Still Thinking, December 1998

"The Second Noble Truth: Clinging is Suffering"
From It's Easier Than You Think, by Sylvia Boorstein

    The Second Noble Truth of the Buddha is that craving anything is suffering. Often it is translated as "the cause of suffering is craving," but I think that misses the point. Cause sounds like something happens first and produces a particular result. It could be construed as "crave now, suffer later." I believe it is "crave now, suffer now."
    I once heard someone say that a sign of enlightenment was the ability to say (and mean it) in any moment, "Well, this isn't what I want, but it's what I got, so okay."
    My son Peter's mother-in-law not only tolerates unpleasantness with grace, she often can appreciate it. She is the only person I have ever driven with on Los Angeles freeways, with cars qhizzing in and out of lanes arbitrarily, in snarly, congested, smoggy traffic tie-ups, who says, with genuine awe, "Wow! Look at all these people going places!"
    It's a big step, of course, from freeways to famines to wars, but it's wonderful to have confirmation that spacious acceptance is humanly possible. Spiritual practice might be discovering that potential in ourselves and enlarging it. The Third Noble Truth says it is indeed possible.