Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Register here), a casual space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living.
Who was the Buddha?
The Buddha (c. 450 BCE) is the individual whose teachings form the basis of the Buddhist tradition. These teachings, preserved in texts known as the Nikāyas or Āgamas, concern the quest for liberation from suffering. While the ultimate aim of the Buddha’s teachings is thus to help individuals attain the good life, his analysis of the source of suffering centrally involves claims concerning the nature of persons, as well as how we acquire knowledge about the world and our place in it. […]
Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The following video briefly explains The Four Noble Truths:
Dear Readers,
This Friday, we continue our search for Buddhist wisdom through the Dalai Lama’s book The Four Noble Truths. The passages below will help guide the discussion at our next meetup (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:
(1) How can you embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you live the “good” life?
The third Noble Truth is the Truth of Cessation. The key questions we must ask ourselves on this are the following: What is nirvana? What is liberation? …
Since we can infer the truth of emptiness, we must also accept that liberation can be inferred through the reasoning process too. As Nagarjuna says, a true understanding of liberation should be based on an understanding of emptiness, because liberation is nothing other than the total elimination, or total cessation, of delusion and suffering through insight into emptiness. The concept of liberation is therefore very closely related to that of emptiness, and just as emptiness can be inferred, so can liberation. […]
— Dalai Lama, The Four Noble Truths (Ch. 4)
