Noble Truths

[june]

I'm not religious but I do see value in most religious texts and basic principles around how we treat each other.

Here is the 1st Noble Truth from Buddha - what do you think? is it still relevant and true in this modern world?

1. Life means suffering.

To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.

[iamjumbo]

partially true. obviously, everything will pass away, whether or not it is life, or moments of life. no one gets to be happy 24/7, but no one is unhappy all the time either, except by choice.
life is not ABOUT suffering, any more than life is ABOUT happiness. each is an element of life, but neither ARE life. life IS about the ebb and flow of the two

[sadie1263]

I think he was saying that if we never experienced the lows of life....would we truly appreciate the all the highs?

[iamjumbo]

hell hon, that's what i said. that is the reality.
sadly, most people would do things differently if they could go back and redo their life. that is stupid. i would like to do it all over again, and i wouldn't change it. it was the bad times that made me who i am.

[sadie1263]

True.....I just said it with less words.


I did some monumentally stupid things. But they all got me to here......and I'm pretty happy here. So if that is what it took......well.....then that is what it took.

[iamjumbo]

Feb 10, 2011 16:43:46 GMT sadie1263 said:

True.....I just said it with less words.


I did some monumentally stupid things. But they all got me to here......and I'm pretty happy here. So if that is what it took......well.....then that is what it took.

that's the whole idea. everything in your life shapes you somehow. if you changed one of the bad things, it would have changed the entire course of your life, eliminating a lot of the good things. the odds are that you would have had even more bad things happen because you wouldn't have learned from the previous one