Satya Robyn explains the Second Noble Truth, which identifies craving and attachment as the source of suffering. The talk covers how craving works as an escape from pain, its connection to karma and rebirth, and different translations of the concept from scholars like David Brazier and Stephen Batchelor.
Hi everyone, time to talk about the second noble truth, the samudaya, usually translated as attachment. And the commentary being, being attached to things creates suffering. And I guess that's true in a very straightforward way. If I want this expectation, if I want this outcome, And it doesn't happen. I'm disappointed. That's suffering. And does it create being born, being sick, getting old, dying? Well, I guess in the grand scheme of Buddhist cosmology, it does because attachment creates karma, which means we're reborn in this world and we have to go through the whole cycle again. So there is something in it. Attachment creates suffering. So it's good to be a bit less attached to things, have lighter expectations, have ideas about what we want to happen, but not hold them too tightly. It's also translated by David Brazier and Stephen Batchelor as uprising, or arising with. It's the thirst that arises with. Suffering or in response to suffering. So it's not that in this commentary, it's not that attachment creates suffering, but that something happens in the world and we respond by craving something else. I want to distract myself. I want to take myself away. I want to drown my sorrows. We can also respond by pushing the suffering away or just blanking off and ignoring it, of course. So this is the Second Noble Truth, that attachment and thirst and craving have something to do with suffering, and that the spiritual practice is about how we handle the attachment and thirst and craving that either creates suffering or is a response to suffering, or I guess probably a little bit of both of those. And to find out how we handle it, wait till next time and I will tell you about the Third Noble Truth.
