The Second Noble Truth is a statement that this suffering identified in the First Noble Truth has a cause, that it is not a necessarily inevitable condition. And that cause is NOT DESIRE, but the the attachment to desires: the desire for sensual pleasure, the desire to become – to be somebody, and the desire to get rid of things that we don’t like. The attachment makes the desire personal and is very much a part of the notion of a me, and of mine.

The Third Noble Truth is that the cause of suffering, this attachment to desire, can be overcome by rejecting, relinquishing, leaving and renouncing attachment to desire.

In the Buddhist context, suffering follows the desire to exist like a man’s shadow. An attachment to the desire to exist (or not exist) is what keeps rebirth going. Once you’re born, pain will be some unavoidable part of your existence.

If pain cannot be avoided as a part of existence, then how can suffering be transcended during existence? And what does physical pain have to do with desire?

Let me stay within my own experience. When I stub my toe in the dark and hop about in pain, there are usually two things going on. They happen so closely together, I usually don’t notice the difference. The first is physical pain. Stubbed toes can really hurt. But the second part is an amalgam of thoughts surrounding the pain. “Who left the damn stool in the middle of the floor? Why did I think I could get by trying to walk in the dark? Stupid me! God damn stool! It’s a piece of useless junk anyway. Did I break the toe? Yeah? Well that just tops this week off.” Blah de blah de blah – the blizzard of thoughts is really amazing for something so simple. That expanded response to pain in my experience often becomes more intense suffering than the pain that provoked it. Rational? No. Normal? Yes.

That’s where my understanding of the Second and Third Noble Truths stayed until a few weeks ago. They were teachings that seemed to be true, but not that profound or helpful. But then, I found myself totally fuming – not the erupting or exploding anger that lashes out and destroys, but total frustration with long term roadblocks (deliberate and otherwise) placed in my path by others (and me too ).

Prior to this event, I’d picked up several books, randomly as far as I could tell, and my attention in each one was drawn to discussion about beliefs and ideas with the usual Buddhist admonition to let them go because they were insufficient to help one just see what really is. Yeah. Yeah.

And then it hit me. All of the pain surrounding and flowing from my fuming could be directly traced to tightly held thoughts/beliefs I had about something. Every single grievance depended on this. Life was tearing me one way, and my hands and arms were locked in a death grip on what I thought and felt. My fears were anchored to beliefs about what was acceptable and what was unacceptable. My frustrated hopes were anchored to resolute beliefs about how things would have been otherwise. The tearing came from being tightly anchored to beliefs/desires about how things could be – if not for this – if not for that. Some of these beliefs seemed as important as life itself; some were so integral I’d never really noticed them before. For the first time, the Second and Third Noble Truths made matter of fact sense. They were no esoteric teachings – just factual statements about how holding onto things against the sweep of life will make you miserable. Yep. That’s where the strain (suffering) came from – my resolute unwillingness to be swept into the stream of life no matter how much it hurt to hold onto my thoughts in an attempt to resist it.

The next morning, I was still ticked about things. I was even ticked that my “understanding” of the previous night meant that my thoughts/beliefs, and not life, were the source of my misery. Some wonderful enlightenment! I sat down to meditate, concluding there would likely be no serenity there. I decided I wouldn’t attempt to rationalize my feelings, see a different point of view, try to be compassionate, try to see things logically, to let it go – or any of the other old standbys. I wouldn’t even try to meditate while I sat there; if I blocked it from my mind, it would just be there waiting for me when I got through. I decided that I’d just watch the process. Here was anger – there’s the fear behind it – here’s the thing that I hope for or believe would be unbearable – here’s the belief/thought that is in painful conflict with life as I’m experiencing it or think I might experience it. There’s the rubbing point. Over and over again. As I watched it, the hostile energy faded away. No problem had changed or been resolved at that point. And my ideas about things didn’t disappear either. But I saw them as just ideas. Some of them seemed like old friends. But they weren’t. They were just ideas - mostly trying to be helpful - full of the bygone memories they were built on. The strain was gone. And for that moment the Second and Third Noble Truths made obvious practical sense.