When I was lil, I had a Religious Education teacher. At heart, he didn’t want to be there, so his lessons were an exercise in banality with him mouthing the words of the syllabus and the majority of us taking the opportunity to nap. He went on to be a very successful used car salesman, a job that has some similarities with those of a more ecclesiastical bent. After his departure, I gained another teacher, but she was somewhat different. She loved teaching, she loved learning and she loved her job. She was also a Buddhist, which is a rarity in a CofE school. So when we were being talked to, her enthusiasm rubbed off on us and we woke up and paid attention. One of the things she talked about was Buddhism, and how it helped her in life. This piqued my interest as I’d always been somewhat sceptical of organised religion. I used to belong to a Methodist church in the village where I grew up, but I’d always sniffed a faint whiff of self importance from the congregation. So when it was decided that we should spend time fundraising so we could buy bibles for the children in Romanian orphanages, I decided that enough was enough. I suspected, rightly, that children in orphanages in Romania probably could’ve used heat or food or bedclothes or anything really that wasn’t a book. Well, unless they felt like burning them I guess... Anyways, I digress (as you, faithful reader, know I do quite well...). One of the ideas that grabbed my interest and wouldn’t let go is that in Buddhism, they talk of Suffering, and from there, they arrive at the “four noble truths”.

1. The Nature of Suffering
   "Now this ... is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering."
2. Suffering’s Origin
   "Now this ... is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination."
3. Suffering’s Cessation
   "Now this ... is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it."
4. The Way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering
   "Now this ... is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration."

Curious about this, it led me to thinking. And what I thought wasn’t quite what they suggested, but built on it. Suffering is a part of life, but it’s not always caused by material craving, delight or lust. In its simplest form, it’s caused by a person going against what is happening to them. Against the flow. This isn’t always selfish, it’s not a bad thing for you to want someone to get well again, it’s not something you should necessarily remove from your life. It’s a simple fact that the suffering you are feeling is caused by that which /is/, being other than what you want it to be. Removing the need for suffering removes your need to be human at a certain level, as we all feel empathy towards our fellow living things. Suffering is of interest to me. When it comes down to our lives, we have a habit of focussing on the really big things, letting them become all consuming and then suffering because of it. What we don’t see is that the suffering is not caused by the big thing, it’s caused by us. What we also