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5th Noble Truth Society Conditioning
hey guys
We have our 4 noble truths .
1. Suffering
2. Cause of suffering is extreme desire
3. Society conditioning ( 5th truth )
4. The End of suffering is attainable
5. The 8 fold path .
Society Conditioning is very broad but can be broken down into sub categories .
Culture
Politics
Media & Celebrities
Corporate world
Understanding this 5th unwritten truth helps understanding the other 4 much easier.
For example . The Bible says kill all who work on sunday .http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?passage=Exodus+31%3A12-15
Murder is against the law . Is someone really gona kill for their belief and try to hold that up in court . most likely not .
If your career requires you to have a flashy image then one should achive his image enough to keep his livelyhood and nothing more.
understanding this 5th unwritten truth gives a better understanding of the other 4 .
We have our 4 noble truths .
1. Suffering
2. Cause of suffering is extreme desire
3. Society conditioning ( 5th truth )
4. The End of suffering is attainable
5. The 8 fold path .
Society Conditioning is very broad but can be broken down into sub categories .
Culture
Politics
Media & Celebrities
Corporate world
Understanding this 5th unwritten truth helps understanding the other 4 much easier.
For example . The Bible says kill all who work on sunday .http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?passage=Exodus+31%3A12-15
Murder is against the law . Is someone really gona kill for their belief and try to hold that up in court . most likely not .
If your career requires you to have a flashy image then one should achive his image enough to keep his livelyhood and nothing more.
understanding this 5th unwritten truth gives a better understanding of the other 4 .
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Comments
Noble tRUTH 2.
This is Bull.
Basically, everything in your 5th unwritten truth is covered by 1 and 2.
Exodus is in the old testament and really is of no scriptural value at all, other than as an historic dialogue of relevance to Israelites.
The New Testament is more pertinent and relevant.
it's patently obvious you have an insufficient understanding of the Four Noble truths. I'd go back and do further studying, in your shoes....
Really, I would.
Chocolate helps!
You're so right - it does!!
Multy quoting here isn't like other forums I can't see my other post with out opening another tab lol . Flashy image . Im not talking about craving for success or acceptance . Im talking about the minum requirements of getting by in your career that requires a flashy type of image .
The old testament it don't really matter at one point that was the Bible , its in the King James Version as well .
I don't think you swore in this post . But why are you using Profane Language on a Buddhist forum , take it easy friend .
as per the 5th unwritten Truth , u call that like you don't date a friends ex girl friend kind of thing .
My Cousin Chris . Went to school and became an Investment Banker . He shops at very expensive stores. I asked him why can't he just go to Walmart or one of them Men's warehouse stores. in short His Reply was he would never have got the Job .
His career required a flashy/sharp image . Before you go saying the 2nd truth are u really gonna say for him to go work at a store for 30k a year .
Lets also be real my friend . The whole world doesn't think like we do about our views on livelyhood and stuff ( Too bad they don't though ) . Maybe my cousin was insecure and bought expensive clothes thinking he needed it to get the job and keep it ( Im not gona pry that deep into his feelings and personal stuff . ) .
I agree with the idea that the 5th truth (or the third you say) is redundant. Conditioning is suffering... absent of patterns or preconceptions there is neither suffering or social conditioning... so the 1st and 5th (or 3rd or whatever) are pointing at the same moon.
Fede, dear sister,
May I suggest a slightly different view?
The story of the Exodus is not history as we understand the term. Modern archaeology is showing us that the story of thousands of 'Israelites' (before there was an Israel? We might as well call Boudicca 'English') is not an accurate account.
As Nite points out, the story is part of the Christian story as well so it has wider relevance than as "an historic dialogue of relevance to Israelites", if, by "Israelites" you mean Jews.
The real question, however, is whether there is anything in the Exodus story that can help us to a deeper understanding of the Noble Truths and I have found that it does. It is the story of a group of people who are suffering and want to escape. They are shown a way out and they follow. The way is hard and, having left the comfort of recognisable discomfort they now encounter new hardships. They even yearn to be back in their old slavery and set up new idols: they cast around for easier ways of escaping from suffering. They are then told that they have to take responsibility for their lives and a method is proposed/imposed. In the end, their leader dies, so that they have to go on alone but his words remain as inspiration.
This description of the Exile experience, the psychology of nostalgia, the challenge to individual behaviour is told in a story which is part of our common cultural treasury. It can be told as illustration, just like the Ox Herding Pictures, but, because it is already well-known, it can also be used allusively. In this, it is no different from, say, the story of Robin Hood: no need to tell all the stories, we (Euro-Americans) know it from childhood, so that we understand a headline that reads MODERN ROBIN HOOD DOES SOMETHING.
Now, I admit that I am writing from the pov of a person brought up with tales and stories. To reference the Jewish writers in a secular context, stories have been a "light" by which the truths that seem so dry in the teachers' mouths. They are the words that give life to the valley of dry bones.
There will come a time when these references are no longer automatically recognised. This is constantly happening. Old myths and stories vanish from our cultural radar. That is what makes it harder to read, say, Shakespeare's post-mediaeval references than, say, Dickens's post-Regency ones, and makes both of the harder to grasp automatically than, say, Philip Pullman's post-religious ones.
In terms of this thread and its suggestion of a 5th Noble Truth, apart from the fact that four already tax me to the limit, may I suggest that there is, in fact, a Preliminary Noble Intervention which goes something like:
"Now hear and attend, o my best beloveds, while I tell you a story....."
The Bible is the Bible and has not been around in any consistent form for as long as that.
trying to embellish an already accepted teaching by frillying it up, bringing other factors into the equation and adding bits here there and anywhere because what this book says, or what that passage states, is really a pointless exercise, because ultimately, it all just gets back to the 4 Noble Truths.
I feel delighted for others who can scan across various authorities, literature, scriptures, sources and teachings and find an inexorable link. I'm glad they find enjoyment and fulfilment in that.
I'm sticking to one thing at a time, and feel contented for it.
I really don't care to chain it all together.
I'm a simple-minded person.
K.I.S.S.
Less is more, in my book.
If it ain't broke - why add all the paraphernalia?
Why put two dollars in your pocket when you go to the tea house, when your cup of tea only costs one?
The second one is for another's cup.
I love stories and have learned most of what I know by starting from a story.
Of course, Fede dearest, you are right that the Noble Truths stand in their own right.
We don't even need any of the thousands of sutras and stories. But have you thought about how we would have learned any of it - and how we pass it on to the next generations - without them?
They illumine each other wonderfully. With the challenge of condensing non-conceptual understandings into language, often the moon can be shown more easily from a metaphor than a solid conceptual rule, no matter how noble.
As for the original poster's claim that "the Bible says kill all who work on Sunday," that's not correct at all: it says "those who profane the Sabbath shall be put to death."
The synonymousness of the terms "profane" and "work on" is not established.
Nor is the Sabbath on Sunday to the Jews, it's from Friday evening to Saturday evening.
This mis-quoting of the Bible is a good example of the kind of erroneous thinking people do every day: we take something we've heard or read, casually paraphrase it, and before we know it the meaning has been totally changed from what it originally was.
I ( what ever that means) don't really like the attribution of societal conditioning as a seperate truth.
As seen by the Madhayamikakarika nagarjuna warns against this kind of thing , He says that there is no pleasure in samsara. This is important.
In perpetuating "5 truths" this makes the entire structure of dharma threatned and therefore is against fundemental tenets.