Week 9: Four Noble Truths Sumedho - Cessation- Matt - 05/30/2026

Uh, this...

Continuing in the line with what Jen brought up, which was impermanence and teaching of impermanence, and this subsection is mortality and cessation.

So we'll start with this, Buddha's words here.

"What is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the rejecting, relinquishing, leaving, and renouncing of it.

But whereon is this craving abandoned and made to cease? Wherever there is what seems lovable and gratifying, thereon is abandoned and made to cease.

There is cessation.

Cessation should be realized.

Cessation has been realized." So we're born experiencing this conditioned realm.

The body is subject to aging, illness, and death.

The body is sensual desire.

Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, intellect, these conditions affect us, generate desire, wanting, becoming, wanting to get rid of, non-becoming.

And through blind attachment to these three aspects of desire, we suffer.

Notice how irritating it is, or it can be, to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

There is consistently something that is not ideal.

Now let's consider how sensitive we are in relation to words and thoughts.

Being born as a human is a real challenge in terms of how to use this experience of birth, this human experience, this sensitive state that we're living in.

With mindfulness...

I'm gonna use mindfulness, awareness, and conscious awareness interchangeably.

With mindfulness, using the body and the senses as our focus, we can reflect on sensuality, on sensitivity the way it is.

Sense consciousness is like this.

Not just me sitting here thinking about myself.

Mindfulness awareness doesn't condemn or approve.

Its function is only discernment, knowing.

When we cultivate this kind of reflection on physical and mental conditions as they are, the relationship to the body and mind becomes one of knowing it instead of identification with it.

As Jen talked about last week, body, thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not me, not mine, not myself.