The core teachings of the Buddha express something universal about human experience. Reflect on specific experiences you have had or witnessed in others that illustrate the Four Noble Truths. Recount specific elements of the Eightfold Path that reduced or eliminated the suffering.
The concept of no-self is perhaps the most difficult idea in Buddhism. Besides its philosophical justification, it is related to the phenomenon of suffering, with which we all have experience. The next time you are experiencing some kind of misery in your personal life, try the following Buddhist experiment. When you are feeling down, rather than saying to yourself "I feel hurt and I am sad," say "There is hurt and sadness." Some people are surprised to report that the emotional intensity decreases. One is labeling and witnessing mental and emotional phenomena as they appear, without directly attaching it to some little "me" inside.
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist originally from Vietnam. He has introduced the verb inter-be to reflect interrelationships and interdependencies. Consider an object of your choice, such as a loaf of bread, and trace all the ways that object is connected to or dependent on forces or things outside itself. If you removed those forces, could the object still exist? It seems like the bread or whatever object you choose inter-is with just about everything else.
Many people cannot see the point in being detached or in feeling neutral to both pleasant and unpleasant things in the world. But sometimes the Buddhist logic is inescapable. Consider your feelings toward your favorite food. When that food becomes leftovers, after a few weeks you would not want to eat it! The same food becomes garbage, and we have quite different feelings toward it. Yet the garbage can be composted, and then enrich the soil so that good food is once again produced. Doesn't it seem rather strange to have such different emotional reactions to the different aspects of this natural process?
