Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths offer a supportive structure to cultivate our ability to sit with difficult emotions and find healing in the process.

1. The First Noble Truth supports the practice of turning towards difficult emotions with curiosity, kindness, and compassion.

2. The Second Noble Truth offers practices to deepen our understanding of our suffering and even become disenchanted with our habitual behaviors.

3. The Third Noble Truth offers an opportunity to build our trust in our experience by pausing to notice moments of joy, freedom, and serenity.

4. The Fourth Noble Truth builds on the foundation of the previous three to map out the focus for this specific path of recovery.

Practice with The Four Noble Truths is about cultivating our ability to pause and be fully present in this moment. This can be difficult and even overwhelming for people who have been habitually avoiding the present moment because it is unpleasant and painful. One metaphor taught by Buddhist teachers is that the experience of stopping to look at the present moment can sometimes be like a waterfall. Sensations and emotions seem unbearable and surround us faster than we can process or understand. When we pause to turn toward this experience without alternate strategies, we sometimes return to habitual behaviors. Eventually, these habits become so strong we call it Addiction.

So, how do we pause when the first step is so overwhelming? We start to cultivate, little by little, the ability to turn toward the present moment with curiosity, kindness, and compassion. We learn various strategies to cope with difficult emotions as they arise. We even learn to turn toward the feeling of being stuck and trapped in our experience.

Each page of this section will include lists of strategies that can be utilized when this old pattern of craving for relief arises.

The First Noble Truth in this practice is just about pausing and allowing. As mentioned above, there are many obstacles to this simple task, so lean in and get support.

In the Second Noble Truth, we start to take note of those thoughts and emotions. We bring kindness and compassion to those experiences to be able to change our relationship with the discomfort.

With the Third Noble Truth, we start to notice the spaciousness, and maybe even experience a sense of serenity, tranquility and equanimity. l

The Fourth Noble Truth is where we look over the path and start to consider what recovery might mean for us. What renunciation or letting go of our habits might look like. ;