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New Chapters in New York City and Kingston, NY

The Freedom Series Chapter Meetings

Bringing Forgiveness into our Lives
Thursday July 29, 2010 in New York, NY at 8PM at the NYC LGBTQ Center Understanding Doubt and Curiosity as a Spiritual Concept

Monday July 19, 2010 in Kingston, NY at 7PM
Thursday August 26, 2010 in New York, NY at 8PM

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism
1. Life means suffering
2. The origin of suffering is attachment
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable
4. The path to cessation is an eight fold path

Suffering

Weblog December 2, 2007

By Chris DiGiorgio

Recently, I have been exploring the many different religions and have been looking at similarities between religions.  Central teachings on suffering are used in both Buddhism and Christianity.  Although Christianity focus is on an external GOD and Buddhism’s focus is more internal and not focused on GOD, suffering is a topic both religions use as a teaching.

Many of us from the Christian perspective, learned about how Christ died on the cross dealt with the suffering of his death and rose three days later in the resurrection.  In the Christian perspective, Christ suffered death and was victorious over death.   He first had to deal with his suffering. He had tremendous faith even through his suffering.  His disciples also had to deal with the suffering for a number of days of losing their spiritual leader.  However, through that suffering we learned about resurrection—going through that suffering there is an opportunity for new life. 

In Buddhism, we learn that suffering is a central part of life and how is it we deal with suffering.  The “four noble truths” are the true nature of suffering, its true cause, its cessation and the path to its cessation.  A central story of the Buddha is the story of the mustard seeds.  A woman in a village where the Buddha was staying, was crazy with grief.  Her husband and child died.  She lived for a time with one remaining child and that child died.  She hung onto the child and would not let the child be cremated.  She was brought to the Buddha and she said, “You are a great master, you know the secrets of life and death, and I have come with great hope. Make my child live again.”  Buddha said, “I will do it, but you must fulfill one condition.”  The woman said, “I will do anything, Let my child live.”  The Buddha said, “The condition is simple, you must go around the village and find a few mustard seeds from a house where death never has happened.”  The woman looked all around the village, desperate to find a house that did not have a death.  All the villagers were willing to give her some mustard seeds but all of them had someone die in their home.  By evening she returned to the Buddha a different woman, she realized death is a reality of life and can not be changed.  After this she was quiet and serene.  She became aware that the Buddha knew well that she would not find the mustard seeds from a house where no death occurred. 

In both religions, suffering is a major part of life and we can not escape it.  Both teach us when we get through it that valuable lessons can be learned.  For the LGBTQ community many times we have suffered through the fear of who we are by organized religion and our families.  The lesson for us to learn is just as Christ and the woman in the Buddha story have gone through suffering; that there are opportunities to come through it and learn from it.  Take time to look at some past incidents in your life that you have suffered through and see if you can find major lessons that you have learned.