The Four Noble Truths - Essay Example

Karma or the activities of a person in the present life will determine in which form he will rebirth after his death. Buddhists never believed in soul. Since they believed in rebirths for them, soul will be changing from one form to another based on the rebirths. They called soul as "self “which is just a bunch of changing characteristics” (Michaela, n.d). For them everything in our life is constantly changing and there is nothing satisfactory in life because of the temporary nature of things in life.

The four noble truths as per Buddhism are; Life means suffering, the origin of suffering is attachment, the cessation of suffering is attainable and the path to the cessation of suffering. (The Four Noble Truths, n.d) “If there were a creator of the world, he would be regarded as responsible for the suffering” (Harvey, p.36) Buddhists believed that life itself is nothing but suffering. Whatever the things we do or whatever the joy we derive from the material world, all will ultimately ended in sufferings.

There is no ultimate joy for human life in this world. The person who is responsible for the human suffering is the creator himself, the God. They believed that sufferings of human life cannot be attributed to anything other than the creator itself. Suffering is inherent in life from birth on wards. It continues through all the stages of life till the death. “Past karma also offers perhaps the only religiously satisfactory explanation of the suffering of people who have done nothing to deserve it in this life" (Harvey, p.44) Even though a person has nothing done wrong in his present life, his activities in his previous life may result in sufferings in the present life also and the cycle will continue till the person attains Nirvana.

“During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering