The Four Noble Truths are the Buddhist principles that I agree with the most. Life of ordinary being has a lot of suffering. All sufferings are due to desire and attachment. A being will stop suffering when desire ceases. The path leading to cessation of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Happiness is like the tail of a dog. It’s always there, it was there, and it will still be there tomorrow. If the dog starts chasing it, it will feel suffering for failing to catch its own tail. Conversely, if it accepts the reality that it already has the tail, and lets it be instead of trying to chase it, the dog will not experience suffering unnecessarily.
We desire for many things: sensual pleasure, existence, and non-existence. We thought that we will only be happy when our desires are fulfilled. We set difficult targets for ourselves, causing unnecessary stress to us. But we whip ourselves, striving, motivating ourselves that “happiness” is hiding behind those targets which we created in the first place. We consciously ignored the true happiness in front of us but chased the false “happiness”. The dog’s behavior is not really admirable.
There are eight types of winds which can possibly move us out of equanimity: winds of gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. We want to gain and are afraid of loss; want fame and afraid of disrepute; want praise and afraid of blame; want pleasure and afraid of pain. If we learn to concentrate our attention on inner peace and equanimity, be like the rock which is unmoved by the winds, we will stay happy here and now, and into the future.
Revulsion of everything in the outer world is often seen as a negative view. However, the Buddha taught us to develop revulsion of everything in the out world but with the Right View or in a positive light. The Fourth Noble Truth prescribes the path leading to cessation of suffering, which is called the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Thoughts, Right Actions, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, Right Efforts, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. As one can see, it is unlike the pessimism of Asceticism, which involves negation of all views, actions, speeches, livelihood, efforts, mindfulness, and concentration. When we do things the right way, we will be happy instead of suffering. Revulsion of the eight winds means not chasing the dung-like happiness and not fearing whatever things which are commonly seen negatively. When we do it right, we will profit (gain, fame, praise, pleasure) even though we didn’t chase or strive for it. On the other hand, we are not adversely affected even though others misunderstood us (causing loss, disrepute, blame, pain). The heart remains unmoved.
RESILIENT KID 