes detachment. Because we accept it as their karma, everybody has their own karma and their own path to manage on their own when alive. Though we know birth is the karma of past life yield result, age and sickness are living karma influences, and death is the final of living karma transformation. In cosmic nature, we are destined to age, to get sick, and our physical bodies to die. That is nature, and nobody can be exempted. It’s also the transformation and evolution of life.

However, in living our life through cultivation, we will be able to develop our love to compassion when we can truly love everybody in the way of understanding the spiritual cosmic nature, karma, and kindness that will lead us to happier and long-lasting happiness in our own wisdom.

In spiritual cosmic nature, impermanence is a strong force to lead evolution, everything that has a beginning will have an end, but through creation, cultivation, and ending, lesions are learned, recorded, and moved up to higher sophistication. That is the evolution of spiritual cosmic nature.

I watched a documentary about Tibet a while ago. There was a very old woman, she got sick and went to see a doctor. After checking her up, the doctor told her that she was very sick and her remaining time was very short. He advised her to go back home to prepare for the end time about to come. Then, the doctor just gave her some kind of medicine to help her suffer until her time. She went back home and prepared for her death just like nothing happened to her. Since they understand the nature of death, it isn’t that frightening to them.

You can also see on YouTube in Tibet there are some kinds of funerals that are very scary compared to the ones we know here. It’s called sky funeral, in which dead bodies will be brought to the wilderness and dismembered, cut off into small pieces, and fed to vulture birds. If birds can’t finish all, the remaining body, including bones, will be broken into smaller by hammers and brought to the river to feed fish.

All possessions and belongings of the dead in the house will be given away or burned. The family will not keep anything, even pictures of the person when alive. The family will throw away everything. They don’t keep anything, which means the finish is finished. There are certain conditions and factors that rationalize such traditions, as their country is on the highest top of the Himalayas mountains, where the weather is extremely cold all year around. The air is thin, and the ground is rocky, so it’s hard to move the earth to make a burial underground; thus, it has limited resources, even wood, for cremating the body. As a strong Buddhist culture is ingrained in their society, they see death as an impermanent nature, and knowing that it’s nothing more once death comes, there is no reason why they should be worried about the dead body. Hence, they believe that the last thing a human can make merit and benefit to sentient beings is to become a last meal for other living beings.

They don’t attach to the bodies, dead bodies, or anything of their deceased loved one, and so to support the dead person’s soul to easily abandon their previous life, not to attach anything to the remaining living family, but to concentrate on the need of rebirth into a new life somewhere else instead. Death is the end of all things, and so their past relationship, they know each other no more.

That is also a good point for a dead person’s soul because the dead person would know how they died, and with their dead body destroyed, they finished their physical karma. The living family also terminated the relationship for good; thus, they will have to go with the karma flow of judgment and to reborn in their next life. That is the only way. They have to be reborn and evolve somewhere else, following their own remaining karma and judgment of past life.

Back to the attachment that brings suffering, the higher the expectation, the more suffering you will be, and vice versa if you don’t expect too much. Though I’m not talking about the business world, the higher the expectation in the production standard, the better quality. In business and manufacturing, if you have high and strict quality expectations and R&D for improvement, your production is likely to yield better results.

In the Western world, they develop and emphasize production quality from micro to macro scale of their society, economies, and infrastructure based on past judgment… they achieve much better results than other parts of the world. That’s the reason we know a lot of Asian cities are learning and have become westernized. People seek more work and opportunities to improve their jobs, work, and life. So, they are moving to cities. Cities become larger to support the huge number of people living in them, though, at the same time, infrastructure and services become scarce and not able to cope with demands.

I had a chance to go to Japan years ago, I and my family were sitting in the train station in the Tokyo center to have our morning coffee and watch people walking in the station.

I would say I got dizzy just by looking at the huge number of people moving around. When trains arrived, I had the feeling of thousands and thousands of people getting off and waiting to get in all directions.

Singapore

And so, Bangkok, it is not so different at all. It’s even worse in India. If you come slowly onto a train, there will be no seat for you. You must stand, and you don’t even have space to move your body. People are just packing into a small space on the train.

In some other developed westernized cities like Singapore, the population there are all living in a city, and many people get stressed, depressed, and have other mental troubles because of various reasons for living in a big and crowded city.

Singapore is famous for having very high death and suicide rates because people become so stressed in life living in crowded and expensive city. They can’t handle the stresses, so they suicide, and they kill themselves by jumping down high-raised buildings. So, in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, many people jump down high-raised buildings and die. You see that when a city comes to the point of stress in all aspects of life, it can be dangerous or even a disaster. As people seek material comfort, they move to big cities, and they fall into the harsh life that the cities have to offer. That is why we are talking about craving, desire, and attachment. Everything suffers in terms of mentality.

In Buddhism's four noble truths, we already know what suffering is and its causes. However, our bio-mechanism in physical life is robotic. For instance, sexuality. It’s the imminent desire of biological living beings, especially humans and animals.

People often get such high desires either passively or actively from their inner urges, causing sexual cravings. Sexual craving can also cause serious consequences if the person is not able to control himself/herself emotionally when they are not satisfied with basic need. They could commit criminal acts of raping others. Some other times, when committing sex crimes, they would also kill their victims to hide their crimes. That is very destructive of both their and the victims' life.

In the US, most college students would take loans to pay for their tuition, as is their desire for advancement in education. They will decide to study this and that, and if they finish school, they can find work and start to pay for their debts many decades later. Others don’t even finish school, then what happens to them is having a lot of debt with the government or private lenders while receiving no credibility from failed schooling. That’s the debt price for the desire for education. Desires come with a condition; every desire comes with a condition.

In spirituality, we always talk about compassion. It’s often implied as love without condition. However, to love with compassion, one must be able to have an understanding of the conditions they encounter and the impermanence forced by spiritual cosmic nature.

When you say love, compassion, it’s when you must be able to say: “I love you, I respect you. I don’t force you anything, and I love you. Thus, you can go anywhere you like. I don’t manage your life; I don’t force you to have sex with me. I don’t force you to only eat the food I cook. I don’t force you to go where I want to go. You have your life. I love you. I love you the way that I respect your freedom, I respect your choices, you have the right to say what you want.” That’s the love of respect and non-attachment, with kindness and a good mind for one to be loved for their own good and evolution. This love will bring happiness to all sides.

The Constitution of Compassion

In America, our country’s constitution is written clearly to guarantee freedom. Our constitution is a compassionate constitution. They guarantee all freedoms, but why? Because our society is so discriminated against one another. Based on emotion and ignorance, we need the Constitution to guarantee for everyone, that’s compassion. Those laws have been instilled in our everyday life; it is compassion. It’s called the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. It comprises nineteen amendments.

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof, abridging the freedom of speech, of the press, the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment

No Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the Militia when in actual service in time of War or public danger. Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, then according to the rules of common law.

Eighth Amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.

Thirteenth Amendment

Slavery shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Fourteenth Amendment

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Fifteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude ...

Nineteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The five basic important social freedoms it protects: speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government. Together, these five guaranteed freedoms make the people of the United States of America the freest in the world.

According to the constitution guarantee, you can express anything you want, and everybody can believe in whatever religion. As I have discussed before, religion is important for our humanity.

People are all at different levels of spirituality, and each religion may suit them at each stage of spiritual evolution. That is compassion, that is the spiritual love in the constitution guaranteed, and everybody has the right to access free information that benefits them.

People can assemble for whatever purposes, to go to a temple, to go to churches, to come to class to study spirituality, practice meditation... People have the right to live on whatever path they choose on their spiritual journey, to be entitled to work freely, in-discriminate, no racism, everybody has the right to earn equal income, everybody has the right to attain their position, not because you are women, and you can’t become president. It’s not because you are black. You earn less money. It would be unfair.

A while ago, people took to the street to protest for days after the death of George Floyd. They were fighting for their rights to be equal, to be treated as better, equally human. We know every action yield karma. If we allow somebody to commit wrong things to somebody else, it means we allow them to commit against us, so fighting for equality is very important under the constitution, though difficult. That is the compassionate nature of society in its evolution.

happiness and unhappiness, of joy and sorrow, disappear, only pure equanimity and awareness remaining.

Thus, the mind is trained and disciplined and developed through the right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Once the mind is uncluttered, it may then be concentrated to achieve whatever is desired. Right Concentration is turning the mind to focus on an object, such as a flower or a lit candle, or a concept, such as loving compassion. This forms the next part of the meditation process.

Right concentration implies that we select worthy directions for the concentration of the mind, although everything in nature, beautiful and ugly, may be useful for concentration. At deeper levels, no object or concept may be necessary for further development.

The benefits of Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration are significant as they teach the mind to see things, not as we are conditioned to see them, but as they really are. At the same time, they also lead to a feeling of calm and peace in the world. By being in the moment and being able to concentrate effectively, a sense of joy at the moment is felt. Release from the control of past pains and future mind games takes us closer to freedom from suffering.

Wisdom

The remaining two factors, namely right thought and right understanding, constitute wisdom in the noble eightfold path.

Right Thought

Right thought denotes the thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts of love, and thoughts of non-violence, which are extended to all beings. It is very interesting and important to note here that thoughts of selfless detachment, love, and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom. This clearly shows that true wisdom is endowed with these noble qualities and that all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred, and violence are the result of a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life, whether individual, social, or political.

Right Understanding

The first step of the eightfold path is the Right Understanding or Right View. Right understanding is the understanding of things as they are, and it is the four noble truths that explain things as they really are. Right understanding, therefore, is ultimately reduced to the understanding of the four noble truths. This understanding is the highest wisdom that sees the Ultimate Reality. According to Buddhism, there are two sorts of understanding.

We generally call “understanding” knowledge an accumulated memory, an intellectual grasping of a subject according to certain given data. This is called “knowing accordingly.” It is not very deep. Real deep understanding or “penetration” is seeing a thing in its true nature without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and is fully developed through meditation.

This is a significant step on the path as it relates to seeing the world and everything in it as it really is, not as we believe it to be or want it to be. Just as you may read the directions on a map and then make the journey, studying, reading, and examining the information is important, but only the preparation for the journey. At a deeper level, direct personal experience will then lead us to Right Understanding.

In his book " Old Path, White Clouds,” Thich Nhat Hanh tells the story of the Buddha.

The Buddha says:

"My teaching is not a dogma or a doctrine, but no doubt some people will take it as such." The Buddha goes on to say, "I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon."

Knowing reality is of very little value if we don’t put it to personal use in our lives.