[Buddha-l] Yet another possibly aprocyphal Buddha-vacana

[Richard Hayes]

On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 02:42 +0600, bshmr wrote:

> >Richard Hayes: It would be very odd indeed if a religious tradition
> whose first premise is "nothing is satisfying" were to have pleasant
> scriptures.
> >
> 
> Whose commentary says THAT? My copy of the truths begins "Living is
> frustrating. ... But, one doesn't have to be -- frustrated, that is."

A commonly encountered statement of the first truth of the nobles is
sarva.m du.hkham. That means everything is unsatisfactory. I reckon that
is logically equivalent to "nothing is satisfying." Of course the second
truth of the nobles is that the cause of dissatisfaction is unrealistic
expectations. Who is free of those? Nobody I've ever met. Buddhists are
especially prone to the unrealistic expectation of eliminating the root
causes of dissatisfaction.

> That smacked of authoritarian republicanism.

No, the second truth of Republicans is that the root cause of all
suffering is taxation and terrorism. The fourth Republican truth is that
everyone would be happy if all tax collectors and terrorists could be
killed, preferably after being tortured for a few years.

>  Sounds as though you are ready for a new livelihood.

As long as the world is made up mostly of fools, we'll never run out of
work, eh?

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico