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Ending Suffering Using the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path

By: James Holan

Throughout the world today there is a constant state of suffering among people in almost all countries. In America alone there are thousands upon thousands of people who go hungry, are homeless, jobless, and suffering from everything from disease to poor educational standards. As of recently, there has been an increase of all four due to poor economy. In other countries it is worse, however. In Africa millions of children and adults suffer from diseases such as AIDS and Polio as well as starvation, murder, and death from countless wars and other factors. In the Asian countries there is a high level of persecution for religious beliefs and wars surrounding oil that end up killing hundreds of innocent people every week, both native and not. In every country of the world there are factors that inevitably lead to the death of the people who live in them. When it comes down to it, however, there are three major factors that lead to these people suffering and, unfortunately, dying. The first is starvation, the second is exposure to the elements (homelessness), and the third is secondhand death in war, all three are easily preventable following the Noble Eightfold Path.

As the Four Noble Trusts tell, suffering exists, it has a definite cause, and there is an end that can be found through following the Eight Fold Path. In the cause of starvation there are many different causes. It can be caused by a lack of food in the area where starvation exists, such as in Africa. The fact that Africa has a large amount of land, which is underdeveloped and is not made for farming, means the people of the country do not have much to work with in order to gain food. In America people might not have enough money to feed buy food for themselves, the same can be said of many other countries. By following the Noble Eightfold Path this can slowly be prevented. People should make sure they understand why these people are suffering as the first part of the Eightfold Path dictates. If they understand that this suffering is going on, then they will naturally be more willing to help in the aide of that suffering, helping suffering around the world go down. This can help with ones inner peace.

The next major cause of suffering in the world is lack of homes. Even in a first world country such as America there is a high rate of homelessness. In other types of countries, both second and third world, homelessness is a lot greater and more widespread. Not very many people really take the time to look into other peoples worlds and try to help them to gain a home of their own. In fact, in America alone there are many people with lots of money who if they simply used some of it to help a family in need, they would be able to ease suffering in the world. Instead of doing this they focus on their selfish desires and wants, rejecting the second part of the Noble Eightfold Path. The last big cause of suffering in the world today is war. War has lead to the destruction of complete races, the lapse of nations, and, more importantly, the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. War in itself goes against the Eightfold Path. It is a job that harms others as step five dictates a person should never do, people involve with war directly hurt others and lead to people stealing, raping, and causing overall destruction as step four dictates a person should never do, and it is not honest as many wars have been fought under false pretences for unhealthy gain as step three dictates a person should not do. In order to stop suffering from war almost every step in the Eightfold Path should be followed. People in power should only act upon pure thoughts and stop from acting on wants such as oil, power, or cultural dominance. Everyone, in power or not, should speak honestly, lies lead people to start fights and cause wars, by stopping some of the lies that nations tell war can be prevented and thus suffering can be marginalized.

Suffering is something that is predominant all around the world, from China to America, from America to Italy, and From Italy to Antarctica, there is always some person or animal that is suffering at any given time. In order to minimize suffering throughout the world, a person should follow the Eightfold Path in order to achieve a minimal level of suffering. By following this path people are able to understand the Four Noble Truths, that suffering exists, there is a cause to suffering, it has an end, and when we gain that end there is a way to attain relief, the Eightfold Path.

Copyright (c) 2010 James Holan

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This short article tries to explain how to minimize world suffering by using the Buddhist concept of the Four Noble Trusts and the Eight Fold Path

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