Live Session Summary, Sunday, July 23, 2023: It was good to be with you for our Live session on the Buddha’s teachings of awakening. The talk covered a fairly wide area, and here are some of the key points:
• At the heart of the Buddha’s teachings is the goal of ending suffering in this lifetime and cultivating skills, practices, and insights that help us achieve that goal
• All of us, no matter our backgrounds, histories, or characteristics, have the potential to realize the deepest peace, happiness, and freedom attainable in this human existence
• Realizing freedom from suffering does not require us to take on any particular views or beliefs. Rather, it calls for openness, curiosity, and a willingness to observe and feel what we are experiencing with acceptance and kindness, and without judgment. The Buddha invited his followers to ‘see for yourself’ (‘ehipassiko,’ in the Pali language)
• At the heart of his teachings to help end suffering are the four noble truths, which function for us like a key to help us move from the endless wandering of suffering (known as ‘samsara’ in Pali) to the deepest freedom. The first noble truth—the truth of suffering—calls on us to recognize and acknowledge when suffering is present in our life—when we’re tangled in stress, worry, or fear, or swept up in craving or clinging, or confused, stuck, etc.
• The second noble truth—the truth that the cause of suffering is craving/clinging—emphasizes the need to recognize our own role in our suffering (that when we are experiencing suffering, there is some way we are not accepting the truth of our experience). Acknowledging our craving (‘tanha’ or ‘thirst, in Pali) creates the conditions for freedom, letting go, and the end of suffering
• The third noble truth—the truth of freedom from suffering, or nirvana—is that when we abandon clinging, we open to a deep freedom of the heart. As Ajahn Chah said, ‘let go completely and you will experience complete peace. Your struggle with the world will be at an end’
• The fourth noble truth—the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering, the noble eightfold path—provides a path of practice, with eight elements, to help us live ethically, train the mind, and cultivate wisdom
• At the heart of the Buddha’s training is cultivating present-moment awareness—meeting this moment without judgment. The power of awareness of our experience here and now—the ‘power of now,’ in Eckhart Tolle’s phrase—is to move us from entanglement into the truth of our experience. When we bring awareness to our anger, fear, or craving, we move out of those states into consciousness of them. The difference between being swept up in anger and being aware that we’ve been caught up in anger is the difference between suffering and freedom
I spent some time exploring Mary Oliver’s poem ‘The Journey,’ which is a powerful poetic statement of the movement from entanglement and suffering into clarity, understanding, and the potential for greater peace in our life. Some of the qualities that we can see in ‘The Journey’ are intention; the difficulties of stepping out of habitual patterns and relationships; determination, effort, and perseverance; the difficulties and obstacles we confront on the path; the ability to connect with the quiet inner voice of awareness; and the potential for us to ‘save the only life you could save.’
I shared some lines from Dorothy Hunt’s ‘Peace is this moment without judgment’; Martha Postlethwaite’s ‘Clearing’; and the poem ‘There was a time when I would reject those…’, by Muhyiddin Ibn al’Arabi.
I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if I missed anything important to you. Have a wonderful week and I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, July 30, at 9am eastern. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
