So, What's the Problem?

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When I was nineteen years old, I once worked for my brother-in-law, Scott, when he was the manager of the installation department at a vertical blind company. A hard-working Midwesterner, Scott had big goals; he wanted to be successful and move up the corporate ladder. As for myself and my best friend and coworker, Dave, we were in it for the short-term gain: some extra cash to pay for weekends spent partying and surfing. Dave had long, stringy blonde surfer hair. I had an afro. Together we wore the uniform of the sixties counterculture: baggy blue jeans, blue surf shoes, and a solid-color pocket T-shirt. Dave always looked like he had just climbed out of bed, having slept the night in his clothes.

One morning when we were receiving our daily orders from Scott, he asked us to mind the office for a few minutes while he ran out to do an errand. Every now and then, the phone rang with customers calling with questions or complaints. Then I went to gather the supplies we needed to fill the day's orders, leaving Dave to answer the telephone. Of course, asking Dave to man the phone was a bit like asking Lindsay Lohan to watch your kids. You can't expect things to go smoothly.

As Scott and I both returned to the office simultaneously from separate entrances, we saw Dave clasping the phone to his ear, one hand at his hip. He was shouting at the top of his lungs: "Lady! Lady! You think you've got problems? Lady, EVERYBODY'S GOT PROBLEMS!" Dave then slammed the phone down, looked at Scott, whose face was ashen, and said, "Can you believe these people!?"

Dave had just delivered one of my first and most profound lessons in life, and it was the same lesson the Buddha taught in his first sermon twenty-five hundred years ago, after he'd spent years in meditation and asceticism: the nature of life is suffering. Everybody's got problems.

The real question is: What do we do with them?

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

When the Buddha first experienced enlightenment, he was initially reluctant to share his experience. This was not because he was selfish, wanting to keep his profound insights to himself. No, he was reluctant to speak because what he had experienced was beyond the convention of words. He knew that even if he could explain it, no one could truly understand his message if they did not also experience it themselves.

However, many people were struck by his depth of serenity, control, and warmth. Finally, the Buddha decided that sharing his experience and wisdom was the right thing to do, but even then, he believed there was only a small chance that he could have a positive impact on a few people. Thus he gave his first teaching, typically referred to as the "Four Noble Truths." These are, slightly rephrased:

1. Life means suffering. Life is in the nature of suffering.

2. Suffering arises from clinging or attachment that comes about through wrong perception. Suffering is not random; it has a cause.

3. Suffering can be overcome. There is a blissful state of being that is free from suffering.

4. There is a way out, a path, and here it is.

The first truth he spoke about was the "Truth of Suffering." This states that every being experiences physical and emotional pain. At any moment, things can shift, and we have no real control to prevent pain and problems from arising. Nothing lasts, including our joys and pleasures, our friends and loved ones, our attainments and achievements, and so we are "set up" for disappointment. Everything is impermanent.

When I first heard the teachings on the Four Noble Truths, it concerned me that the Buddha called suffering a truth. He didn't say it was a concept, or a principle, or even a theory. Like the truths of America's Declaration of Independence, suffering was "self-evident." It disturbed me because, if it was a "truth," I couldn't simply reject it if I didn't like the idea. Humans don't float or fly in the air by "rejecting" the truth of gravity. We aren't free to accept gravity if we like it or ignore it if we don't. If suffering was a truth, then like my dealings with gravity, I was accountable for understanding it and obliged to contend with it.

The Second Noble Truth explains the main cause of suffering: our desires, or more specifically, our attachment to what we desire and our misunderstanding of how things really exist. Buddha noticed that people usually treat problems like random occurrences, and they typically misunderstand the nature or cause of the problems they experience. By understanding that all difficulties have a cause and assigning them the correct cause, we can begin to permanently become free of the suffering that results. In essence, we cause our own problems by seeking, desiring, or relying on transient, external things to make us happy. This extends not just to stuff — like cars, jobs, romantic relationships, family, income, and so on — but to our concepts. We become attached to our own sense of self, and to seeing the world in a certain way, and this leads to suffering.

The Third Noble Truth says that, once we subdue and uproot the causes of our problems, there is a state of being that is eternally peaceful, joyful, and free of struggle. The very absence of the causes and effects of suffering leaves us with a positive state of wellbeing. Then, in the Fourth Noble Truth, the Buddha outlines the way to achieve this. Just wanting to be happy is not the path to happiness. All living creatures wish to be happy, and all living creatures spend every moment of their lives seeking happiness. And yet, the achievement of a lasting state of well-being continues to elude all of us. Why? Because we do not actually understand the way out. But there are correct theories and methods that work. Permanently.

CRUISING ALONG

We could rephrase the first two noble truths, in part, as: nothing lasts, and pursuing pleasures does not stop the pain of this. Nothing illustrates this better than life aboard a cruise ship.

My mother is in her late eighties and has been on her own since my dad died several years ago. My father worked hard as a small businessman, and he made enough money so that when he retired my mother and he could indulge in the activity they loved most — travel. As they aged and became weary of airplanes and packing and unpacking, they spent more and more of their leisure time on cruise ships. Eventually, they spent almost five months a year cruising the seven seas.

After my father died it seemed therapeutic for my mom to continue cruising. My mother stayed in the best cabin — in a penthouse about the size of four normal cabins. It came with a butler, a large balcony, floor-to-ceiling windows, and an unending array...