We are all Interconnected even with the Universe

Siddhartha’s Existential Crisis/ The Buddha’s Resolution
All copyrights are held by the author Rodger R Ricketts, Psy.D.
“He, who injures living beings, is not Noble. He is called Noble, because he is
gentle and kind towards all living beings.” Buddha.
“In the past, monks, and also now, I teach Dukkha and the cessation of Dukkha.”
Buddha
Introduction
This book examines relevant factors, as different from the Traditional texts’
stories, regarding Siddhartha Gautama’s psychological crisis causing him to
leave his home and renounce the secular life at age 29. A primary assertion of
this paper is that the traditional story of the ‘Four Sights’ is allegorical and the
description of Siddhartha’s psychological and emotional response to them is
better understood what modern psychology calls an existential crisis or crisis in
understanding life. An apparent significant factor in his renunciation is that
Siddhartha Gautama and his family were members of the Kshatriya or
warrior/leader caste, and it is a fact which is usually not elaborated on in many
Traditional texts.
Dukkha, or often translated as suffering, was the key element of Siddhartha’s
crisis and is the focus of all Buddhist doctrine in the Four Noble Truths. The
Buddha put suffering as the focus of his inquiry and he taught the doctrine of
The Four Noble Truths; the truth of suffering (Dukkha), the truth of the origin
of suffering (Samudāya), the truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha), and
the truth of the Path to the cessation of suffering (Magga). However, in
Buddhist thought there is a wide discussion about the meaning of suffering. In
this book, a definition of Dukkha with its variations will be
provided. Siddhartha’s response to suffering became the impetus for him to
seek a life of renunciation to answer his perplexity about Dukkha and its
cessation.
Finally, Gautama Siddhartha’s original crisis, told in the symbolic story of the
Four Sights, strongly brought the problem of Dukkha to the forefront of his
awareness. This is the significance of the legend from the Four Sights. Their
lesson is that besides ordinary physical and emotional pain, there is a deeper
existential grief and discontent resulting from one’s awareness of life’s inherent
impermanence and groundlessness. Awakening or Enlightenment became the
basis of the resolution of his personal crisis leading to the formulation of the
Four Noble Truths.
Since most people try to understand the Buddha’s teachings from the common
perspective based on duality, substantialism and egotism, suffering is
understood as physical or emotional pain- unhappiness in the sensual,
material, egotistical sense of aversion and disappointments in life. In the past,
when this perspective was used, the Buddha’s teachings were interpreted as a
pessimistic theory due to the impossibility that one can always have or keep
what he/she wants; therefore, the interpretation was ‘Life is Suffering’.
Nonetheless, this is not the teaching of the Buddha.
This paper advocates that instead the Buddha found a solution to existential
sorrow and alienation and the greed and hatred created through being
ignorant of the true nature of life.

Tags: buddha, buddha's teachings, Buddhism, Knowledge, mindfulness, philosophy, religion