The understanding I extract from 'The Four Noble Truths'

The Four Noble Truths made me do alot of thinking. As a reader, this passage made a lot of sense to me, but although I understand I am not easily able to explain my thoughts. But I will try my best to convey what I took to heart.

This passage dealt alot with suffering, and I understood this to be the pain of real life. I know that I find simple pleasures in things, but I never forget that life can hold pain. Those who avert themselves from the truth in things by only seeing the pleasure in life blind themselves to the whole truth. Life is not all pleasure, and by ignoring the sister of pleasure, which is pain, you encase yourself in blinders. This was emphasized to me by, " Eyes are only a little covered with dust". The message I take from this is ' Do not be blinded by your aversion to pain, accept it all in order to see the truth in things'.

The second resonating idea of this passage to me dealt with the extinction of suffering. It was a little more difficult to comprehend because in order to rid yourself of suffering, you must give up overheated petty human emotions and attatchments. Being recklessly emotional human beings, it is hard to imagine ridding ourselves of things like jealousy, or material attatchment to unimportant things. Though I see the sense in this thinking. Escaping the suffering in life begins with going beyond futile human emotions that fog our minds and control our actions. By releasing ourselves from needs beyond basic needs, and useless emotions beyond those necessary for basic human expression we can free ourselves from suffering. This is beginning of the path to freedom, and leads the way on the quest to nirvana.