How to get relief from annoyance

*Recognize the impermanence of the world

·Calm down in the busy life
    The pace of life in modern society is getting faster and faster, and our daily activities are always occupied by undone things. There is little chance to keep ourselves calm to look our own life clearly and our relationship with the world. If we can ask ourselves to spare time and quiet down to see the way the world run, as well as the poisition of ourselves — human beings — in the world, I think, we can more gentlely and easily face the trouble and test in our society.

·Unavoidable birth, aging, illness and death
    Everyone will encounter the process of change of life. We were born by the mother, after childhood, youth, adult age until the old age, and then we will die; we get older and older gradually in this journey of just a few decades; during the period, there is also the pain of illness. On the other hand, in the environment we live, there are daily sunrise and sunset, changing seasons, wind, rain, rising tide and falling tide. All things in the world are always changing.

·There is no eternal thing
    With the continually changing and aging bodies begin from our birth, we can not avoid and can do nothing to go toward death day by day. We want to hold the youth, want to always stay young, but can not hold anything; we want to keep memories, want to lastingly spread the achievement we achieved in the whole life, but can not fulfill it. After decades, hundreds of years, the evidence that we have existed in the world will always be forgotten and then disappear. There is nothing eternal and this is the impermanence of the world; our own mind is also changing every minute and every second; there is not any time for it to take a rest.

* Understand the suffering caused by impermanence

·If there is desire, then there is suffering
    People's life is dominated by desire: we want to be successful, want to be happy, want to have money, want to have power, want to be famous, to be known and respected by everyone. Different kinds of desires drive us to take action, but we can never be satisfied; after we are rich, we want to be more rich; after we are happy, we want to be more happy; after we have power,we want to have more power; but because of the world's impermanence, the things that we have got will immediately change, can not last long. Our wealth will be lost because of natural disasters, thieves, social changes, war and other factors; the results of our work will be copied by others, be replaced or become out of date because of the changes of times; the power we have got will be taken away by other people or we will lost the support of the people because of wrong decisions. Therefore we will do everything we can to keep our wealth, achievement, power, and so on; when the things we pursue disappear because of impermanence, we will feel suffered.

·The impermanence of the world makes us suffered
    All living beings like happiness and hate pain, but all things in the world are impermanent; the happiness we like always changes in short time and disappear; when the life is smooth, we always hope that it can last long, but the world is impermanent and the annoyances of birth, aging, illness, death and so on always appear suddenly and destroy the good situations we had got. We try hard to find ways to stay away from suffering, to get happiness, but we always fail because of the impermanence. That is in this impermanent world, there is not such thing of staying away from sufferings and getting happinesses — except Nirvana.

*The distinguishing of sufferings — Nirvana

    Although the world is impermanent and full of sufferings, these sufferings can be distinguished. As long as we understand the original source of sufferings, cut off the cause and condition that make us suffered, we can distinguish the sufferings and get relief —  Nirvana.
   Birth, aging, illness, death and all kinds of other sufferings are come from desires. Desire is a kind of greed, a kind of like; because we have the desire of greed and like of happiness, therefore we have sufferings. The greed and like of self is the original cause of the existence of self, birth and death, and suffering. In order to meet the happiness of the self, we will take various kinds of ways to pursue it, and then our action has been dominated by desire.
    Where does the desire come from? How to distinguish it? Because we do not see the nature of desire and the nature of everything are Empty, therefore we will attach to desires. If we realize the reality of all things, desire will no longer arise and we can get relief  from sufferings. When we see that the reality of all things is Empty, we can break the like of self and there will not be the phenomenon of the circle of birth-and-death. Because we have understood that the existence of self is an illusion, all sufferings will be distinguished. This state of non-self called Nirvana.

*The way to distinguish sufferings

    Buddha has been attained the highest perfect Enlightenment; according to his teachings, the way to distinguish all the sufferings and attain Nirvana is to practicice eightfold path. Eightfold path is Middle way. the practice of Middle way is to keep the body and mind in the middle of any state. Things in the world are in duality: suffering and happiness, there being and there being not, existence and non-existence, self and non-self, arising and distinguishing, the existence of arising and distinguishing and the non-existence of arising and distinguishing, and the Middle way is to avoid attaching to either side, no matter in body's feelings or in psychological aspects of views, not to fall into any side and to locate in the middle of the two. The Middle way can make the body and mind tranquil; when body and mind are tranquil, we can see the nature of everything — reality, attain Nirvana and distinguish all sufferings.

2017. October