Diagnosis of the human predicament.

Its very accurate to think that the four noble truths fit in our lives. We
start with the fact that our existence is full of unsatisfaction. We can
realize about it in every moment of our day, since we wake up to the
hour of going to bed.
The Buddha taught in the First Noble Truth the existence of the
suffering, which we refer as Duhkha. As we know the life is plenty of
suffering, we can call it unsatisfaction, sickness, lonely or whatever
makes us miserable.
The Second Noble Truth talks about the cause of Duhkha, which is the
fact that we suffer as a result of our desires, the attachment to things
or even to our own existence, it lays out the impermance of things, but
since we dont see it that way, it makes us clinging and hanging on.
The Buddhist purpose is to see the world clearly; it means realize that
suffering exists and its part of the life, but we can do something about
it.
In the discussion frum someone came up with the example about the
people obsessed with sickness, which totally makes sense about the
topic we are studying; this kind of people keep on thinking about all
sorts of unfortunately episodes where they can get sick. So being
obsessed with healthy its an attachment to our own existence; on the
other hand there is the people who knows and accepts that getting sick
is part of life and while being sick, they suffer what the sickness
deserve and no more.
By suffering I am including the pleasure; once we realize it leaves us
unsatisfaited.
As we saw the brain is built in such a way that pleasure is fleeting, but
it is a good reason to reinforce the behavior, which could be a fact of
evolution to natural selection; also it is designed to get us focus on
things that matters to us.
So here I come up with the question: Why is the pleasure a cause of
suffering?
Example (and personal experience):

When I was in high school I decided to take the french class. As the
time passed I couldnt think about anything just of being in Paris;
everyone in the class kept talking about how wonderful is to be there,
so my desire continued growing up. One day my dad came up with my
flight ticket to France, which obviously made me so happy. Before the
trip I studied the most I could of history and tourist locations, I was
excited and everything seemed to be perfect. The interesting thing is
the day I arrived to Paris I wasnt that happy at all as I thought Id be, I
knew I was at the place Ive always wanted but there was something I
didnt like. The days went on and when I found myself again in my
country I felt sad because I wasnt at Paris and I was already thinking
about going back, which made me wonder how could that happen?
Where was the happiness I meant to have?
Because of that experience I had and so many others I live throughout
all my days I can say, yes, pleasure causes suffering, because it is
fleeting; after we reach our goal it returns to a normal level, it doesnt
last forever. We think more about the pleasure than the evaporation of
it.
So our feelings, like happiness, sadness, angry and others can induce
unintended actions, because we accept them as reliable guides.
We can not trust our feelings because their fundamental does not rely
on objective basis, as we are focusing just in a goal which can be right
or wrong. Just take a look at the feeling of anxiety, sometimes it is well
done because our body and mind have been built that way through
evolution, so it kind of warn us of danger, but some other times it leads
us to commit actions we can regret in the future.
The Buddha explain in the Third Noble Truth what the cure is about.
The cessation of suffering, the abandonment of craving and clinging;
and the last Noble Truth, the eightfold path, shows the way of winding
up human predicament and observing.
The eightfold path is straightforward about the way we can get to
Nirvana: right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort,
mindfulness and concentration.

The way to get to englightement includes ethical behavior and

cultivating virtue. To be succesful our actions must be genuine. This is
actually the essence of mediation.
Its said through meditation we can reach the goal, but what actually
mediation is, means focusing on the problem, paying atention to it,
accepting it and not fighting with the discomfort. It has to be an
objective observation of whats actually happening.

By Karime Alejandra Corts Bracamonte.