The first noble truth is the realisation that prompted the Buddha’s journey – that there is suffering and constant dissatisfaction in the world: ‘Life is difficult and brief and bound up with suffering.’ The second is that this suffering is caused by our desires, and thus ‘attachment is the root of all suffering.’ The third truth is that we can transcend suffering by removing or managing all of our attachments. The Buddha thus made the remarkable claim that we must change our outlook, not our circumstances. We are unhappy not because we don’t have a raise or a lover or enough followers, but
...more
