Angela Sandoval

Philosophy 1000: Tuesday & Thursday

Midterm Exam

February 12, 2018

 Buddha once said, “The more self-conscious I am, the more me there is to suffer”.

Buddha talks about this because it presents ego and a person being more self-aware. This quote

can be related to many of buddha subject such as his Four Noble Truths, The eightfold path,

Nirvana and Karma. The purpose of this paper is to prove that the quote from Buddha can indeed

be related to all subjects above, each of which Buddha also taught. The ego plays a strong part in

all subjects that will be talked about.

The four noble truths are the Foundations of Buddhas teachings. The first noble truth is to

exist is to suffer, this is referenced as how life is not always the best.1 When we live our lives, we

suffer everyday even though we might not know we are. It’s more of the suffering with emotion,

rather than physical. The more aware we are of ourselves the more we know what we want.

When we have an idea of what we crave, we tend to want more of it. Most of the time we cannot

have it which causes us to suffer.2 For example, someone could see a friendship with other

people and want someone to have that close relationship with. Most of the time we do not have

someone to be that close with. In result we suffer inside because we know that we cannot have a

close friendship with someone. We recognize we want something but when we cannot achieve it

we suffer.

The second noble truth is the origination of suffering. This is what causes suffering,

which can be referred to as ego.3 This makes us want more of something once we discover what

we like. We get greedy and start to crave more, which is not how we are expected to live our

lives. This can be seen in many parts of life, for example when we get all the attention from our

1
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 47.
2
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/
3
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 47.
parents we like having all their affection and being acknowledged. However once something

comes between that affection we are receiving, we suffer and become more greedy.4 It does not

matter what the reason is, we want it out of the way to receive more of what we crave. We want

more and more of what we desire. Once we get a fraction of it we will always crave more. We

have to know that we cannot always get everything that we want, and we need to know how

much to take in.

The third noble truth is the cessation of suffering. This is when someone can understand

they are suffering but cannot find the root of the problem they are suffering from.5 When we

know we are suffering, we tend to figure out what we are suffering from. We think of ways we

can fix the problem. An example is when we are suffering from heart break, we know why we

are suffering and we try to fix the hurt by doing another activity that will take the pain away.6

This relates to the Buddhas quote because we acknowledge that we suffer from a heart break,

which makes us think of the whole situation. This makes us more aware of ourselves, which

causes the suffering to continue since we keep thinking about it in a loop.

The fourth noble truth is a path to the cessation suffering. The last noble truth says to

follow the eight-fold path. The eight-fold path is also a practice that Buddha would teach and

follow himself. It is described as a way to root out suffering. The paths consist of (1) Right

understanding; (2) Right purpose; (3) Right speech; (4) Right conduct; (5) Right livelihood; (6)

Right effort; (7) Right mindfulness; (8) Right meditation.7 Buddha believe these paths would

help people live a better life.

4
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/ix1.htm#b
5
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 47
6
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/
7
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 48
 The first two steps of the eight-fold paths are “Right Understanding” and “Right

Purpose”, these are called the steps of panna.8 Another way these paths were phrased by Gerald

Heard was by saying “First you must see clearly what is wrong” and “Next you must decide that

you want to be cured”.9 These steps talk about knowing what is the problem we are facing, the

next step is about knowing what problem we actually want solved. An example would be

knowing we have an almost broken-down car and decided to take it to the mechanic. We know

there are many things wrong with the car, but we only want to recognize some. We know that the

car is about to fail, but we only want to fix the critical ones. We are aware the car is breaking

down, we just need to be aware of what we actually want fixed. This refers to the quote from

Buddha, by saying we need to be aware of ourselves to fix the problem. But we would not have

so many problems if we did not listen to our egos.

The next three steps are “Right speech”, Right conduct, and “Right livelihood”. These are

also referred to as, “You must act and”, “speak so as to aim at being cured”, and “Your

livelihood must not conflict with your therapy”.10 These paths talk about how to act throughout

life. They talk about how we are expected to talk the right way in life and how we are also

suppose to act throughout life. The quote from Buddha says the more aware we are of ourselves

the more there is to suffer. This relates to these paths because it shows that we suffer more within

ourselves because we always must think before we speak or act. We suffer by always having to

think and not just living our lives. We also suffer with our livelihood, we know that we cannot

work for money if it hurts someone else. We suffer by contemplating if our livelihood is going to

8
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 48
9
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 48
10
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 49
affect someone else, we know that we cannot commit to a job if we hurt someone in the process.

Depending on our morals, we might want to make more money with a job that would hurt

someone, but we should pick a job that will not affect anyone. Even if we do not make as much

money. We have to suffer with this by making the decision of which choice we want to live with.

The last three steps are “Right effort”, “Right mindfulness”, and “Right meditation”.

These are also referred to as “That therapy must go forward at the “staying speed,” that is, the

critical velocity that can be sustained.”, “You must think about it incessantly and”, and “learn

how to contemplate with the deep mind”.11 These relate to Buddhas quotes because we have to

put forward the right effort and make sure we are aware of the attempt we need to make. We

suffer when we think we are not putting forth enough or too little effort. We have to keep the

right mindfulness, which is explained as how we need to constantly be thinking of our problems

or situations. We need to be aware of the situation that is in front of us, and we cannot make

decisions without any thoughts. We suffer if we overthink anything because we keep it on the

mind, and we are not able to focus on anything else. If we do not think enough about something,

we regret not thinking sufficiently about it. We could say we did not think about it enough, so we

are not fully aware if the decision was the right one for us. The last path is the right meditation,

we have to learn to deep think about the situation we have going on. We also need to have a clear

mind to make sure it is the best decision we can think of. We need to be aware of how we

meditate on a situation to know how much thought we put into it. If we do not meditate the right

way we will suffer with the consequences, we need to be fully aware of our lives and decisions.

11
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 49
 Karma is another method from Buddha. Karma talks about the moral law of causation,

which is also the moral cause and effect.12 This talks about current actions and what the result

would be, not fate or predestination. This connects with Buddhas quote by knowing the more we

are aware of what we are doing the more thought we will put into our actions. We need to be

aware of our acts and understand what the consequences could be. We might suffer in two ways,

the first we could suffer from the consequences of our actions before or we could also suffer by

always having to think about what we are about to do or say. Which is a way we can suffer in

life.

Nirvana is also a subject Buddha taught. Nirvana is the state of pure bliss, something we

feel when we completely detach from our own egos.13 The people who have experienced nirvana

have explained it as a out of body experience. This experience is something most people want to

feel. Wanting to keep feeling nirvana is suffering within itself, they want what they have

experienced but they cannot keep the feeling all the time. This causes suffering because we are

aware that we keep craving this feeling and we cannot achieve it. Knowing we want something

makes us suffer went we cannot have it.

Buddhas quote, “The more self-conscious I am, the more me there is to suffer” can be

applied to many parts of life especially his own teachings. We need to remember that the more

we get to know ourselves as a person we will suffer because we cannot have everything we

desire. Buddha showed us how to live a better life with these steps, but we will also suffer along

the way as we discover ourselves.

12
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 46
13
https://tricycle.org/magazine/nirvana-2/
Work Cited
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P.46
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 47
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 48
Soccio, D. Archetypes of Wisdom. P. 49

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/
https://tricycle.org/magazine/nirvana-2/
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/ix1.htm#b