The four noble truths are the Buddha’s foundational teachings on suffering and the end of suffering. But, decide for yourself whether this is a system or not. Is a framework for understanding how to cope with reality a system? It’s not clear to me yet.
The four noble truths (for those of you unfamiliar) are:
1. There exists suffering in our lives
2. Our identification with resistance to pain and clinging to pleasure is the cause
3. Letting of our clinging and grasping to pain and pleasure will bring about that suffering’s cessation
4. There is a way that leads to this letting go which involves cultivating a certain view, conduct, and mental posture centered mostly around non-judgmental awareness
Given that there are no specifics provided beyond that (at least for the sake of this presentation), it would be perfectly acceptable to discuss what lifestyle may be most conducive towards ending suffering. Of course, one might even have a problem accepting that life is about “ending suffering.” I would maintain that a lot of this ends up being a semantic argument more than anything. If a child is crying, there is a sense that you want that crying to stop, but if you approach it that way, it’ll probably just continue. Instead, if you go try and take care of the crying child, the crying may stop instantly. So ending suffering may be the result, but not necessarily the right way of having an intent. Again, the semantic circles you can get caught in are less important than the practical debates about peoples’ actual experience. If someone embraces suffering, and it makes them feel good, you could either say they embraced their suffering, or you could say they ended their suffering through embracing it.
So, here’s a rephrase of the four noble truth system from a more tantric approach
1. There is suffering in life
2. It’s there no matter what, so you might as well enjoy it
3. So stop fearing your suffering and embrace it
4. Through adopting that view, loosening up your rigid conduct, and putting your heart and soul into things, you will eventually not be afraid of life anymore, and you’ll be able to enjoy the entirety of your life, pain and all.
Really, it’s a linguistic trick, but it does have real implications for the way people try to traverse these paths. They are both effective “orientations,” (not systems!) depending on the temperament of the person.
There is, of course, the real beautiful Heart Sutra, which basically says…”Hey, there’s actually no suffering.” This is the extreme version of my second version above.
I wouldn’t underestimate the power of the linguistic trick–language is the fiber of all thought and consequently, all action.
My criticism of Buddhism has always been its rigidity, as seen in the first 4 noble truths. They effectively deny the composition of life by seeking to escape it, to which I would say if you hate life so much, why not just die? Die and keep dying ad nauseum. Reminds me of that Talking Heads song where he sings, “heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”
But even from the tantric perspective, which I appreciate exponentially more, what was always vaguely problematic for me was the promise of relief. The Heart Sutra wraps it all up nicely, though; a world so infinitely complex it may collapse into astonishing simplicity.
Lilah, it’s almost cliche at this point for anyone to make the argument you are making re: Buddhism. Your argument has been made time and time again by people who have probably heard about Buddhism through other channels, and through poor translations.
It is a clear consensus in religious and academic and pluralistic communities of learning that Buddhism is a life-affirming religion and philosophy that is practiced and studied by some of the most happy and engaging human beings alive. While the Dalai Lama happens to be a monk, there are many examples of Buddhists who live full family lives and eat meat and play music and even drink.
The four noble truths, like a doctor’s visit, simply lay out the situation ahead of you. You are ill, because you insist on being selfish and believing in limited ideas about reality, if you let those go, you will experience freedom. How is this rigid? How is this an escape? How is this hate? Who is it that wants to die when given such great news? Why is relief from stress and anxiety a bad thing? It’s not relief from life, it’s relief from a poorly navigated life.
I’ve made this case for Buddhism dozens of times, and it is so profoundly sad to me that this is not obvious from the get go. There are so many people that are turned away from what I genuinely believe is a highly refined tool kit of personal transformation because the translation, or the interpretation, or the phrasing of the four noble truths is not correct.
In this sense, I agree with you that linguistic tricks can affect a lot. And, in Buddhism, there is an understanding that people hear what they want to hear in the teachings, and that people need to hear different things at different times. Connected to the basic noble truths, and the teachings on suffering may be an entry point for some people, and then later they begin to understand that there is no suffering because there is no one to suffer. At this point, the Heart Sutra or the tantric teachings make more sense. But to jump there before one has thoroughly committed themselves to the practice of awareness and concentration can have disastrous effects.