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Suffering, there is no limit in suffering to certain people, certain nationalities, certain classes. If one is willing to listen, we will find out that it has left a score in each and every one of us. Humans always like to live in their luftschloss (air castle, mirage), we like to escape suffering because of our desire for Love. The desire for love presents itself as Upādāna1 (clinging, grasping, attachment or fuel, material cause), and this, in turn, increased the suffering. Master Shi realised in his more than ten years of Ordination, that we all eventually encounter different kinds of suffering, we are only hoping to find a way out and a chance to breathe, and maybe there will be someone, some superior force to help us, flee the swell of suffering. Nevertheless, we always miss the Nidana (cause, motivation, fate or occasion) to escape. In some views of Buddhism philosophy, everyone carries their Vāsanā. The past is always affecting the now, and prior impressions affect current actions. However, the human mind/heart still carries unlimited potential, if one can be calm and observant, one will be able to see the deep-lying connected dots. Consequently, a general school of thought is when one has this realisation, and the door to escape will be opened (Rahula 1962, 2), there will be the chance to enjoy the good and freedom in life. While Buddhism still gives an old and outdated impression to some, this paper is going to explain emotions through the lens of The Four Noble Truths, and the solution Rahula wrote in his book What The Buddha Taught half a century ago and will show why this solution is relevant to us. . I would argue that, despite the fact that Buddhism does not seem all convincing, there is a lot we can still take away from it and actually practice/apply in our lives. As such I will first outline and introduce where The Four Noble Truths are situated in Buddhism. Then I will explain in further details what these four Noble Truths are, how ‘suffering’ is related to our thoughts and emotions within Buddhist philosophy with the assistance of a more modern Buddhist viewpoint, and what solution Buddhism gives. Finally, I will follow this up with how it is relevant in modern-day psychology. 1 The reason I insist keeping the original wordings in here is for the same reason Rahula did in his book, “It is difficult to find one word to embrace the whole conception of the term,” hence for the first usage I would include all the possible meaning or an official English translation in bracket. No matter which branch or section, Catvāri āryasatyāni2 The four Noble Truth is the core of Buddhism. Since the creation of Buddhism, the theory they build on has always been the liberation and salvation of human suffering. It starts from the triviṣa (Three Poison), which reflects the negative emotions and how to encounter them. But it is the final step that is of utmost importance. Buddhism uses the Trilakṣaṇā dharmamudrā (The Three Marks) as the basis of the theory, The Four Noble Truths as the framework while taking the middle path as the principle and using the triśikṣā (Threefold Training). The explanations and illustrations of the human world are only made to seek out the origin of suffering, of which emotions and effects are the most important aspects t. However, before we talk about suffering, we first need to understand the meaning of The Four Noble Truths. As mentioned above, The Four Noble Truths are the core of learning Buddhism; here is a brief summary of the Four Noble Truths. The first one is Duhkha, the true meaning as explained in What the Buddha Taught, “It is true that the Pali word dukkha (or Sanskrit duhkha) in ordinary usage means 'suffering', 'pain', 'sorrow' or 'misery', as opposed to the word sukha meaning 'happiness', 'comfort' or 'ease'. But the term dukkha as the First Noble Truth, which represents the Buddha's view of life and the world, has a deeper philosophical meaning and connotes enormously wider senses. It is admitted that the term dukkha in the First Noble Truth contains, quite obviously, the ordinary meaning of 'suffering', but in addition it also includes deeper ideas such as 'imperfection', 'impermanence', 'emptiness', 'insubstantiality'. It is difficult […] so it is better to leave it untranslated, than to give an inadequate and wrong idea of it by conveniently translating it as 'suffering' or 'pain'.”(Rahula 1962, 19) To simply put, Duhkha is to learn suffering correctly, and to know the suffering people face. Secondly there is samutpāda, ‘the arising or origin of dukkha’, it is to learn the arising or origin of duhkha correctly. The third Noble Truth is Nirodha, ‘the cessation of dukkha’, which is more the state after the cessation of dukkha. Finally there is Magga, ‘the way leading to the cessation of dukkha’, or is it to say, the way of turning the suffering and unbeneficial heart/mind to a beneficial state with no suffering (The noble eightfold path). (張尤雅, 黃光雄, and 釋惠敏 1998) 2 In the book What the Buddha Taught, Rahula as follow the tradition of Theravada, he used the language Pali for reference, unless stated, I would use Sanskrit as the translation instead as it is more accessible, the difference is small yet still noticeable. Thus, for the sake of the word limits of this paper, the Buddhist view of this paper would be a more modernised mix version of Buddhism. I apologise for the generalisation of views. According to Saṃyukta  gama, one of the most ancient texts that provide guidance and principles in Buddhism, our mind and body are a collection of five aggregates: (Matter) Materiality, (Sensation) Feeling, Perception, (Mental Formations) Volition and Consciousness. Duhkha is produced because our mind and body are constantly changing, while we don’t expect it to do. We dislike separation, or we dislike something that we think belongs to us is violated e.t.c. Samutpādais because of thirst and craving. (Rahula 1962, 29) A collection of Nidana, of all the factors, as for a thing would not only happen because of one cost; it could be one to two main reason, two to three minor reason, entangled in and out. Niroda has calm in its nature, is to free and to giving up (Duhkha). For Rahula, this is the absolute truth. (Rahula 1962, 38) Lastly, Magga is the act, it is the lifestyle. The way, to end Duhkha. Nowadays, the quick and rushed rhythm and environment hit our minds and hearts like waves, it blurs the sensitivity of humans. People can only go for louder, more extreme excitement, eager for new stimuli. Nyanaponika Thera thinks this is the reason an ample amount of imagery are more easily neglected, emotions are abrupted, and the process of thought is cut off prematurely, “Already we see at large a decline of finer aesthetic susceptibility and a growing incapacity for genuine natural joy. The place of both is taken by a hectic, short of breath excitement in capable of giving any true aesthetic satisfaction.” (Nyanaponika Thera 2011, 101–2) he main reason for having turbid in our mind and heart is because of the process after sensing; it sparked a projection, associative thinking. For Master Shi, the perception, thoughts and judgements that are created after our sense organ is exposed to the outside world, are mostly untrue. (張尤雅, 黃光雄, and 釋惠敏 1998) These perception, thoughts and judgements are our selective choice, a result of habit, a rush decision or prejudice of our emotions and rationality. Psychologically speaking in learning theories, external events mobilize action by automatically triggering behavioural goals or intentions, which then can be implemented with minimal thought. (Aarts and Dijksterhuis 2000, 53–63; Ajzen 2002, 107–22; Wood, Quinn, and Kashy 2002) As we pick our desire and its object, we get emotionally attached and accept it (or vice versa), An Upādāna. Both ways, this will feed the power that is buried in our mind and heart, while this power will intensify the force of the emotional reaction. This develops a loop and almost becomes a strengthened trigger, an automatic reaction. Because of the power of habit, we will be even more emotional towards things we care about, to a state that we care more about it than we actually should. Because of giving in to habit, Upādāna, Prejudice, Craving, we created new Duhkha for ourselves. In addition to that, our mind and heart will mark the things, places, concepts we have approached, so that we can know when we meet it the second time. This is the use of perception. By connecting the old experience to the new one so we can build new marks upon it. By this, one way it could help us to learn, to simplify our lives. On the other hand, it will also boost the prejudice and emotions, and thus, as mentioned, strengthen the trigger to react, plus a stiff, almost mechanical impression, like Japanese are polite or Hot tea is good. Our habits would lean on these implanted thoughts, while emotions would form our self-values, which would affect how we see ourselves inside, and how to connect with the outside world. As such, if one grows towards a downcast-like of self-value, it would be harder for one to realise the power to turn the ‘wheel of life’ in oneself, it would be easier for one to overexpress its feeling, and hence, getting off-track with the reality. The bitterness we felt in our heart, most of the time is because of someone else’s words, from their expression, or obsessed in a line, making interpretations out of it. Every incidence has its nidāna, and things just come and go. A metaphor used in Buddhism is like waves: wind blows the surface of the sea, lifting the seawater, brings up water particles, but it sinks because of its own volume and gravity, and it goes on and on. (Sayadaw Nandasiddhi 2015) And only because we could not dispel our thoughts, feeling insecure as we thought there are a lot of waves in front, unable to see our mental state clearly, and thus following the old habits, sustaining endless suffering. In Buddhist-psychology, there has been a discussion on a factor that has been affecting Right Mindfulness (Samma sati) and Right Concentration (Samma samadhi), which is the solution of the problem we listed above. (Rahula 1962, 45, 48) Commonly known as karma, it is the fourth Aggregate, Mental Formations. Eckhart Tolle calls this the ‘negative energy field’ or ‘pain-body’(Tolle 2001, 53–64), but what is important is that we need to know this is stored in the memory. As discussed above, the memory created a pulling force, which keeps on taking us back to the unpleasant ones. Since it is repressed in our subconsciousness, as such, we are like seaweed that is floating on the sea, not able to control it in our consciousness level. In terms of psychology it is called compulsive thoughts or rumination. (陳玉璽 2013, 14–15) In What the Buddha Taught, we need to follow the fourth noble truth, Magga, to take the middle path, which expands to Noble Eightfold Path, Eight rights. However, as we discussed, there are obstacles to follow the eight paths, as such, we need to refer to Chapter VII, where he talked about Bhavana, Meditation or Mental culture. Where Rahula outlined multiple ways to do bhavana. The first thing he mentioned is ‘The Mindfulness or Awareness of in-and-out breathing.’(Rahula 1962, 69) and another form is to be aware and mindful of whatever you do, physically or verbally, during the daily routine of work in your life, private, public or professional (Rahula 1962, 71), so basically is to focus in the now. In both methods, the word mindful/mindfulness is the key. Fascinatingly, this method is now practically used in clinical psychology, namely in counselling and psychotherapy. The research on mindfulness has spiked over the past twenty years. (The Power of Mindfulness: What You Practice Grows Stronger | Shauna Shapiro | TEDxWashingtonSquare 2017) Studies on Neuroscience showed that being mindful gives great advantages to the prefrontal cortex, and this has an indicated an integral link between a person's will to live, personality, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.(Colin G. DeYoung et al. 2010, 820–28; Siegel 2009) This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviour, moderating social behaviour, personality expression, decision making and moderating certain aspects of speech and language. (John D. E. Gabrieli, Russell A. Poldrack, and John E. Desmond 1998) Therapists would remind patients that went through a traumatic experience to breath and pat their body to remind them that they are there, to bring them back to now. It is astonishing how these techniques have been discovered and used for such a long time while only being advocated now. A monk once said in a lecture which sums up this paper pithily: when we are determined to let go, we would not be losing things, but only the Upādāna which causes us Duhkha and pain. The blinded reactions twist our ways to see things, to liberate from all these strangles; we need to learn to not judge things with past habits, and keep alert, without value judgement. As such, in every situation one can always have a calm, steady, independent mind to build a better life. However, in my opinion, although the method is scientifically legitimate, the Buddhist theory is still ill-founded. First, I found it conflicting that one needs to be attach-less while being caring and loving. In addition to that, despite Rahula says that Buddha does not deny happiness, and there are even five kinds of it, where ultimately all five are included in dukkha. As such even though Buddhism claims we need realisation to liberate, which I can agree with, it still insists people need to abandon attachments. It is evident that I have a different view on happiness, where it wrote: ‘That there is no sensation itself is happiness.’ To them, eating ice-cream would bring sadness because ultimately the ice-cream would be finished, so we should not eat ice-cream in the first place. It is ridiculous and even nihilistic. The aim towards achieving Nirvana is groundless. To me, there is no problem in desire or even thirst, that is one of the reasons that bring us happiness and satisfaction. Not only do we need to understand it, we need to be able to not be controlled by it, and not simply discard it. With regard to sensations and feelings, Rahula is right, ‘one should be clearly aware of all forms of feelings and sensations, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, of how they appear and disappear within oneself.’ We can have happiness when we have the mind of now, not to be controlled by the past, and understand the future.