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The Treatise on the Stages of Yoga Practice 9
Scientists and spiritual practitioners both seek the truth, though with two different aims that deeply intertwine: Buddhist studies seek methods to lessen suffering, while science seeks only to understand the truth. The Buddha’s teaching begins with the Four Noble Truths, starting with dukkha – the state of ill-being (absence of peace), and alongside it, sukha – well-being, which arises when suffering ceases. Suffering and happiness inter-are, like two sides of a coin, dependent on one’s way of seeing and thinking. Even birth, old age, sickness, and death are natural, as Nun Dieu Nhan likened to someone climbing a tall tree and then fearing to fall; suffering or happiness is truly created by our own consciousness.
Practicing the Dharma requires us to transform our perception in our own mind before seeking to change external circumstances.
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1 The Four Noble Truths:
- dukkha – suffering
- samudāya – the cause of suffering
- nirodha – the cessation of suffering
- magga – the Noble Eightfold Path
- 2 Suffering and happiness – good and evil are not separate, but inter-are, depending on right or wrong thinking
- 3 The story of Thuy Kieu: through suffering and practice, she transforms her mind, and her music, once filled with agony and heartbreak, becomes a song of peace, showing that suffering or happiness arise from within
- 4 The revolution within: moving from wrong view (blaming circumstances) to right view (recognizing suffering comes from perception) brings true peace and the strength to help others
- 5 The teaching of cause and effect and the Middle Way: recognizing cause (the karmic seeds in the Alaya consciousness) and effect (manifestation) as a continuous, undivided process, transcending the two extremes of birth–death, being–non-being
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6 The two traditions of Nagarjuna and Asanga:
- Nagarjuna deconstructs all dualistic concepts to directly touch reality
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Asanga develops the dharma characteristics, explaining the store consciousness containing seeds of energy in the mind
Right view and right thinking are the foundation for seeing the true nature of suffering and happiness, opening the door to liberation and spreading peace.