If Buddha were alive today, how would he answer the question How 	
				     should one live?

	
	What is right? Who is to say what is right? How do we know what we are doing is right?

These are all questions that allude to how should one live? Different people have different

opinions on this area. Buddha's theory is one way to answer the question.


	Buddha has four noble truths. These four noble truths are suffering, the origin of

suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering.

If you go through all four of these truths, you will live a "right" life.


	Suffering, according to Buddha, is anything that doesn't cause pleasure. Anytime you do

not get what you want, it is suffering. Being born is suffering. In Buddha's theory, isn't practically

everthing we do then suffering? Buddha defines suffering with the five aggregates of grasping.

They are the aggreagates of grasping that is form, feeling, perception, mental formaitons, and

consciousness. I don't agree with Buddha in any of this. I don't think suffering is caused by any
of

this. This is all life. I don't think that we are suffering all of this time. My definition of suffering

would be anything that causes any pain, not anything that doesn't cause pleasure. There is a

huge difference between the two. With Buddha, you are either suffering or in pleasure. I think

that there is a middle ground. There are many times when people are not suffering and also not

feeling pleasure.


	The origin of suffering, according to Buddha, is craving. Craving comes from anything

that is agreeable and pleasurable. Sights, sounds, mental pictures, etc. are all agreeable and

pleasurable therefore they all cause craving. Whenever we think of any of this, cravings arise.

This is where suffering comes from. This is true to a point. Craving is what causes suffering.

Craving comes from pleasurable things. That means that pleasurable things cause suffering.

People want what they don't have. These we think are pleasurable things. We suffer from not

getting what we want. When a baby wants a cookie and doesn't get it, he is suffering. It was not

getting the cookie that caused the suffering. It was the craving for the cookie that caused his

suffering. Buddha was right on the money when he said that craving is what caues suffering.


	What is the stopping of suffering? If we want to stop suffering, we have got to start at the

beginning. To stop suffering, we have to stop craving. We have to totally get away from it. Simple

as that. It's true. If we want to stop suffering, we have to stop ourselves from craving. This is the

third noble truth. May sound easy to do, but in the fourth noble truth, we learn it is not as easy as

we think.


	The fourth noble truth may sound as simple as a commercial. Stop all your suffering in

just eight easy steps!! As we journey through these eight "easy" steps, we find them to not be as

simple as we think. the first is Right View. Right View is knowing that we suffer and what

suffering is. It is knowing that we can stop suffering. Step one is always the easiest. The second

is Right Thought. Right Thought is the thought og harmlessness. That means we have to stop

thinking about bad for other people. No more thinking about killing the teacher who gave you a

pop quiz the day you forgot your notebook at home. This second stop in the eightfold path is not

quite as easy as the first. I think that as people, we generally feel jealousy over other people. It is

this jealously that leads us to ill thoughts of people. It is hard to stop. It comes with feeling good

about yourself. Next, Right Speech. Right Speech is no more lying, slander, or harsh speech. In

our society, we learn that doing all this is ok. We learn from our parents that telling one "itty, bitty

white lie" never hurt anybody. We see in politics that slandering someone is o.k. To stop all this,

we'd have to start with a whole new generation and teach them that this is wrong to do. It's hard

when you find out someone is talking bad about you to not do the same. In Buddha's theory, this

isn't allowed. The nest is Right Action. Right Action is not taking life, not stealing, and no sexual

misconduct. This is not so hard. Many people in our society can't do it, but many are. Many

people actually live this way. The fifth step is Right Livelihood. This is simply put giving up wrong

livelihood and keeping himself by right livelihood. People can surely handle doing this. Right

Effort is making an effort to grow. It is bringing up an effort to stop doing what is wrong. I think

people do this most of the time. People are generally good. They make and effort to do what they

feel is good. They try not to do evil things. In my opinion, this is what people are already doing.

Right Midfulness is thinking of mind as mind, feelings as feeling, etc. People tend to think of their

thoughts as whats so. To be in Right Mindfulness, we have to put things aside and think of what

is actually so. We have to stop making a story about things. An example of this is if you see a

man with a broken arm. People tend to make up a story about this. He was a mountain climber

and he fell while climbing Mt. Everest. It's just a man with a broken arm. Nothing more, nothing

less. I may be totally off on that one, but that's what I think Right Mindfulness is. Lastly, we have

Right Concentration. Right Concentration occers after man has detached himself from craving

and unwholesome mental states,  he can concentrate on the first jhana. Once he has inner

tranquility, he has reached the second jhana. When he gives up delight and is mindful and

clearly aware, he is in the third jhana. He gives up pleasure and suffering. He gives up gladness

and sadness. He is now in the fourth jhana. This is Right Concentration. With all these, man puts

a stop to suffering.


	Back to the question at hand. If Buddha were alive right now, how would he say one

should live? I think that if he were alive, he'd take our whole society into consideration when

answering the question. I think he'd say that people should be kind to one another and not cause

harm. We should live by establised "good" morals. We should be happy with what we have.

Maybe not stop every bad thing we say or think about or do, but try to limit ourselves. I think that

these are all things that Buddha might say. Most important, I think he'd say "Don't do anything I

wouldn't do."