NBL TRUTHS

////////////////////////dukkha" as "stress."

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful."

////////////////////"In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful." This is a reference to the Five Skandhas Very roughly, the skandhas might be thought of as components that come together to make an individual -- our bodies, senses, thoughts, predilections, and consciousness.


/////////////////////ABT.COM=Buddhism is not a means to cocoon ourselves in pleasant beliefs and hopes to make life more bearable. Instead, it is a way to liberate ourselves from the constant push-pull of attraction and aversion and the cycle of samsara. The first step in this process is understanding the nature of dukkha.



//////////////////// First Noble Truth by stressing three insights. The first insight is acknowledgment -- there is suffering, or dukkha. The second is a kind of encouragement --dukkha is to be understood. The third is realization -- dukkha is understood.



//////////////////////Buddha didn't leave us with a belief system, but with a path. The path begins by acknowledging dukkha and seeing it for what it is. We stop running away from what bothers us and pretending the unease isn't there. We stop assigning blame or being angry because life isn't what we think it should be.




////////////////////////Thich Nhat Hanh said,
"Recognizing and identifying our suffering is like the work of a doctor diagnosing an illness. He or she says, 'If I press here, does it hurt?' and we say, 'Yes, this is my suffering. This has come to be.' The wounds in our heart become the object of our meditation. We show them to the doctor, and we show them to the Buddha, which means we show them to ourselves." [From The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching



//////////////////////// Sumedho advises us to not identify with the suffering.
"The ignorant person says, 'I'm suffering. I don't want to suffer. I meditate and I go on retreats to get out of suffering, but I'm still suffering and I don't want to suffer.... How can I get out of suffering? What can I do to get rid of it?' But that is not the First Noble Truth; it is not: 'I am suffering and I want to end it.' The insight is, 'There is suffering'... The insight is simply the acknowledgment that there is this suffering without making it personal." [From The Four Noble Truths (Amaravati



//////////////////////////First Noble Truth is the diagnosis -- identifying the disease -- the Second explains the cause of the disease. The Third assures us that there is a cure, and the Fourth prescribes the remedy.




///////////////////////MEDIEVAL - BAD HPPND TO THE UGLY- PHEBE, FRNDS


//////////////////////////.........crystal ball has arived at a logical conclusion about the future of mankind, which many people have already reached without extgensive research. Unfettered science for financial objectives rather than conservational aims - pollution ot the environment - wasteful exploitation of the earth's resources, slaughter of animals and warfare.....how the movie ends is pretty easy to predict.




/////////////////////////Long-term exposure to air pollution may be linked to heart attacks and strokes by speeding up atherosclerosis, or "hardening of the arteries," according to a University of Michigan




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