Thefirst Noble Truth is Dukkha or suffering because of“self.”The second Noble
Truth is Samudaya (the origin of suffering) as explained in the 12 interdependent
conditioned of causality or Paticca Samuppada. The third Noble Truth is Nirodha (the
cessation of suffering and its causes) and the eight magga (8 paths to cease suffering).
Nirvana (Sanskrit spelling) or Nibbana (Pali spelling) is the existential awak-
ening to egolessness, the non-attachment to the dualistic view of suffering and
pleasure (Abe 1989 : 205–296). Nirvana is a state of attaining sunyata (emptiness)
of the mind after one has trained one’s mind to overcome craving, which is the root
cause of pleasure-suffering (Thomas 1951 : 96). According to Macy (1984: 80–81),
the very core of Buddha’s original preaching is as follows:
Craving (tanha, lit. thirst for existence) is pierced (patviddha, mastered) by him who knows
(janato); for him who seeth (passato) naught remains (n’atthi kincanam). To see in the sense
that matters for liberation is not to“grasp”or“understand”the infinite of truth; rather than
difficult achievements are the natural corollary when naught remains of the impurities and
lusts (kilesas) generated by craving. Enlightenment and liberation condition one another:
“seeing”and“knowing”in this sense is equivalent to freedom from the bonds of sense
impressions and resultant desires.
The concept of sunyata or voidness or naught appeared in the prajnaparamita or
the perfection of wisdom as the antithesis of“self”(Thomas 1951 : 96). (Loy 2008 :
48) explains“shunyata”(his spelling of sunyata) as the absence of self-existence. By
explaining sunyata, Loy infers to the interdependence of all beings and things and
the theory of relativity. By realizing that things have no essence of its own, we
should not attach to anything, not even the concept sunyata as Buddha compared
sunyata to a raft that takes us across the ocean (of suffering from greed, ill will, and
delusion) (Loy 2008 : 49). That means we need to let go, even the raft that we ride on.
Buddhadasa famously stated that“Nirvana here and now”meaning that one can
attain nirvana in this life time as one can be trained to be a selfless person. Working
with the voidness of self is appreciated as one does not put own bias or predis-
position in seeing the truth or in the intervention of social interactions.
7.5 Mindful Communication................................
The essence of mindful communication is the realization of suffering of self and the
collective suffering of the commons. In so doing, we need to cultivate spiritual
development, regardless of our religious beliefs. We all can be a kind-hearted
person as The Dalai Lama ( 2006 : 21) states:
When we take into account a longer perspective, the fact that all wish to gain happiness and
avoid suffering, and keep in mind our relative unimportance in relation to countless others,
we can conclude that it is worthwhile to share our possessions with others. When you train
in this sort of outlook, a true sense of compassion—a true sense of love and respect for
others—becomes possible. Individual happiness ceases to be a conscious self-seeking
effort; it becomes an automatic and far superior by-product of the whole process of loving
and serving others.7.4 Twelve Causally Linked Stages of the Paticcasamuppada 109