The Noble Eightfold Path By Siddhartha Gautama

Why do people suffer? This question has been pondered by key religious and ideological figures throughout history. One such figure was Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince whose teachings make up Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths can summarize Buddhist ideology; doctrines that were delivered during the first sermon Siddhartha gave following his enlightenment. The first truth acknowledges the existence of suffering in the form of such phenomena as death, aging, sickness, and not getting what one desires. The second identifies the cause of suffering, which stems from attachment to fleeting states of pleasure, avoidance of pain, and the resulting negative mindsets and actions that result. The third describes a state free of suffering known as Nirvana, and the fourth describes how to achieve that state (Lopez). …show more content…
Some scholars view this practice as an early form of cognitive psychological therapy, intended to make one aware of how they view the world and its effects on thought patterns and behavior (Fronsdal 2009). One limitation of following this path, however, is how counter-intuitive it is to natural human behavior. As a result, most Buddhists (aside from handfuls of monks) are never truly free from suffering, living out their lives chasing worldly pleasures and running from pain. An emerging ideology, Transhumanism, has a similar goal of freeing humans from suffering, but at the level of the entire species rather than individually. Its adherents believe that this can be achieved by using a tool that Siddhartha could never have known about: