If the first noble truth was the pervasive nature of suffering (or more accurately stress) then the second noble truth is its cause (or actual exacerbation). Evolution has gifted us with a dopamine oriented system in our under-brain that rewards for procreation with fleeting feelings of pleasure. It also rewards for finding warmth when it’s cold, shade when it’s hot, water when we’re thirsty, food when we’re hungry, and rest when we’re weary. Why? For all these things keep us alive long enough to pass on our traits. And that is of primary concern to our genes, the puppet master behind the scenes. The religious folk sometimes describe the primary drives of this dopamine-oriented reward system as pushing, pulling, and clinging. I’m just crass enough to prefer the five F’s. When exposed to any: thing, being or phenomena deep within our viscera we ask, “Should I Fuck this, Feed on this, Fight this, Flee from this, Faint before this, or Fawn over it?”
Yes, this mechanism aids in our survival. But a life defined only by survival is rather shallow and unsatisfying. You see we have an oxytocin oriented system also in the basement of our brain that rewards cooperation with feelings of fulfillment. When this system is our default mechanism life is pretty sweet, but sometimes we get stuck in our dopamine oriented system and life becomes (as Thomas Hobbes insisted) “…solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
In his Third Noble Truth the Buddha offers us liberation. Liberation from what? Liberation from the tyranny of our dopamine-oriented survival impulses, freedom from its role of tyrant and its relegation to the role of mere tool: harmless, benign, and (at times) even useful. This is why the Buddha taught meditation.
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