Buddhism Research

Its very ironic to me that I am writing about an Advent Christian campground, but am using Buddhism as a way to make my salient point. This is what I have discovered:

The term Buddhism comes from the word "Budhi", which means to wake up. "Buddha" means the enlightened one which makes sense because the goals of Buddhism are to teach purity, enlightenment and proper thoughts and viewpoints.

In Buddhism there are Four Noble Truths. These truths are the foundation of Buddhism and are what Buddha aimed to teach his followers.

1. The truth [importance] of suffering
2. The truth of the cause of suffering
3. The truth of the end of suffering, also known as the cessation of suffering
4. The truth of the path that frees us from suffering
   

The Sanskrit word for suffering is "dukkha". It also refers to incompleteness, imperfection, discontent, dissatisfaction and pain. Suffering can be categorized in two ways, mental and physical. Birth, aging, sickness and death are the physical sufferings.

The mental sufferings are as follows:

1. Suffering of separation of lived ones
2. Suffering of contact with hated ones
3. Suffering of frustrated and non-practical desire
4. Suffering of the illness of Five Skandhas

Taking what I have learned above, I have concluded that what I am experiencing is the truth of the cause of suffering (second Noble Truth) in the mental sense of suffering of frustrated and non-practical desire. By knowing what causes the suffering I can end or solve the problem of suffering. Buddha says that people crave pleasant experinces, material things, and eternal life or death. The desire to acquire the material things has three major sufferings:

1. The problem of getting it
2. The problem of protecting it
3. The problem or suffering of losing it

The problem or suffering I am having is the loss of camp (#3 above). Now that I know that I can overcome it by putting an end to my suffering, which will lead the ever curious researcher to the last two of the Four Noble Truths and what they are about.

Fact from Kate: the word suffering comes from the French word "ferre" which means "to bear". Go old time dictionaries!! Woot!