My Organic Chemistry professor made an intriguing comment tonight in class about The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism while we were talking about pKa's, electrophiles, and nucleophiles. Well, it intrigued me enough to google it and read a little more about these Noble Truths he was talking about. So I figured I would share what I found out about The Four Noble Truths through Wikipedia.
(sidenote: how did I survive before Google and Wikipedia?! ha ha)The Four Noble Truths
Main article: Four Noble Truths
According to the Pali Tipitaka, the Four Noble Truths were the first teaching of Gautama Buddha after attaining Nirvana.[31] They are sometimes considered as containing the essence of the Buddha's teachings and are presented in the manner of a medical diagnosis and remedial prescription – a style common at that time:
- Life as we know it ultimately is or leads to suffering/uneasiness (dukkha) in one way or another.
- Suffering is caused by craving or attachments to worldly pleasures of all kinds. This is often expressed as a deluded clinging to a certain sense of existence, to selfhood, or to the things or phenomena that we consider the cause of happiness or unhappiness.
- Suffering ends when craving ends, when one is freed from desire. This is achieved by eliminating all delusion, thereby reaching a liberated state of Enlightenment (bodhi);
- Reaching this liberated state is achieved by following the path laid out by the Buddha.
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