Understanding

[techavenger]

I have been studying and developing my own understanding of people in my life, and the situations that I am most concerned with. From a perspective of knowing myself, I want to foster this characteristic, the characteristic of understanding people and situations, so that I may be a more at peace person, a more helpful person. I say that I would be more at peace and more helpful because I do understand that conflict, and attempting to effect change wherever we like is not always the right, or reasonable thing to do. I know that some situations clearly call for action, I am learning to discern understanding first before making any moves. I believe the Christlike quality of understanding can be equated to the sum of three of the Buddhism's Four Noble Truths, as they are each a facet of life's experience : 

• The truth of the cause of suffering ( "samudaya")
• The truth of the end of suffering ( "nirhodha")
• The truth of the path that frees us from suffering ( "magga")

[donq]

Hi Techavenger,

To avoid Buddhist jargon, here the Four Noble Truths is about:

1. What is the problem?
2. What cause it?
3. what's its solution?
4. What to do to solve it? (I'll come back to this 4. later).

Whenever we want to understand something, we usually deal it in these two ways: inductive reasoning and/or deductive reasoning.

Example of induction:
(Data): Every man I meet has a problem.
(Hypothesis): Most men usually have problems.

Example of deduction:
All men die.
I am a man.
Therefore, I am mortal.

It seems both inductive and deductive reasoning might help us to gain more knowings (sometimes not even the real understandings) but they don't tell/help us how to solve the real problems.

So, what to do to solve the problems? And that is the 4. above come to play. It is called "magga" (path). And there are 8 factors/constituents of the Path
1. right view; right understanding
2. right thought
3. right speech
4. right action
5. right livelihood
6. right effort
7. right mindfulness
8. right concentration

This is because no matter how much we how about driving (right understanding, right thought) if we don't put it into practice, we still cannot really drive a car. We need (right) actions (right effort, concentration.). Ask for more guidance (right speech) from those who know (right livelihood). And the right mindfulness plays the very important roles as it will warn us to be careful in every step.