THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH.

 

There is a cause of suffering

Once one has come to the conclusion that there is suffering, one will naturally (hopefully) look to see what causes it. Everything has a cause, and arises from that cause. Suffering itself arises from certain conditions which have been created, it is not something hard and independent which just happens of its own accord.
We tend to become attached to things, to desire them and to identify ourselves with those things. We see the things we desire as we see ourselves, that is as being intrinsically and inherently existent or to put it another way, as being independent of any other phenomena. An example may be our appearance. One can spend a lot of time looking after one's clothes, hair etc. identifying it with oneself. "This is 'me' and if I look a certain way then people will think well of me".
Some may see things another way and just wear any old thing and never cut or comb their hair, however we may still be attached to the impression we feel others will have of us. The 'way we look' really seems to be there in and of itself, to be truly existent and independent of anything else. If we look closely however, we can see that the way we look is only the way we look to us. It is dependent upon our own perception. We may think we look great, but to others we may look awful.
This way of thinking will only bring anxiety and suffering. We may harbor the thought, "what if they don't like the way I look, the way I behave, they will think I'm a terrible person". This is only one example and if we look closely we can see that all through our days and all through our lives we are striving to be close to what we find pleasant and to get rid of what we find unpleasant.
These attachments stem from our perception that everything exists in a solid way, and has an inherent nature to it. This is a very particular form of ignorance, as our mind is perceiving things to exist in a way that may not necessarily be correct. This is the habitual way that the mind looks at phenomena, the way that it has been conditioned to look for a very long time.
The attachments and aversions induced by this way of perceiving the world are bound to cause us suffering as nothing we strive to be close to ever really satisfies us. It is never what we think it will be. It is never the actual cause of happiness. After a while we get bored with it and the thing itself becomes tedious, unwanted, unpleasant. The very thing we thought would make us happy turns out to be in the nature of suffering. Similarly when we have rid ourselves of the thing we feel is making us unhappy, some manner of discontent will remain and something else will always surface that we feel we again need to be get rid of.
The second noble truth states that the way we perceive things to exist leads us to attachment and aversion. Thus our own undisciplined and unruly state of mind is itself the cause of suffering. Desiring happiness in such a way will only cause our minds to become disturbed and our body to become sick and weak. This is the forerunner to the first noble truth. This is the cause of suffering.
Next >> .END=NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).5/2/2012.