The Other Person Is Not the Cause of Your Discontentedness

Chapter 2 of this book examined impermanence and established that every being, circumstance, and relationship is continually changing. Understanding this Truth allows the Practitioner to stop expecting people and relationships to remain exactly as they are today. Yet another important question remains. If change is normal and another person is continually making their own decisions, why does the unEnlightened mind experience irritation, disappointment, anxiety, loneliness, anger, sadness, or other conditioned feelings when those circumstances do not unfold according to what the mind wanted?

The answer is often misunderstood because the external event is so easy to observe. A life partner changes plans and irritation arises. A friend communicates less frequently and loneliness arises. An adult child makes a decision the parent considers unwise and anxiety arises. Someone speaks harshly and anger arises. A person does not receive an invitation they expected and disappointment arises. Because the event occurs immediately before the conditioned feeling, the mind can easily conclude that the person, event, or circumstance caused the feelings.

This conclusion can appear reasonable. Before the message arrived, the Practitioner was peaceful; after reading it, irritation arose. Before learning of the child’s decision, the parent was calm; afterward, anxiety appeared. Before the plans changed, the Practitioner was content; afterward, disappointment arose. The sequence seems obvious enough that the mind rarely questions the causal assumption being made.

The Teachings of The Buddha guide the Practitioner to investigate more deeply. The external circumstance occurred, and the conditioned feeling arose, but these are not the same event and they do not have the same cause. Another person’s decision, speech, or action can provide the circumstance in which something within the Practitioner’s mind becomes visible, but the cause of the conditioned feeling is found within the mind experiencing it.

Understanding this distinction is essential because the cause determines the solution. If the Practitioner identifies another person as the cause of discontentedness, then peace appears to depend upon changing that person. If a circumstance is identified as the cause, then peace appears to depend upon arranging circumstances differently. But if the cause is understood to exist within the Practitioner’s own mind, then the possibility of eliminating discontentedness no longer depends upon controlling another being or arranging the world according to personal wants and expectations.

The Four Noble Truths provide the framework through which this cause and effect can be understood.

The Four Noble Truths in Relationships

Right View includes the wisdom of discontentedness, the wisdom of the cause of discontentedness, the wisdom of the elimination of discontentedness, and the wisdom of the way of practice leading to the elimination of discontentedness. These four areas of wisdom are The Four Noble Truths, and together they explain the complete progression from recognizing discontentedness to eliminating its cause.

Within relationships, The Four Noble Truths become highly practical. The First Noble Truth teaches that everyone who remains unEnlightened will experience discontentedness. The Second Noble Truth identifies craving/desire/attachment as the cause of discontentedness. The Third Noble Truth teaches that discontentedness can be eliminated through eliminating the craving/desire/attachment that causes it. The Fourth Noble Truth identifies The Eight Fold Path as the way of practice leading to the complete elimination of discontentedness.

These Truths do not merely explain that an unpleasant experience occurred. They guide the Practitioner through a deeper investigation. What is being experienced? What caused it? Can the cause be eliminated? How is that elimination accomplished? When these questions are understood accurately, the Practitioner no longer needs to stop the investigation at the external event or assume that another person controls the condition of the Practitioner’s mind.

Their conduct may still need to be understood as unwise. A practical challenge may need a solution. Advice may be beneficial. A relationship may need to change form or even end. None of this is excluded. The Four Noble Truths simply provide the wisdom needed to distinguish the external circumstance from the internal cause of discontentedness.

The First Noble Truth: Discontentedness Exists

The First Noble Truth teaches that everyone who remains unEnlightened will experience discontentedness. Within these Teachings, discontentedness is the mind experiencing conditioned feelings. All feelings are conditioned because they arise through causes and conditions. While the mind remains unEnlightened, conditioned feelings arise, change, and cease as those causes and conditions change.

Conditioned feelings can be understood as pleasant, painful, or neither-painful-nor-pleasant. Pleasant feelings include experiences such as happiness, excitement, elation, thrill, and exhilaration. Painful feelings include sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, annoyance, guilt, shame, fear, stress, and anxiety. Neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings include boredom, loneliness, discomfort, dissatisfaction, and similar conditioned experiences.

This understanding is important because people often associate discontentedness only with experiences they consider unpleasant. Yet within The Teachings of The Buddha, the issue is broader. Happiness, excitement, and elation are also conditioned feelings. They arise because causes and conditions are present, and they cease when those causes and conditions change. An unEnlightened mind may therefore experience a pleasant conditioned feeling when circumstances correspond with what the mind wants and then experience a painful conditioned feeling when those same circumstances change.

Relationships provide countless opportunities to observe this process. A life partner gives affection and happiness arises. A message arrives and excitement appears. A friend becomes less available and loneliness arises. Plans change and irritation appears. An adult child makes a decision the parent does not want and anxiety arises. The external circumstances differ, but in each instance a conditioned feeling has arisen within the mind.

The unEnlightened mind often uses these feelings to evaluate the relationship. When pleasant feelings are present, the relationship may be thought of as good. When painful or neither painful-nor-pleasant feelings arise, the relationship may be considered bad or problematic. The mind may then conclude that someone or something outside itself needs to change in order for a pleasant feeling to return.

The Practitioner developing wisdom learns to separate the conditioned feeling from a wise evaluation of the relationship. A conditioned pleasant feeling does not necessarily mean a wise decision is being made, and a conditioned painful feeling does not necessarily mean something unwise is occurring externally. A parent may experience happiness when an adult child follows every suggestion, even though the parent may still possess attachment to the child’s obedience. A Practitioner may experience disappointment while making a very wise decision to move on from a relationship. The conditioned feeling tells the Practitioner what is being experienced within the mind, but it does not reveal whether the external circumstance is wholesome or unwholesome.

The First Noble Truth therefore begins with recognition. Discontentedness has arisen. A conditioned feeling is being experienced. The Practitioner does not need to immediately follow that feeling into speech or action, nor does the presence of the feeling establish that another person has done something unwise. It tells the Practitioner that there is something within the mind that can be investigated.

With Enlightenment, the causes supporting conditioned feelings have been completely eliminated. Conditioned feelings are therefore completely eliminated, and with their elimination, discontentedness is completely eliminated. While the mind remains unEnlightened, conditioned feelings continue arising, and their presence provides the Practitioner with opportunities to recognize what remains to be understood and eliminated.

The Second Noble Truth: The Cause of Discontentedness

The Second Noble Truth identifies craving/desire/attachment as the cause of discontentedness. Craving/desire/attachment can also be experienced through wants, expectations, grasping, holding, and clinging. It is a mental longing for something with a strong eagerness—the mind pulling toward what it wants, expecting circumstances to be a particular way, or wanting an unwanted circumstance to be different.

This is where the Practitioner begins distinguishing what actually occurred from what the mind wanted to occur.

Suppose a friend normally responds quickly to messages. One day the Practitioner sends a message and several hours pass without a response. The observable circumstance is simple: the message has not yet received a reply. The mind, however, may contain a want or expectation that the friend respond within a familiar period of time. When reality no longer corresponds with that expectation, irritation, anxiety, loneliness, or disappointment may arise.

The friend did not place those conditioned feelings into the Practitioner’s mind. The circumstance revealed craving/desire/attachment that was already present.

The same process can occur when a life partner changes plans. The observable circumstance is that the plans changed. The craving might be, “I want the plans to remain exactly as we agreed”. An adult child chooses a career different from the one the parent considers beneficial. The circumstance is the child’s decision. The craving might be, “I want my child to choose the career I think is best”. A friend becomes less available. The observable circumstance is reduced communication. The craving might be, “I want this person to communicate with me as frequently as before”.

In each example, there is a difference between reality and what the mind wanted reality to be.

The conditioned feeling reveals that difference.

This does not mean that the specific craving will always be immediately obvious. Some cravings are easy to identify, while others have existed for so long that they feel ordinary and unquestionable. A parent may have expected for decades that an adult child would remain geographically nearby. A life partner may have developed an expectation regarding the amount of time the couple will spend together. A friend may have quietly developed an expectation that communication will remain frequent. Because these expectations can develop gradually, the Practitioner may notice the conditioned feeling long before understanding the specific craving causing it.

The Second Noble Truth directs the investigation toward the cause within the Practitioner’s mind rather than toward blame. The Practitioner learns to ask what the mind wanted, expected, desired, held, grasped, or clung to when reality unfolded differently.

One Person Cannot Cause Another Person’s Conditioned Feeling

One of the clearest ways to understand The Second Noble Truth is to observe that the same external circumstance can be experienced very differently by different minds.

Consider two parents whose adult children independently decide to move to another country. The circumstances are similar. Both parents will see their children less frequently. Communication patterns may change. The relationship will take a different form.

One parent may experience intense sadness, anxiety, loneliness, or resentment. The parent may repeatedly think about how far away the child will be and how much the relationship will change. The mind may begin trying to persuade the child not to move or repeatedly argue intending to convince the child to change their decision.

Another parent can encounter a similar circumstance while remaining peaceful. This parent can understand that the adult child is an individual being making their own decision. The parent can communicate love, assist with practical preparations, ask questions, offer wisdom when there is an open door, and continue participating in the relationship after the move without developing resentment or anxiety.

The external circumstance is similar, but the internal experience is different.

If the child moving away actually caused sadness, loneliness, anxiety, or resentment, then the same circumstance would produce the same conditioned feeling in every parent who experienced it. Yet this is not what occurs. Different minds experience the same type of circumstance differently because the causes and conditions within those minds are different.

This can be observed throughout relationships. One person becomes irritated when plans change while another adjusts peacefully. One parent becomes angry when a child disagrees while another remains calm. One life partner experiences jealousy when the other develops a new friendship while another maintains loving-kindness. One person experiences rejection when communication becomes less frequent while another understands that the relationship has changed.

The difference is found within the minds experiencing the circumstance.

Ordinary language often obscures this by using expressions such as “You made me angry”, “You made me sad”, “You made me feel guilty”, or “You made me anxious”. These statements assign the cause of the conditioned feeling to another being. The Teachings of The Buddha guide the Practitioner toward greater precision. Another being can speak, act, make decisions, break an agreement, behave harshly, or intentionally attempt to influence another person. Their conduct becomes part of the circumstances being experienced. But one person does not create a conditioned feeling inside another person’s mind.

Each mind experiences the circumstance according to the causes and conditions present within that mind.

If you take a moment and look at your experiences in life, you will see that whenever the mind gets what it wants or expects, there are conditioned pleasant feelings. But, if the mind does not get what it wants or expects, then conditioned painful feelings or feelings that are neither painful-nor-pleasant will arise. You will need to examine a recent situation in which the mind experienced discontentedness to independently verify this Truth for yourself.

Influence Is Different from Cause

This distinction becomes especially important when one person intentionally tries to influence another being. A parent, for example, may strongly want an adult child to make a particular decision. The parent may remind the child of everything the parent has done for them, describe how disappointed family members might be, or repeatedly communicate information intended to influence the child’s choice.

The parent’s conduct can be examined accurately. The parent may be attempting to influence the decision through guilt, fear, pressure, or repeated persuasion. This can be recognized as unwise communication without claiming that the parent causes the conditioned feeling within the child.

The child’s conditioned feeling arises through causes and conditions within the child’s own mind. One adult child might experience strong guilt after hearing the parent’s words. Another might become irritated. Another may recognize the attempt to influence the decision and remain peaceful. Another may simply listen, understand the parent’s concern, and continue with the original decision without conditioned feelings.

The parent can therefore examine the wholesomeness of the communication while the child examines what is arising within their own mind. Both aspects of the interaction can be understood accurately at the same time by each person individually.

This is important because saying that another person does not cause the Practitioner’s conditioned feeling does not remove the significance of how people communicate and act. The Natural Law of Kamma teaches cause and effect, or action and result. Speech and actions produce results. The Practitioner is therefore learning to communicate and act wholesomely. But another being’s unwise conduct does not cause discontentedness within the Practitioner’s mind. That discontentedness arises from craving for the other person to behave in a particular way. It is the craving for the other person to function a certain way that is causing the mind to experience discontentedness.

If the mind gets what it wants or expects, there are conditioned pleasant feelings. If the mind does not get what it wants or expects, there are conditioned painful feelings or feelings that are neither painful-nor-pleasant.

Clearly Unwise Conduct Can Still Be Recognized

The Second Noble Truth can initially be misunderstood when another person’s behavior is clearly unwholesome. It may be relatively easy to understand The Teaching when two people merely prefer different restaurants or have different plans for the weekend. The situation becomes more challenging when someone lies, communicates harshly, acts aggressively, behaves dishonestly, breaks an agreement, or repeatedly makes decisions that produce undesirable results.

The Four Noble Truths do not teach the Practitioner to deny observable conduct.

If someone lies, the lie can be understood as dishonest conduct. If someone speaks harshly, the speech can be recognized as harsh. If another person repeatedly acts through craving, anger, or ignorance (unknowing of true reality), the Practitioner does not need to pretend wisdom is present. If someone’s conduct makes continued interaction unwise, through wisdom, the Practitioner determines whether the relationship needs to change or end.

The Teachings of The Buddha help develop an understanding of the distinction between what the other person does and what arises within the Practitioner’s own mind.

Another person can speak harshly without the Practitioner developing hatred. Someone can lie without the Practitioner becoming consumed by resentment. Another being can make an unwise decision without the Practitioner developing an expectation that the person is required to choose differently. Someone can repeatedly act in a way that makes continuing the relationship unwise, and moving on does not require revenge, hostility, or anger.

Wisdom allows the Practitioner to understand both aspects accurately. The external conduct can be unwise, but the internal response does not need to become unwise as well. Observable unwholesome conduct can be understood clearly while the Practitioner continues examining the cause of discontentedness within their own mind.

The Circumstance Reveals What Is Already Present

The distinction between circumstance and cause becomes especially clear when a Practitioner examines what happens when the external world happens to correspond with craving.

Consider a parent who provides guidance to an adult child concerning an important decision. The parent possesses considerably more experience and may have good reason to think that the child’s intended decision will produce an undesirable result. The parent communicates carefully, explains cause and effect, asks questions, and shares useful information.

The child listens and then chooses differently.

The parent can continue understanding the decision as unwise. Wisdom does not disappear merely because the child disagrees. The deeper investigation concerns what arises within the parent’s mind. Anxiety, irritation, frustration, or anger may reveal that genuine care has become mixed with craving for a particular outcome.

The parent may discover that the mind contains an expectation that the child is required to follow the guidance exactly as presented. The mind may think, “I want my child to listen”, “I expect my child to make the decision I think is wise”, or “I do not want my child to experience the undesirable result I think will follow”.

The child’s decision did not create that craving/desire/attachment within the parent’s mind. The decision revealed what was already present.

If the child had followed the advice, the craving might have remained hidden because the external circumstance corresponded with what the parent wanted. The parent might have experienced a conditioned pleasant feeling and concluded that everything was harmonious. Yet the craving would not necessarily have been eliminated. It simply would not have encountered a circumstance that revealed it.

This distinction becomes extremely important because favorable circumstances do not necessarily demonstrate that unwholesome qualities have been eliminated.

Sometimes favorable circumstances simply satisfy them.

The Third Noble Truth: The Elimination of Discontentedness

The Third Noble Truth teaches that the complete elimination of discontentedness is possible because its cause can be eliminated. Once the Practitioner has independently verified craving/desire/attachment as the cause of discontentedness in the Second Noble Truth, one no longer needs to search for lasting peace by continually arranging people and circumstances to satisfy the mind.

The person, event, or circumstance is not the cause of the Practitioner’s discontentedness. The cause is craving/desire/attachment within the mind. Because the cause exists within the mind, the mind can be trained and the cause of discontentedness can be eliminated within the mind.

This is a fundamentally different solution from changing the external circumstances.

If a Practitioner is irritated because a friend has not responded to a message, obtaining the response may cause the irritation to cease. If a parent is anxious because an adult child is making an unwanted decision, attempting to persuade the child to choose differently may cause the anxiety to cease. If a life partner is disappointed because plans changed, restoring the original plans may satisfy the craving, and a conditioned pleasant feeling may arise.

Yet none of these outcomes necessarily eliminates the cause.

The Third Noble Truth guides the Practitioner beyond temporary relief and toward the actual elimination of craving/desire/attachment that is causing the discontent feeling.

Satisfying Craving Is Not Eliminating Craving

The difference between satisfying craving and eliminating craving is central to understanding The Third Noble Truth.

Imagine that the Practitioner sends a message to a close friend and receives no response. Several hours pass and loneliness or irritation arises. The mind wants communication. Later, the friend responds. The conditioned feeling ceases and a conditioned pleasant feeling may arise in its place.

It can easily appear that the problem has been solved.

But the craving may still exist.

The Practitioner wanted the response and eventually received it. The circumstance changed in the direction the mind wanted, and the craving was satisfied. If the underlying expectation regarding communication remains, another unanswered message can reveal the same craving thus producing discontentedness.

The same pattern can occur in countless relationships. A life partner changes plans, the other person becomes upset, and the original plans are restored. A parent becomes anxious about an adult child’s decision, repeatedly provides advice, and eventually convinces the child to choose differently. A person becomes jealous when a life partner spends time with someone else, and the activity is cancelled. In each case, the conditioned painful feeling may cease because the external circumstance changed according to the craving.

But in these examples, satisfying craving is not eliminating craving.

The underlying mental quality can remain intact and appear again when a different circumstance does not match with what the mind wants.

This explains why repeatedly changing other people cannot provide a lasting solution to discontentedness. Another person may satisfy a particular craving today, but they are continually changing and will eventually make another decision the Practitioner would not choose. Plans will change. Communication will change. Interests will change. Relationships will change. Impermanence guarantees that the world cannot continually satisfy every want and expectation of an unEnlightened mind.

The Third Noble Truth therefore points toward true peace. Rather than repeatedly satisfying craving, the Practitioner gradually eliminates the cause so that the mind no longer depends upon satisfying that craving in order to remain happy.

With complete elimination of craving/desire/attachment, the conditioned feelings are eliminated. With Enlightenment, all causes of conditioned feelings have been completely eliminated; therefore, conditioned feelings no longer arise. All discontentedness will be eliminated.

Eliminating the Cause Changes the Relationship

When craving begins to be eliminated, the external relationship can remain largely unchanged while the Practitioner’s experience changes considerably.

A friend may still communicate less frequently, but the Practitioner no longer experiences loneliness because the craving for a particular amount of communication has been eliminated. An adult child may still choose differently from the parent’s advice, but the parent can remain peaceful because the expectation that the child follow the parent’s preferred decision is no longer present. A life partner may continue developing independent interests, yet jealousy does not arise because the mind no longer clings to a particular amount or form of togetherness.

The change in the Practitioner’s experience within the mind does not depend upon forcing the other being to change first.

This illustrates why eliminating the cause is considerably different from managing circumstances. When the cause is eliminated, the same type of external circumstance can occur without the same conditioned experience arising within the mind. The Practitioner has not merely become better at arranging the world. The mind itself has changed.

Developing a life practice guides the Practitioner toward this transformation of the mind.

The Practitioner is not merely learning how to obtain temporary relief from conditioned feelings. The Practitioner is developing toward the complete elimination of the causes that produce them.

The Fourth Noble Truth: The Way of Practice Leading to Elimination

Understanding that craving/desire/attachment causes discontentedness provides the Practitioner with Right View, but understanding the cause intellectually does not by itself eliminate the cause. A person can understand perfectly well that attachment to another person’s behavior is producing discontentedness and still experience the same attachment when a similar circumstance occurs the following week. The mind has developed habits, perceptions, intentions, and mental qualities over long periods of time, and these do not disappear merely because the Practitioner has acquired an intellectual understanding of the true reality explained within The Teachings of The Buddha.

The Fourth Noble Truth therefore completes the framework by identifying The Eight Fold Path as the way of practice leading to the elimination of discontentedness. The Practitioner does not simply identify craving and then hope it disappears. The mind is intentionally trained so that unwholesome qualities are gradually eliminated and wholesome qualities are increasingly developed.

The Eight Fold Path trains the complete decision-making process. Right View develops accurate understanding regarding discontentedness, its cause, its elimination, and the way of practice leading to elimination. Right Intention cultivates the intentions of renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness. Right Speech trains the Practitioner to refrain from lying, slander, harsh speech, and frivolous speech. Right Action develops harmless bodily conduct. Right Livelihood guides the Practitioner toward sustaining their life without causing harm. Right Effort trains the mind to Prevent unwholesome mental qualities, Abandon unwholesome mental qualities that have arisen, Produce wholesome mental qualities, and Maintain wholesome mental qualities that have arisen: Prevent -> Abandon -> Produce -> Maintain. Right Mindfulness develops awareness of what is occurring within the mind, while Right Concentration includes meditation and singleness of mind so that the Practitioner can increasingly remain stable and clear to apply all The Teachings rather than immediately following conditioned feelings into unwise decisions.

Right Speech is refraining from lying, slander, harsh speech, and frivolous speech and further develops communication through The Five Factors of Well Spoken Speech: speaking at the proper time, speaking what is true, speaking gently, saying what is beneficial, and communicating with a mind of loving-kindness. These practices become particularly important in relationships because discontentedness can quickly influence communication if the mind is not well trained.

Suppose a life partner communicates harshly and irritation arises within the Practitioner’s mind. Right View helps the Practitioner understand that the harsh speech is the external circumstance while craving/desire/attachment within the Practitioner’s mind causes the discontentedness. Right Intention guides the mind away from retaliation and toward non-ill will and harmlessness. Right Speech influences how the Practitioner communicates if communication is wise. Right Effort helps the Practitioner prevent and abandon unwholesome mental qualities while producing and maintaining wholesome ones. Right Mindfulness allows awareness of what is occurring within the mind, and Right Concentration supports the stability necessary to avoid immediately turning the conditioned feeling into speech or action.

The Eight Fold Path therefore provides a comprehensive training through which intellectual understanding becomes practical development. The Practitioner learns not merely to know that craving causes discontentedness but to cultivate a mind in which craving is gradually weakened and eventually eliminated.

This distinction also explains why The Third Noble Truth and The Fourth Noble Truth are separate Teachings. The Third Noble Truth establishes that elimination is possible because the cause can be eliminated. The Fourth Noble Truth explains the way of practice through which that elimination is accomplished. Without understanding the Third Noble Truth, the Practitioner might identify the cause yet assume that discontentedness is simply an unavoidable part of existence. Without understanding the Fourth Noble Truth, the Practitioner might understand that elimination is possible but lack the complete training through which the mind is developed toward that result.

Together, The Four Noble Truths provide the full progression:

Discontentedness exists -> craving/desire/attachment causes it -> the cause can be eliminated -> The Eight Fold Path is the way of practice leading to its elimination.

A later chapter will examine The Eight Fold Path in considerably greater depth as the training of the decision-maker’s mind. At this point, the important understanding is that the elimination of discontentedness taught within The Third Noble Truth is not accomplished merely through intellectual agreement with The Teaching. It is accomplished by developing a life practice based on The Eight Fold Path, as taught in The Fourth Noble Truth, to completely eliminate the cause of discontentedness.

From Blame Toward Investigation

When the mind believes another person causes discontentedness, attention naturally moves outward. The Practitioner can become absorbed in what another person said, what they did, what they failed to do, and how they need to change. The event may be replayed repeatedly within the mind while little attention is given to the craving/desire/attachment that is actually producing the conditioned feelings.

The Four Noble Truths change the direction of the investigation without suggesting the Practitioner ignore external conduct. The Practitioner can still ask, “What did this person do?”. That question may be useful for understanding the circumstance accurately. But another question is now added: “What is occurring within my own mind as I experience this circumstance?”

Both investigations can occur together.

A Practitioner can understand, “This person communicated harshly”, while also understanding, “Discontentedness has arisen within my mind”. A parent can accurately conclude, “I think this decision will produce undesirable results”, while also examining whether craving is present for the child to choose differently. A life partner can understand that an agreement was not fulfilled while still investigating the conditioned feeling that arose within the mind.

This approach removes the need to choose between two inaccurate extremes. The Practitioner does not need to blame another person for the internal experience, and the Practitioner does not need to pretend the external conduct is wise when it is not. Wisdom allows both the external circumstance and the internal cause to be understood accurately.

This movement from blame toward investigation becomes one of the most important changes in the development of harmony. Another person’s conduct is no longer treated as sufficient explanation for the condition of the Practitioner’s mind. The Practitioner begins examining cause and effect at a deeper level and discovers that the area capable of being completely transformed is the mind participating in the relationship. The Practitioner needs to identify the craving/desire/attachment in the mind so that it can be eliminated.

The Cause Determines the Solution

The practical importance of The Four Noble Truths within relationships can be understood through one central principle:

The cause determines the solution.

If loneliness is believed to be caused by another person not communicating enough, the solution becomes obtaining more communication. If anxiety is believed to be caused by an adult child making an unwise decision, the solution becomes getting the child to choose differently. If anger is believed to be caused by harsh speech, the solution becomes making other people communicate according to the Practitioner’s desires. If disappointment is believed to be caused by changed plans, the solution becomes preventing plans from changing.

These approaches may sometimes alter the immediate circumstance and satisfy the craving. The friend may respond. The child may follow the advice. The plans may be restored. The other person may apologize even though they did not do anything harmful.

But because the underlying craving remains, happiness continues to depend upon external circumstances, which are constantly changing. Therefore, the happiness is not permanent, and it is only a matter of time before conditioned painful feelings return.

The Four Noble Truths reveal another solution. The Practitioner learns to recognize discontentedness, understand craving/desire/attachment as its cause, understand that this cause can be eliminated, and then train the mind through The Eight Fold Path so that the cause is gradually removed.

The external world remains impermanent.

Other beings continue changing.

People continue making decisions the Practitioner would not make.

Relationships continue changing form.

Yet the Practitioner increasingly develops a mind that does not depend upon controlling those circumstances in order to remain peaceful and joyful. The Wisdom Being Developed

Chapter 2 of this book established that change is the natural way the world operates due to The Universal Truth of Impermanence. Chapter 3 adds the next important understanding: change itself does not cause the Practitioner’s discontentedness, and neither does another person.

An external circumstance occurs. A conditioned feeling arises within the unEnlightened mind. The First Noble Truth allows the Practitioner to recognize the discontentedness as a problem. The Second Noble Truth directs attention toward craving/desire/attachment as its cause. The Third Noble Truth establishes that the cause can be completely eliminated. The Fourth Noble Truth provides The Eight Fold Path as the way of practice leading to that elimination and a complete solution.

This understanding fundamentally changes the way relationships can be experienced. Another person no longer needs to be treated as the source of the Practitioner’s internal feelings and condition of mind. Their conduct can still be understood accurately, practical decisions can still be made, wise communication can still occur, and a relationship can still change or end. But the Practitioner no longer confuses the external circumstance with the cause of discontentedness.

The person, event, or circumstance is not the cause of the Practitioner’s discontentedness.

The cause is craving/desire/attachment within the mind.

Because the cause exists within the mind, the mind can be trained and the cause of discontentedness can be eliminated within the mind.

The Practitioner needs to independently verify these four truths through their own direct experience so that the mind cultivates the needed wisdom to eliminate 100% of all discontentedness. Without understanding and having independently verified The Four Noble Truths, a Practitioner would be unable to develop lasting peace within their mind or harmony in their relationships. The Four Noble Truths form a fundamental Teaching that needs to be learned, reflected upon, and practiced to develop the wisdom needed to progress toward Enlightenment and harmonious relationships.

This prepares the Practitioner for the next area of relationship wisdom. Even when two beings become extremely close, neither person becomes the other. Each being continues living their own life, making their own decisions, and experiencing the results of those decisions.

Chapter 4 will examine this through The Universal Truth of Non-self and The Natural Law of Kamma: Their Life -> Their Decisions -> Their Results.