Part Two
Pleasure leads to preferences and these pre-references influence the process of feeling and relating to life.

a) The different forms of wanting
b) The Process of Feeling and Preferences
c) Summary and the Truth of Repetition

2c) Summary and the Truth of Repetition

So, the 2nd and 3rd Truth (the origination and dissolution of dukkha), explain that the process of relating to life, (perceiving, understanding etc.) is not running smoothly, because wherever there are pleasurable things, personal preferences arise ...

and preferences can arise for objects, feelings, ideas, and self-identity. (i.e. to try and repeat these pleasant feelings).

A preference is infact a pre-reference - we are talking about preconditions, preconceptions and expectations because these influence our sensing, understanding and our reactions.

For the process of listening to work well, we need to listen free of any personal wishes about what we will hear ...

Infact the slightest preference or inclination for or against what we hear, will influence how we hear the sound and how we understand it.

To see well and reliably, we also need to be free of all personal preferences.

Buddhism recognises 6 senses : the first 5 which we all know, the eye sensing sights etc. and in buddhism, the 6th is the mind sensing thoughts ... , even if we dont understand why, we can see that Buddha (in the Mahasattipatthana) is showing us that all 6 senses function in the same way.

And one of the ways we can use the idea, is we can learn from hearing and seeing well, how to think well ... and so it follows and i believe most people would agree that thinking really works clearly (and creatively), when one is free of all preferences, preconceptions and preconditions about the outcome.

So, actually today, this seems nothing very mystical or metaphysical. It is an idea which to the modern mind seems easily understandable as a mixture of perceptive or cognitive psychology and scientific objectivity ; but 2,500 years ago it was totally new and revolutionary.

But Buddha went a bit further than modern psychology, his point was that:

Dukkha (things not running smoothly), starts or stops dependant on these preferences and pre-references.

The text says "it is that craving which gives rise to fresh rebirth"(5) (2) and while this maybe so; what we can witness every day is how all our little preferences, our pre-references, cause experiences and all our attitudes and responses to keep repeating.

Preferences always refer to previous experiences and they colour every actual event and thus lead to recurrence and repeats, but even more simple than that, we ouselves want to repeat pleasure, and avoid pain, we want to be safe in what we already know.

Psychologists have said to me : whats wrong in that "wanting pleasure avoiding pain" this is what sensible people do .. what could be more sensible than being guided by our own feelings of pleasure and pain? … and then logically avoiding the pain and seeking the pleasure?

I would suggest "that craving which ... finds ever fresh delight, now here, now there"(5) is a reference to how our personal preferences lead us to always want to be somewhere else - never contented - never here now.

Simply: preferences pre-set us to repetitions and recurrances. We are never Now.

Maybe the only rational objection to the safety of repetition, is that this means we would also be led by our anxieties, I feel sure buddha knew that both pain and pleasure lead to both preferences and both lead to repetitions. But, according to the text buddha did not say this. Why not? maybe he found being now more important; or was maybe simplythis also has developed to fit in with the first truth's extreme standpoint and what seems like commentators exaples of suffering.

Then, once the first truth about what life is, had developed from not running smoothly to mean only suffering; then logically the 2nd and 3rd truth could not repeat suffering as the reason for the suffering. So this left pleasure alone without a mention of pain, in the 2nd and 3rd truth.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd truth altogether talk about life not running smoothly and how this starts and stops (the origin and cessation of dukkha), and so far we are not asked to do anything about it, except maybe exercise our understanding.

	The Noble Truths