The Third Noble Truth: You Can Stop Wanting Different Shit To Happen

To review:

The First Noble Truth is that Shit Happens (A), which tends to make Life Suck (B)

A->B

The Second Noble Truth is that this link is not direct. Life Sucks (B) because we want (C) Different Shit To Happen.

  A->C->B

The Third Noble Truth is that we can stop wanting Different Shit To Happen

A->C->B

thus breaking the link between A and B. Theoretically, if one can do this in all situations, one will achieve Nirvana, or, as the bigview site puts it:

Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.

To which I say: Bullshit. I'm not going to live my life by a philosophy whose roots are built up around some goofy incomprehensible paradox. I mean, what the hell? Is this the series finale of Star Trek? Are you Q?

No? Then don't give me this "it's incomprehensible unless you've attained it which you know come to think of it you probably never will" nonsense. That's not how the Grumpy Buddha rolls.

I mean, I'm sure that there's going to be some nasty paradoxes down the line when we get to the concepts of self and non-self, but at least have the manners to put that crap in the fine print, and not 32-point font in the Foundation of the philosophy.

But we'll let that go for now, and settle for an end to most craving. Most stuff that causes us to be grumpy in everyday life does seem, upon reflection, pretty goddamned stupid.

Is it really that important that some jerk cut you off in traffic? That a friend was a half-hour late to dinner? That you didn't get invited to that party? That your douche-y coworker got the promotion that you deserved?

The answers: No, they really should have called, they're all stupid jerks anyway so who cares what they do, and surreptitiously copy some lesbian donkey porn onto his computer and then tell his boss.

Anyway, so there you have it. The Third Noble Truth. There's not a lot of meat there -- they save that for the next one -- which, yes, makes this one a little worthless, as there's no reason to believe it's possible until you dig into the details.

In fairness, it's a big enough concept -- "I can stop craving stuff, or craving that different stuff happens?!" that it deserves a bullet point of its own.