Weather and The 4 Noble Truths ~ Pema Chodron

In the Buddha’s first teaching – called the 4 noble truths – he talked about suffering.

The First noble truth says that it’s part of being human to feel discomfort.  Nothing in it’s essence is one way or another.  All around us, the wind, the fire, the earth, the water are always taking on different qualities; they are like magicians.  We also change like the weather.  We ebb and flow like the tides, we wax and wane like the moon.  We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid.  And so we suffer.

The Second noble truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego, the resisting life causes suffering.  Traditionally it’s said that the cause of suffering is clinging to our narrow view, which is to say, we are addicted to “me”.  We resist that we change and flow like weather, that we have the same energy as all living things.  When we resist, we dig in our heels.  We make ourselves really solid.    Resisting is what’s called ego.

The Third noble truth says that suffering ceases when we let go of trying to maintain the huge “me” at any cost.  This is what we practice in meditation.  When we let go of the story line, we’re left just sitting with the quality and energy of whatever particular “weather” we’ve been trying to resist.

The essence of the Fourth noble truth is that we can use everything we do to help us realize that we’re part of the energy that creates everything.  If we learn to sit still like a mountain in a hurricane, unprotected from the truth and vividness and the immediacy of simply being part of life, then we are not this separate being who has to have things turn out our way.  When we stop resisting and let the weather simply flow through us, we can live our lives completely.  It’s up to us.

~ Pema Chodron

Comfortable with Uncertainty