The Cause of Suffering
After the Buddha learnt that suffering is a part of life, he realized he could not find a way to end suffering without finding out what causes it. Buddhists study that the Buddha learnt this just like a doctor learns about what's wrong with his patient by listing their symptoms, finding out what makes them worse and studying other cases before prescribing a cure.
By watching people, Buddha found out that the causes of suffering are craving and desire, and ignorance. The power of these things to cause all suffering is what Buddhists call The Second Noble Truth.
Craving
What are things we crave for? Food we love to eat, entertainment, new things, popularity, money, beauty, holidays and so many more things and experience, depending on who we are and where we are.
After the Buddha learnt that suffering is a part of life, he realized he could not find a way to end suffering without finding out what causes it. Buddhists study that the Buddha learnt this just like a doctor learns about what's wrong with his patient by listing their symptoms, finding out what makes them worse and studying other cases before prescribing a cure.
By watching people, Buddha found out that the causes of suffering are craving and desire, and ignorance. The power of these things to cause all suffering is what Buddhists call The Second Noble Truth.
Craving
What are things we crave for? Food we love to eat, entertainment, new things, popularity, money, beauty, holidays and so many more things and experience, depending on who we are and where we are.
Craving can be explained as the strong desire that people have for pleasing their senses and for experiencing life itself. Buddhists believe that anything that stimulates our senses or our feelings can lead to craving.
People everywhere crave for their favorite tastes, but we all know that not even the best sweets and our favorite meal lasts forever. Soon it is finished and there can be no more to enjoy, and then it is forgotten as though it never even happened. None of the pleasures we crave for ever give us lasting happiness or satisfaction. This is why people can crave to repeat these experiences again and again, and become unhappy and dissatisfied until they can satisfy their craving.
The trouble is, even if these pleasures are repeated again and again, we can still feel unhappy. Imagine eating your favorite food every meal, day-after-day, week-after-week. At first you might think this is a great idea, but very soon the day will come when you just cannot enjoy that food anymore, when it might even make you feel sick! Have you ever eaten too much cake and made yourself ill? Buddha said it's the same with all the things that please the senses.
Author and Credits: Buddhanet