Three Buddhist Truths That Will Make You Feel Free

No Meditation! Just Philosophy! Here Are Three Noble Truths of Buddhism You Can Use Every Day. And They Will Change Your Life... Dukkha: Life is Painful and Causes Suffering Many people call Buddhism a pessimistic and negative doctrine. This is because of the famous dogma of this religion - "Life is suffering". But the problem is that most Europeans fundamentally misunderstand this saying. Buddhism is actually telling you: "Life is not very gentle and pleasant. So screw it." Buddhists argue that we experience much of our suffering because we try to avoid mental anguish or suppress difficult emotions. Our lives are inevitably accompanied by a sense of loss, sadness, fatigue, boredom, anxiety. These are constant companions of our lives. And if we try to avoid all this by buying new gadgets or with the help of drugs, traveling, immoderate and promiscuous sex, etc., then this only causes more dissatisfaction, disappointment and other forms of pain. How to use this every day: Don't buy into the idea that you are missing something to "get the full high". Illness, aging, death - all this is part of life. Accept it as it is and stop thinking in fantasies. Forget about the idea that the perfect life is supposedly an easy and painless life. This delusion has been caused in us by the fashion, entertainment and pharmaceutical industries. The sooner you accept the imperfections of life, the fewer disappointments await you. And the easier it will be for you to open your heart to uncertainty. And the easier it will be for you to "forget" about daily stress and rare failures. Anitya: Life is a constant movement Anitya or "impermanence" means that life as we know it is in constant movement. We can never access a moment from the past. We can't repeat yesterday. We don't have a future either. It's illusory. Every morning you wake up a little different than you were yesterday. Our cells are physically different. We have different thoughts in our heads. Our body temperature is a little different. We breathe a little different air. Everything around us is changing, although we may not notice it. Always. When we feel uncomfortable, the feeling of "impermanence" can be strangely calming. If we know that nothing in the world is permanent, including pain, we know that everything bad will end sooner or later. But when we experience joy, we naturally would like this state to be with us forever. So we are afraid of this idea. But the correct conclusion should be different: since the joy will soon pass, we need to focus on it as much as possible, to get the most pleasure from it. If we accept the idea of the impermanence of life and its value, then this is incredibly liberating. In the West, 100 years after Buddha expressed this idea, Heraclitus repeated it, famously noting: "You can not step into the same river twice." All you really have is the present moment. How to use it every day: Celebrate change. Agree that everything familiar will end one way or another. All the bad that seems terrible today will soon pass, and all the good will remain in your memory if you learn to enjoy it. Your relationships are more important than shoes, a new iPhone will not make you happy for more than a couple of days, and the joy of communicating with children will be repeated every day. Anatma: you yourself are constantly changing When a psychiatrist asks patients what people want to get after the end of therapy, the most popular answer is: "I want to find myself." Our culture has led us to believe that there is some permanent, true self within us. Is it somewhere between our heart and our liver, or is it somewhere in our brain? Who knows! Buddhism, however, holds that there is no fixed, stable self. Since, according to the previous principle, everything around us changes, so do we. Our personalities are constantly being renewed. We have bodies, permanent jobs, names, professions, all of which identify us, or "fix" us. But the point is that we will not remain the same unless we make the same efforts. On the other hand, our lives will not change unless we do what we must do each day to change them. How to use this every day: Instead of focusing on "finding ourselves," we should focus on creating ourselves in each moment. There is no "permanent" self, there is only ourselves in the present moment. And we can change at any moment. Today is always different from yesterday. If you are depressed today, it does not mean that you will always be depressed. If you cannot forgive your friends or relatives for something they did, it does not mean that you will not be able to forgive them later. Once we let go of the idea of our attachment to some stable "I", we can relax and enjoy the present moment. And tomorrow will still be different. In each new moment of life, you are already new.