The second noble truth relates to the cause of frustration, which is said to be trishna,
 clinging or grasping, based on avidya, which is ignorance or unconsciousness.
 Now avidya is the formal opposite of awakening.
 It is the state of the mind when hypnotized or spellbound by maya, so that it mistakes
 the abstract world of things and events for the concrete world of reality.
 At a still deeper level, it is the lack of self-knowledge, lack of the realization that
 all grasping turns out to be the futile effort to grasp oneself, or rather to make life catch
 hold of itself.
 The third noble truth is concerned with the ending of self-frustration, of grasping, and
 of the whole viciously circular pattern of karma, which generates the round.
 The ending of karma is called nirvana.
 Nirvana could be described as desperation.
 It is the act of one who has seen the futility of trying to hold his breath or life, prana,
 indefinitely, since to hold the breath is to lose it.
 Thus nirvana is the equivalent of moksha, release or liberation.
 Nirvana is the way of life which ensues when clutching at life has come to an end.
 To attain nirvana is also to attain Buddhahood, awakening.
 But this is not attainment in any ordinary sense, because no acquisition and no motivation
 are involved.
 It is impossible to desire nirvana or to intend to reach it, for anything desirable or conceivable
 as an object of action is, by definition, not nirvana.
 Nirvana can only arise unintentionally, spontaneously, when the impossibility of self-grasping has
 been thoroughly perceived.
 The fourth noble truth describes the eightfold path of the Buddha's dharma, that is, the
 method or doctrine whereby self-frustration is brought to an end.
 The first two sections have to do with thought, the following four have to do with action,
 and the final two have to do with contemplation or awareness.
 The four sections dealing with action are often misunderstood because they have a deceptive
 similarity to a system of morals.
 Buddhism does not share the Western view that there is a moral law enjoined by God or by
 nature which it is one's duty to obey.
 The Buddha's precepts of conduct, abstinence from taking life, taking what is not given,
 exploitation of the passions, lying and intoxication, are voluntarily assumed rules of expediency,
 the intent of which is to remove the hindrances to clarity, to awareness.
 Failure to observe the precepts produces bad karma, not because karma is a law or moral
 retribution, but because all motivated and purposeful actions, whether conventionally
 good or bad, are karma insofar as they are directed to the grasping of life.
 Generally speaking, the conventionally bad actions are rather more grasping than the
 good, but the higher stages of Buddhist practice are as much concerned with disentanglement
 from good karma as from bad.
 Thus complete action is ultimately free, uncontrived or spontaneous action, in exactly the same
 sense as the Taoist wu-wei.


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