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The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: First Noble Truth - Tanya Wiser, Sandra Sanabria

Introduction

Tanya Wiser: This is my favorite Dharma^[1] topic. I'm very excited about engaging with you guys tonight and starting this conversation and exploration together about the Four Noble Truths. I'm really excited about it and happy to hear you're planning to come for all the weeks. I don't know if you are thinking you're going to make it for all four weeks—there might actually end up being five, so we'll talk about that as we go. There are five Thursdays in December. It's the Four Noble Truths; I initially planned we're going to make up one, and then there are some scheduling things.

We'll wait for everybody to come into the hall before we officially begin, but maybe in the meantime, what would be really fun is to hear what you know about the Four Noble Truths. Just a few words about how familiar you are, what your relationship is to it. Does anybody feel like they would like to answer that question about what you know about the Four Noble Truths? Hi.

Mitra: Great, I mainly know the first one. It's my expertise! [Laughter] But yes, what I know is that the First Noble Truth is that there is suffering. And that there is a cause, which is clinging or attachment. And there is a way to get free from that, and there is a path that you can follow to get there.

Tanya Wiser: That's right. Yeah, maybe just pass the mic, and if you want to share anything. The question is, what are your thoughts about the Four Noble Truths? You don't have to repeat what Mitra said, is there anything you would add or your relationship? And if nothing at all, what brings you here for the series?

Ben: I got a flyer or the notification on what the subject is. What resonated with me about many of the talks, and what I've learned over the years listening to different teachers, is suffering and attachments, and how attachments are a cause-and-effect kind of thing. I don't know what else I have to add.

Tanya Wiser: Great, and there's, I mean, we all have plenty of attachments, and some of them are, "Oh, I just, this is how I do things," etc. Thank you, Ben.

At this point, let me just shift and say one or two things, and then Sandra will do a guided meditation, and then we'll talk more about this First Noble Truth.

This was the Buddha's first real teaching, and it was right after his full Awakening. After he had this Awakening experience and this insight into how the mind works, he first was like, "Oh, there's no way I'm going to teach. No way. There's too many—people are not going to get it, it's just going to be confusing." And then, so the story goes, some celestial beings came to him and pleaded with him to teach. So he considered it. He thought, "Okay, well, maybe I'll do this." And then he thought, "But who should I teach to? If I'm willing to do this, who should I teach to? And who will understand the Dharma? Who will understand this?"

So he was having his own crisis really around what to do next in his practice and his life. He remembered five people that he had done a lot of practice with and he thought, "I can talk to them. I can teach them." And so he did. He went and he taught them, and they did understand. That is what they call rolling the wheel of the Dharma^[2]; it was set in motion. That was the beginning of this wheel that we're benefiting from now, that very first way of understanding the mind around the Four Noble Truths, suffering, life, and the way to freedom. So I feel grateful personally that he was convinced to teach and that he had people he could teach who could understand, so he felt like it was a worthy endeavor.

Just to plant the seeds of inspiration and kind of the history and the poignancy of this particular teaching, Sandra, will you do a guided meditation for us?

Guided Meditation

Sandra Sanabria: So I'll invite you to find a comfortable posture. I'm going to do around a 20-minute meditation, so just feel comfortable so that you can really soften your body. If you want to bring some movement first, the shoulders, the head, just let your body move in the way it needs to move before we settle down.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, inhaling through the nose, exhaling through the mouth.

I'll invite you to feel the contact with the floor. Notice the contact with the chair, the touch of your hands on the legs, and just really feel your body here.

Noticing the weight of the body. Maybe going from head to toe. Noticing the muscles of the face and, with the exhalation, inviting them to soften, to release.

Allowing the shoulders to get away from the ears and maybe falling a little backwards. Perhaps breathing becomes a little easier.

Noticing the chest and the belly, and softening. Noticing any holding. Perhaps with the exhale inviting them to soften, to release.

It may be that the breathing becomes more clear. Bring your attention to that place in your body where breathing is more clear to you. It's not about thinking about the breathing, but just sensing it in the body. Noticing what happens with the in-breath, and what you feel with the exhale, with the out-breath.

And it's not about becoming a monitor of your breathing, but resting on the breathing. Relaxing, softening with the breathing. There's nothing to do or nothing to change. It's just resting your awareness around your breathing, in your breathing.

Every time you notice the mind is distracted, because it will happen, just bring it back. It's an invitation to get back to the body, to the sensations of breathing.

If the breathing doesn't feel right for you, you could bring the attention to the sensations in your hands or the contact with the chair or the floor.

When you get distracted, notice what is your attitude. Are you annoyed by the distraction? Or you like it very much and you just get lost; it's so nice to get lost. Just noticing what the mind does.

Perhaps you're back to a discussion this morning, or planning for tomorrow, or some achiness in the body, some worry, some fear. And whatever you find, allow it to be there. You don't have to change it, or fix it, or ignore it. Just allow it to be there.

Acknowledge the distraction. The boredom, the sleepiness, that little ache. Just acknowledge it. There's nothing to change or fix, and come back to your breathing, to your hands.

And if the mind feels concentrated, if it's easy to keep the attention on the breathing, enjoy that. Notice it, too.

And also notice that what was distracting you a few minutes ago is maybe gone, and there's a new distraction now. Just notice it.

Noticing your body, how does the distraction or the concentration express in the body?

[Bell rings]

Thank you.

Reflections

Tanya Wiser: Thank you. I wonder if there was anything in particular that came up for you. How did it feel? Were you distracted? Very distracted? Were you very focused? Could you pass the microphone back? Thank you.

Rose: Oh, good evening everyone. Hello again. Hello, Sandra. I noticed I tried to have just the resting of the awareness of the breathing, and then I hadn't been to IMC in a while, so it's nice and cozy. I found myself, I was going like this, and then I fell asleep. But then I was kind of not nice about it, and like, "Okay, well, I was dozing off." So I just opened my eyes. But I started this meditation journey with Tanya, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I could sit for 20 minutes comfortably. Because before, in the beginning, I was like, "I can't do this." And then Richard showed me how to sit like this, and it's all coming together even if I'm dozing off a bit, so it's okay. It's all good.

Sandra Sanabria: Nice. Thank you, very nice. Something else, did you happen to see your mind going everywhere?

Rose: Yes, it was very much so. And the breathing, just trying to focus on that and not strain. I still find that even doing this, or at least trying to dedicate every day to it, I found myself doing more five minutes. Every day trying to be consistent, and it's just kind of upsetting when I still feel like even though my body is comfortable in this position, my mind is still very much everywhere else. I know what I'm thinking about. I'm very much aware of it; I just have to let it be, and that's not easy.

Sandra Sanabria: And softening, like being comfortable. You can be alert but comfortable.

Rose: Yes.

Sandra Sanabria: So it helps. Like you relax the body, the mind also relaxes.

Rose: Yes. Thank you.

Sandra Sanabria: Thank you. For anybody else, any thoughts, any observations? Hi.

Student: For myself, I noticed things are becoming a little bit more routine, getting into the practice of the meditation. It's almost like a walk in the park. Whereas before, I would try and hurry up the 30 minutes, like, "Are we, or you know, 20 minutes or whatever, like is it the time yet?" And now I'm more accepting. 20 minutes or 15 minutes will pass. When 20 minutes or 15 minutes pass, you can't have it fast or slow. But every once in a while, I'll have thoughts come up and I'll push them aside. "That was embarrassing, that thing that happened way back when" or something. But every once in a while, something will come up that's kind of important: "Oh, I forgot about that. I should probably get to that eventually." So those ones hamper me a little bit more, what I call more important, rather than just random thoughts. But for the most part now, it's not as judgmental when things come up. I just sort of brush them aside.

Sandra Sanabria: Nice. Yeah, just, "Oh, look at that, I have forgotten about it. Okay, I'll take care of that later." That's very nice. It is the attitude also that matters. Thank you.

Understanding Dukkha

Tanya Wiser: I would just—okay for me to go ahead? I think there's just two examples right here that I'll start with that exemplify creating less suffering for yourselves, both of you, the way you shared. So the First Noble Truth is, and the Pali term is, there is dukkha^[3]. And dukkha is widely translated as suffering, often referenced to suffering, but when you look at the Pali word and you look at the different ways to define it, it's an extremely broad range of experience, from subtle irritation, stress, to distress, to pain, to agony. It's this huge, huge range of experience.

And there's a simile that the Buddha gave about the arrow^[4]. You probably have heard the simile, some of you. But in explaining suffering, one of the things that the Buddha pointed to was, if you got shot with an arrow, would it be painful? Yes, right? Now, if you got shot with a second arrow, would that be more painful? Let's imagine, yes, twice as much pain. It's going to be more painful. And a third, and a fourth, right? So much of our suffering, much of our dukkha, is like the second, third, fourth, fifth, two-hundredth arrow. It's the added psychological stress that we put on ourselves.

And Rose, your decision not to trip out about your mind wandering or falling asleep was an example of deciding, "I'm not going to keep shooting arrows at myself." That was a beautiful example of not continuing to contribute to our difficulty. And your example of not tripping out about fast, slow, things completely out of our control. We often try and control that which is out of our control, and it creates stress. That might be a more subtle, irritating pressure kind of stress, but it's stress. The opposite experience of just going, "Oh, okay, well, it's going to be 15 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever it is," there's kind of a freedom in that. And that's the kind of freedom that the Buddha wanted to teach us about.

My practice changed completely when my relationship to dukkha changed. When my relationship to dukkha changed, the whole practice changed. And dukkha essentially became for me a very, very useful feedback mechanism. I also liken it to my relationship to using a compass. We use the compass to help us find our way; we use the experience or absence of dukkha to help us know if we are on the path, if we are practicing. So if I experience the kind of stress that is dukkha, the optional suffering, right? The ways we make things much harder for ourselves, it's like looking at a compass, and the compass says, "Keep going this way and you're going to suffer more." It's telling you right there, this is the way to more suffering. So if you want to go that way, keep going this way. My option is to stop and reorient and sort of decide how I want to proceed, what the next step will be, whether it will be toward more suffering or away from suffering, toward less suffering.

Feedback like it... if you get a cut on your hand and it hurts, what does that mean to you? How do you relate to the cut hurting? Like, in a really simple way, what's the purpose of your hand hurting if you get cut? Do you mind just—

Student: Just for the body to know that this is something, let it rest, let it heal, leave it alone, give it care.

Tanya Wiser: Right, really pretty simple actually. If we don't know we're being cut, we're not going to stop what we're doing that's causing harm. If it doesn't hurt—haven't you ever been cutting your hand and not known that you were doing something that was causing your body to be hurt? If it doesn't hurt, if we don't have that feedback, we don't know the body is going to get injured. And so, if we can see that the function of suffering, dukkha, is the same as the function of pain from hurting ourselves physically, we can start to be, all of a sudden, "Yes, it's unpleasant, but oh my gosh, I'm really grateful I'm recognizing this. Because just like I want to take care of my body, I want to take care of my mind, my heart." So it's feedback in that very same way. I think it's kind of a miracle that there's some sort of internal system that gives us feedback when we are moving in the direction of harming ourselves or others.

Oh, please, thank you.

Student: What if you're getting feedback and it's constructive, and you know it's good for you, like you get cut, you have to rest your hand. But what if it's something that you have to deal with, and you let it define you even though you know you shouldn't? Especially with work stuff. It's supposed to make you better, but it sucks in my—you know.

Tanya Wiser: Well, relationships are complicated. Our relationship to work is complicated. Without more specifics, I don't know how to respond, but I would love to have that conversation with you. And hopefully, we can flesh it out a little bit more here over this period of time. Bring your examples, let's do it.

Let me tell you just a few more key points about the Buddha's teachings around this. Mitra started, she named the Four Noble Truths. So just to remind you: there is dukkha, there is the cause of dukkha, there is the end of dukkha, and there is the way to the ending of all dukkha. It's very much like a medical diagnostic tool. It's very similar to how medicine works in terms of diagnosis. The dukkha is like the symptom that you go to a doctor with: "This is the symptom I have, Doctor." Okay, the doctor then says, "This is the cause of that suffering." And then there's the ending of that particular illness, hopefully if we're lucky. But this is for working with our minds and our hearts, and with others in our life and our conditioning.

This is his first teaching. This is setting the wheel of the Dharma in motion. Sometimes people will say, "I only teach suffering and the end of suffering," but I think the real quote is closer to, "I teach dukkha and the end of dukkha." And it's not that that's the only thing he teaches, but that is primary to what he teaches. He teaches many things, but they're all in service really of the end of dukkha. So it keeps this particular teaching at the center of everything he teaches. Sort of the very, very center of it.

And another important thing about the way the Buddha taught and about these teachings as well, is that this is not like a creed or something that you're meant to just believe in. You can believe that it hurts to get a cut, but that's theoretical. We have to pay attention to when it hurts. It's the same idea, that this is a teaching to be incorporated, to use as a guide for us in everything we do, in all forms of our practice, all forms of our life.

Let me shift to that relationship to this suffering, to dukkha. How do we start to welcome when we recognize we're suffering? That's almost the opposite of what our instinct is when it comes to emotional suffering. Physically not so much, sometimes we do override, some people more than others. But when it comes to emotional or psychological suffering, a lot of us collapse or just kind of keep trying to go and ignore it. It's almost like we want to convince ourselves or the world that it's not really happening and somehow we don't have to give in to this. There's something really weird about that being our relationship to suffering, to hurt, to pain, to distress.

So really starting to be curious about what is your pattern? What is your relationship to noticing when you're having a hard time, when you're having dukkha? This is your conditioned nature. The nature of conditioning is you can start to notice in your relationship to suffering so much about yourself, so much about how your mind has adapted and is working. And then in that space you can start to say, "Oh, well, I don't really have to do it that way."

One way that I like to think about this is, on Highway 92 and 101, when you're driving on the highway—actually on 92 as you're going into Half Moon Bay—in the middle of the road there are rumble strips. And then along the side there are these rumble strips. Rumble strips are those things that when you drive over them your car goes, it really vibrates and it's loud and it's quite abrupt. And so to me it's almost like that's dukkha. We're on the path, we're driving, we're on the road, and we wander out of our lane. And then the dukkha happens, and sometimes it's really abrupt and loud and irritating. I remember plenty of times driving on freeways and feeling, "Why is it..." very irritated. And that's maybe the natural initial response, it's totally fine. But then, if we step back and we go, "Oh, wait a minute, I was looking at the ocean instead of the road. If I had just kept wandering, I would have been off the road, I would be in the ditch." So can I be grateful that that experience happened? So that it woke me up, that it brought me back to the path, to paying attention to where I was and not wandering off.

Am I supposed to be done at 7:20? Okay, so I'll say one more little thing, which is that it can be very helpful to think about how there is biological, physical suffering that's just an innate part of life. We're born, we age, we get sick, we die. This is just kind of this biological fact of being a human. And then there's psychological suffering, and psychological suffering stems from our reactivity to whatever is happening. It's all about the reactivity: the judgments, which is a reaction; the not liking it, which is a reaction; the wanting more of it, which is a reaction.

So it can be helpful to kind of think about suffering in those two terms. And we can go further into looking at the psychological suffering that's based in identity: "Me, mine, this is about me, it's personal." And it also can be about interpersonal issues, about our relationship to somebody, how they're going to see us now, or what we really want them to be doing instead of what they're doing. That's an interpersonal form of suffering. And then you could also think about systemic suffering, which is where you might think about institutionalized racism, things that are kind of on a grander scale incorporated into a system or society. Oppression of women in Iran. In my view, it's oppression, right? But of course, that's my view. And I think a lot of women in Iran feel that way right now, they're telling us so. And that's been institutionalized; it's become systemic.

So there are different ways to look at and differentiate the ways that dukkha might be showing up in your life.

Practices for Noticing Dukkha

Sandra Sanabria: I was thinking as you were speaking that the Four Noble Truths is kind of the Buddha deconstructing suffering. So first you have to see it, then you understand where it's coming from, you know that there's an end to it, and then it offers you—not a recipe—but a path to follow that will help you with it. And I think, as you were saying, if we don't see it, if we don't become aware that we're suffering—and suffering can be kind of a strong word, if you are annoyed, if you are uncomfortable—if you don't notice it, there's nothing we can do about it.

I think it's in our biology. It kind of plays against us in that sense, because in our brain and evolution and everything, we are biased towards looking for what's pleasant, to what's good, and it's just plain survival. We're going to be aversive to things that make us uncomfortable. We need to look for food, we need to look to be warm, we like to be in community and things like that. And then there's the suffering that society imposes over us, the way we were educated, where we grew up. If you look at publicity, for example, "You deserve it." It's like, being unhappy, or being unwell, or being anxious, or feeling fear, it's a big no-no. Like everything has to be perfect. So in a way, we have the biology and plus all the people that profit on us because it's human nature to suffer in a way.

So I'm going to give you some tips, practices that you could do on your day-to-day. I mentioned during the meditation to notice the attitude, because a lot of these practices, it's not so much what we do, but what is the attitude that we have. So what I'm going to invite you to do at some point during the week when you feel it, is to bring a very kind, curious awareness. Like, "Huh, look at that. I hadn't seen that before. I didn't know I reacted like that all the time." We have all those patterns and habits, and we may not like them when we start noticing them. It's like, "Oh, I'm not a good person" or we think like that. We can go really to the extreme.

So the invitation is to bring kindness and curiosity. Curiosity, like for example, you go to a place for a new hike that you have never been to before. There's trees you have never seen before, the terrain is different. You are really looking very carefully where you put your feet, you're very careful and watching, "Oh, I can see that tree, oh look at those flowers." So it's like checking there's something new in ourselves. It's an internal hike in a way.

The big suffering, like somebody dies, we have a problem at work, we are in an accident, we twist our ankle—those are like, whoa, you very quickly realize that you're suffering. But there's other types of suffering that are not so obvious. For the reason I was telling you, sometimes we just don't want to see it. It's like, "You know, I'm good, I'm happy, I'm well, everybody likes me." You're in a group with friends and you're all smiles and things like that. That little suffering, that little annoyance that we tend to forget, that's what I'm going to invite you to notice. Because like going to the gym, you're not going to start lifting the 20, 50 pounds, let's just start with the three pounds, the five pounds. And that's day-to-day suffering.

So let's say once a day you sit down, and the purpose is, put 10 minutes aside and notice, "What am I feeling? What is making me uncomfortable?" And just have curiosity. Like, I just twisted my foot several months ago, and I notice myself thinking, "Oh, my foot is still hurting." That kind of suffering, "Am I ever going to get well? Am I going to be free of this pain someday?" I started going like, "Oh, look at that, that's dukkha." You have a discussion with a co-worker, a family member or something like that, and you're still running that scenario in your head and you're telling yourself, "I should have said that. Tomorrow I'm going to let them know." Sit down and see, "Hmm, let's see what kind of things are going on in my mind," and notice it. Not with the intention of fixing it, just see it like, "Wow."

I think we all have the tendency, we see something wrong and we want to go and fix it. "Okay, we need to do something here." So notice what you do to fix it, to make it better, to hide it. Sometimes we don't see the suffering, we see what we do to cover the suffering. So notice that too. You're waiting in line, what's the first thing you do? You take your cell phone and start browsing, with no particular reason, with no purpose at all. Notice that. So notice the suffering or notice what you're doing to hide it. And suffering is a strong word here—the annoyance, you're bored. It's like, "Oh my gosh, do I have to wait at the DMV?" What do you do? And then, "Why am I doing this?" You just start browsing, look at Facebook or whatever social platform you utilize. "Why am I doing this?" Just noticing those things, and again do it with kindness, like, "Wow, look at that. I'm not doing anything, I just took it out automatically." How many times do we check our email? Like every minute. I assure you there's no new email, and we do it over and over. "What is behind that? What is it that I'm trying to get distracted from?" And see what happens.

For the more noticeable annoyance, discomfort, where it's so obvious that you're seeing it, first, what I was saying during the meditation: relax your body, take a couple of deep breaths. "Can I relax my body?" It's not going to fix it, but it's going to help you be better with it, face it, and then maybe try to investigate a little bit. Like the example of the discussion that you have with a co-worker in the morning, and you're going over and over, "I should have said that, I'm going to tell my boss." We go into all these loops. We add the second arrow, the third arrow, the fourth arrow. So when you notice that you're in that situation, could you separate what was causing you to be hurt or be sad or be annoyed—what was the cause—and then what is it that you're adding on top of it? Can you separate the two things? And again, it's observation. The invitation right now is to observe. See what's happening. And it may be that just by noticing, things tend to soften a little bit. Things tend to relax a little bit.

What Tanya was saying too, oftentimes we don't suffer in isolation. Something happens, so we have the event, and then it's because you really like that co-worker, you get along so well, and what they said to you was so hurting and so terrible. It's also, "Oh wow, it's my relationship with this person." So don't look at yourself in isolation, but "Oh wow, it's my relationship to other people that really comes to play." Like family relationships, with our partners, with our children, with our parents. And those are complicated relationships. So can we separate what happened, what I am adding on top of that, and recognize that it is maybe that relationship that makes it very difficult? I want to make sure we leave time for the small groups.

Breakout Groups

Tanya Wiser: Great. Well, that's a perfect warm-up for the breakout groups actually. So what we like to do, assuming you're willing, is to break you up into two groups of four. And have you share in those groups personal examples that you feel comfortable sharing. So don't share what you don't feel comfortable sharing. And you don't have a lot of time, so not all the details, but just a brief sketch of some examples for you. Maybe think about big suffering and then a small suffering. Big dukkha, small dukkha. And also, what is a psychological or what is an interpersonal dukkha? What's a personal dukkha? Can you come up with any examples of them and see if you can help each other identify by hearing from each other and sharing in that way. Are you in agreement with a willingness to do this? Great. And so I tend to suggest people not go into a group with someone they know well, so you feel free to share. So I just leave it to you to maybe make a group on this side of the room and a group on that side of the room. Four people per group. Go ahead. That would be awesome. So go ahead and introduce yourselves. Maybe say your name and where you live, or if you've ever been to IMC before.