Hello Sangha Sisters and Brothers
I hope this finds you and yours well and relaxed.
This Monday please join Ron and I as we explore the Four Noble Truths (attachment) and touch upon the Eightfold Path.
In particular Ron and I will share some our experiences and what we have done to reduce suffering in our own lives.
For homework (say...What?) In advance of the talk, perhaps you can think of a life experience where you;
- Recognized you were suffering-the First Noble Truth - maybe you finally recognized that you often become angry in a particular situation, say being served Brussel sprouts (work with me people) at dinner parties.
- Once you calmed down, you started to think about the roots of your anger -the Second Noble Truth. What about that situation made you angry? What causes and conditions give rise to your suffering. I was served a lot of Brussel sprouts as a child and we had to eat everything on our plate to get desert (oh, the inhumanity).
- With that insight, I realized I could do something to stop my suffering - the Third Noble Truth -
- Realizing that there is a way to refrain from doing things that cause me to suffer-the Fourth Noble Truth and the Eightfold Path as the means to end my suffering. At the risk of over extending my metaphor, using Right Speech to inform my host or hostess that I am "allergic" to Brussell sprouts (anger as an "allergic" response?).
With mediation and mindfulness (this is not an intellectual exercise), please look deeply into a suffering.
Maybe you suffer from something and you have just identified "it". Maybe, you have a suffering that rarely causes you distress as you have already worked thru the Noble Truths and have been on the Eightfold path for sometime. No doubt you may have done this before you knew of the 4NT and 8FP. Perhaps you have just the thing but you are not yet open to sharing. It's all good.
and, by the way, if we ever sit together at a dinner party-you can have all my Brussel sprouts.
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