When East Meets West
East coast psychologist Peter Economou, Ph.D. and West coast psychologist Nikki Rubin, Psy.D. discuss the relationship between ancient Eastern spiritual practices and modern Western behavioral science with practical takeaways for everyone. Learn more at www.wheneastmeetswest.com
When East Meets West
S4E22 The First of Four Noble Truths: Suffering and Peace
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This episode delves into the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, which asserts the inevitability of suffering as a universal human experience. We discuss the differences between pain and suffering, the implications of expectations on our emotional state, and how Buddhist practices can help us cope with life's challenges.
• Explaining the First Noble Truth and its significance
• Understanding suffering as a universal experience
• Distinguishing between pain and suffering
• The role of expectations in creating suffering
• Emphasizing the power of self-reflection and acceptance
• Encouraging mindfulness practices to navigate suffering
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Exploring the Four Noble Truths
Speaker 1what is two plus two ?
Speaker 2I feel like this is an easy answer , but I I'm assuming there's going to be a not so easy response .
Speaker 1It's four , that's what I would say and there are four noble truths in the okay , so it was not I was like I feel like I'm walking into a like a buddhist koan trap here that would have been I'm not , no , I'm not that smart , no . So we're gonna uh the four noble truths and we're gonna break them down for people this coming year , and I think that's a nice thing that we can .
Speaker 2That's the gift of delivery of information yeah , well , I'm , I mean , deliver it to me , that's I know I'm excited . I I'm always , you know , for our listeners . Uh , when pete and I are deciding what we're going to talk about , I'm always like it's like I'm like calling in to like a radio station , I'm like making requests of like what I wanted it does feel like that yeah , I'm like wait , but we haven't talked about this .
Speaker 2So I'm excited to talk about the four noble truths because we talked about them like here and there over the course of the podcast but we we haven't really like devoted full episodes to it .
Speaker 1So my whole thing is I'm what I'm thinking . What do you think about this , nikki , if we just you know ? So for this episode we'll just talk about the first Noble Truth and then we'll have another one , you know , maybe in February the second Noble Truth , kind of break these down like once a month or something .
Speaker 2I mean I think that sounds great . I mean maybe we'll get some emails from people saying do them right in a row , but we're gonna say too bad .
Speaker 1Too bad . We need you to download other episodes in between , because you know we need a sponsor y'all . Hopefully one day someone will sponsor you . They will .
Speaker 1They will , it'll happen all right . So , first of all , truth we've there . So buddhism is not a religion technically , and I think that I have to just start with that . And so , even though it's identified as a religion , and I think it's listed as either the second or the third most popular religion , if you will , globally , you know . So it's uh , christianity , uh , oh god , I don't know . We have to look that up now yeah , yeah I don't .
Speaker 1I remember I mean this was back in the day , but it was like always christianity , I think , islam yeah , that probably makes sense , just population wise right , and then because judaism , I think would be like four there's there's .
Speaker 2There's so little of us , right ? Yeah ?
Speaker 1right . So , uh , and so buddhism is recognized that way , but really it's a philosophy , and so one of the things and this is why east , east meets West is such an important conundrum to be in , because the East philosophy is all about sort of suffering and ending suffering and accepting suffering , and that's the first noble truth , the first noble truth . My mom would say life stinks , and then you die . I grew up hearing that a lot . What do you think about that as a psychologist ?
Speaker 2I mean , you know , I appreciate the kernels of wisdom in that statement . No , but I think , like from what your mom is getting at , what I think you're sharing about is the first noble truth is that suffering is an inevitable part of being alive , correct ?
Speaker 1It's exactly right , you can't avoid it .
Understanding Pain vs Suffering
Speaker 2Actually , now that I'm saying that out loud , I do have a question for you , of course , right away .
Speaker 1I'll take a question over a challenge , but go ahead .
Speaker 2I am known for both .
Speaker 1I love both Go ahead . I am known for both . I love both Go ahead .
Speaker 2I know . Okay . So when I'm talking about pain versus suffering with patients and for listeners , just know I came to I was kind of I don't joke , actually I mean it earnestly here I would say I'm Buddhist-informed . I'm not like Pete's , a practicing Buddhist trained in Zendo . I'm not like Pete's , you know , a practicing Buddhist trained in Zen . I came to Buddhist philosophy through Western psychology . So a lot of how I have always talked about pain versus suffering is that I'll say , like in Buddhism it's acknowledged that pain is inevitable , those suffering is optional . But now I just realized the words that came out of my mouth and I was following what you were saying is that suffering is inevitable . Is that the noble truth ? Or is the noble truth that suffering is something that we will encounter ? That , but it's not necessarily inevitable ?
Speaker 1quote unquote Well , well , even even though suffering is an as an option , uh , the most enlightened folks still suffer because we're human is that ? Why yeah ?
Speaker 2yes , okay , okay . Can you say more about that ?
Speaker 1yeah , so so what you were saying pain is inevitable , suffering is optional .
Speaker 1This is a very kind of media like mainstream quote that I use a lot yeah , and it always people get it and it's saying that , no matter what life is going to throw things at you that force you to be uncomfortable . So the idea within the suffering is that even like even the buddha suffered . Now the buddha suffered under three kind of obvious kinds of suffering . That's what some of the early writings would talk about and that was , uh , on sickness , death and old age . Not in that order , okay okay , okay , yes , yes yeah , so those are the obvious things .
Speaker 1but then , as the buddha went further on to kind of recognize the human experience , it was all of these cravings and desires that created it , and that's what you kind of get into in the second noble truth . It's a cliffhanger .
Speaker 2Okay .
Speaker 1Yeah , so the first noble truth , recognizing that it's all and one of the things that some of the writings will talk about , is expectation , which you and I have talked a lot about .
Speaker 2Yes .
Speaker 2And so the suffering is also because nothing meets our so this is where I get really like excited isn't the right word , because it's not exciting , it's distressing , but engaged maybe is the way to say it , engaged is because that okay . So when I'm talking to patients about these two concepts pain versus suffering I am always going to be talking about how language plays a role in that , and this is something that , from a western behavioral science lens , specifically um relational frame theory , which is like the um , the wing of behaviors , and that studies language as a behavior . Um , if anyone wants to , to look that up , um , it's what acceptance and commitment therapy is founded on . I'll explain that pain . I'll say it's an inevitable part of being alive and I'll say that's true for every living organism on earth . That's right . I'll ask patients . I'll be like do you agree ? It's not just humans , right ? I'll say tigers , spiders , plants , right ? If you're alive , you don't have to have consciousness . I don't know what the consciousness ?
Speaker 2level is the plants , but yeah , no , we'll get there , um . But . But I'll say , do you agree that being alive means you will feel pain or discomfort ? And I've never had somebody disagree . They're like no , that's , that's right .
Speaker 1And .
Speaker 2I'll say okay , but the suffering is optional , because humans , we are the only living beings that have this level of sophisticated language , and I'm not saying that other animals don't have ways to communicate . They do , and we don't obviously totally know how they think , et cetera , but they cannot have the expectations that we do . They can't tell stories the expectations that we do . They can't tell stories the way that we do . They can't imagine their own deaths or the deaths of their loved ones , or of catastrophes or anything like that , and so that's why they're so present , and so they don't experience this compounded pain , which which is suffering , yeah , so I think like that's , um , I don't know . I just think that's like an important component here , right , because it's like other organisms also feel pain , but they don't suffer the way that we do as human beings well , what do you think of ?
Speaker 1because you're smart and you would know this like the elephants when they have like funerals , you know so .
Speaker 2Yeah , oh , I we did . We talked about that in our grief episode . I was like yeah , yeah , well , but that's an example of just being with pain . Yeah , I mean , animals grieve . That's what we talked about in that episode . It's grief is at baseline , one of the most painful emotions we can encounter . But animals are just with that pain there . You know my again I yeah heard you know it's like they're just living .
Speaker 1You know they're eating and trying to survive and yeah , I mean you're , you're hitting on a good point , because that's the blend of the western , you know , science that we've now understood where we're saying , you know , frontal lobe allows for people to kind of interpret these experiences more , be worried about it , and that's what we , a lot of the modern writings of buddh , buddhism , would focus on the fact that , like suffering is also because so we talked about expectation . That's a big piece of it , because we never meet them .
Speaker 1But it's also this idea of being like unsatisfied and unfulfilled and that you know that's very human and you know that's very high performing , that's very 2025 . Oh hey , first time saying that on the air ?
Speaker 2Not really , no , that's very 2025 . Oh hey , first time saying that on the air . Well , not really , no , not really actually . You're just not used to it yet . I'm still not used to it , oh God .
Speaker 1So that part of the brain is saying like , okay , I'm unsatisfied , I'm unfulfilled . That creates suffering . And so that's another reason why you're always saying that with clients , because you're realizing that that's internal . So first , noble truth , that's what we do when we meditate . You know we sit on the cushion to really unravel and disconnect with the internal . You know , the internal that's so conditioned . But if we're behavioral , Would you say so ?
Speaker 2now here's the challenge , right ? Yeah , see , I wouldn't say that we're disconnecting when we're sitting and meditating . I would say , you know , we're actually just trying to give ourselves an option to interact with our internal experiences in a different way , right ? So , like , the mind tells stories , the mind has expectations , and obviously then there's going stories , the mind has expectations , and obviously then there's can be the not storytelling part , like you feel tired , you feel sad , you feel bored , whatever it is , and so we're not trying to disconnect from those , it's like letting them be there . And then the behavioral choices where do you attend to , like , where do you connect ?
Speaker 1right A , hundred percent Sometimes what we can yeah like where do you connect right ?
Speaker 2100 um sometimes what we can okay okay , no disconnecting , well .
Speaker 1But then it made me think of like there might be a listener who does transcendental , transcendental or other types of meditation , where they do focus on disconnecting , you know , from reality or from the moment , whereas that's the opposite of what zen is doing and that's my very like amateur understanding of some of these other .
Speaker 2I don't know if that's what their intention . I mean , I would be actually speaking of podcast episodes . I'd love to have somebody who does transcendental meditation on Cause I I . All I know about it is you have a mantra and you meditate 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night , but I don't .
Speaker 1I've never really understood it from no-transcript levitate and you know , or non-cartoons where there's .
Speaker 2There there are things that happen that are probably , you know , psychedelic sort of meditative things , where people are trying sure and again disconnect probably still the wrong word , because I think even with psychedelics the goal is to really connect connect with the internal through another medium yeah , well , and I think that and this is , you know , I know we're getting a little way from the first noble truth here , which I'd like to come back to , but those are about just connecting more expansively to reality and the realities we , you know , don't necessarily experience in , you know , in on this three-dimensional plane here .
Speaker 2But you know that's for another episode . So I want to come back to the , to this first noble truth . So I do just want to make sure that we're clear , you know , for listeners . So , and I know it's a translation and you know I feel about translations , I know they're not we're going to be perfect , but like if I were to open up like a Buddhist text that's talking about , um , the four noble truths , and we open to page one and it's talking about the first one . What is ? What does it say exactly ?
Speaker 1Uh , that suffering is universal . Okay , so just that there is this universal aspect of suffering . Everyone suffers . Buddha kind of realized that sitting underneath the tree . That's why he left , you know , his , all the riches that he had .
Speaker 1Now , an important thing to bring out here is it's going to sound pessimistic to people , and I think that's some of the times when you challenge me that's what you challenge on , you know , uh , and there's another piece of buddhism that is always in the koans and , and something that's really challenging for a lot of western thinkers is the duality of things yes and so it's not pessimistic or optimistic it just is just is and that is so hard for people .
Speaker 1So I I just wanted to give some space for that , because there will be listeners that are like oh my God , dr Pete and Nikki are like . They are so negative . Nikki's saying that everyone's going to feel pain .
Speaker 2So I'm glad that you're bringing that up , because you're right , especially and look , you know , we have listeners actually that are not just in the United
Navigating American Society and Buddhist Philosophy
Speaker 2States . So for those not in the United States , you know , pete and I are American and we live in American society and American society is particularly , you know , slippery when it comes to moving away from like anything that's like , it's all good . You know , like we , you know we , our culture , definitely um likes to West coast .
Speaker 2It's not wrong , um , it's not wrong , um . So you know , like that , it is hard for for folks um , you know , probably most Western cultures , but definitely in American society right to hear something be . This is what it is , without interpreting that as pessimistic , so yeah . So I think sometimes , when you're saying that's why I challenge you , I think what I'm doing is actually just making sure we're being really specific about the language so there's less room to mishear that Right Cause I think you know you're , you're totally on point here that people hear , you know , being alive is uncomfortable and it's like Whoa , whoa , whoa . That's not what I signed up for . Yeah , I don't want to be , I don't want to be in .
Speaker 2I don't want to be either .
Speaker 1You know , I I was one of my sessions today I was like I was , like you know , none of us want to feel these things , and yet there we are , and so we have to build with it . So , as we kind of build into some of these and break down the other noble truths in this upcoming year , uh , one of the things you'll hear me say and hopefully I'll remember to say this every episode we do a noble truth is also buddhism . In this philosophy of life is about what to do , not what not to do yeah and so there are .
Speaker 1It's like our cliffhanger , here it comes . There are , you know , uh , teachings for how to suffer less yeah and I think well , I find it very empowering .
Speaker 2I could , I can just say somebody like that , like , when I hear that it's like , and in my and that's why I say I'm buddhist informed , it's certainly a way that I've that I live . You know , it's not just like how I practice as a psychologist , like this is you know how I live , yeah , it , it's , it's like okay . So if this is what our , this is what reality is , reality is hard saying okay . Well , here are some ways to interact with reality that will help you move through with more space , you know .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah . And so we will bring some of that to you and empower you on this journey of the noble truths . And so the first noble truth is that suffering is universal , and I'll leave you with this quote from Lachlan Brown Our life is shaped by our mind . We become what we think . Suffering follows an evil thought , as the wheel of a cart followed the oxen that draws it .
