4 NOBLE TRUTHS; THIS IS A LIFETIME OF STUDY

1.   FIRST NOBLE TRUTH OF BUDDHISM; THERE IS SUFFERING. IT EXISTS; IT IS INEVITABLE; UNIVERSAL. ALL SENTIENT, SELF-AWARE CREATURES SUFFER.

There is suffering in the human experience. Others frustrate me. If they believed what I say. If they wouldn't cause dissension. If they were not violent. If they were not stupid, greedy. There is suffering because I cannot keep my good health and age --I will get older, sicker, weaker and die. I cheat these things. I suffer because I cannot get in the physical condition I want and then I cannot keep it. I cannot make others see I am right. I suffer because I cannot really. There is suffering, because life isn't going how I want. It isn't fair. Others got more. My children are a burden, because they won't listen. My family is suffering to me. They take from me and don't care what I say and think. Even when all is well, I know it wont stay that way and wait for the other shoe to drop, and suffer. I like exercising in the sun. It feels good. I suffer when I see I might get skin cancer and die.

2.   SECOND NOBLE TRUTH OF BUDDHISM: SUFFERING IS CAUSED BY CRAVING THE THINGS WE WANT, OR DO NOT WANT TO LOSE OR THAT WE WANT TO AVOID OR CHANGE. CLINGING TO THAT HOPE OR DESIRE.

The suffering is clinging. I cling to my age and youth, suffering because I know it is passing. Same for my health. Same for my failure to attend journalism school. I cling to my righteous ideas and positions. I worry the will be disregarded or cast aside. Ignored. Devalued. Anything appearing in 1, above, that I want to avoid or to stay as it is, creates suffering, when I cling to it.

3.   SUFFERING CAN BE ELIMINATED BY ELIMINATING CLINGING.

If I do not cling to my idea or my position, and simple accept whatever happens, I will not suffer. If I grow older, day by day, and do not cling to the loss of youth, with regret and anguish, and do not cling, then I do not suffer. All thing arise and come into existence, from mountains and seas, to ideas. As such, it is the nature of all things to cease to exist, and disappear, into another form. Clinging and grasping to stop this, when eliminated, ends suffering.

4.   THE END OF CLINGING AND FOLLOWING THE MIDDLE WAY, THE NOBLE 8-FOLD PATH, ELIMINATES SUFFERING AND BRINGS EQUANIMITY/ HAPPINESS.

You must live in the "Middle Way" following the outline. Obeying the principles of all self aware beings, in the course of their existence.