Insights on the Third Noble Truth

I found something today on the web, and I think it is just SO spot on, that I wanted to put it here for future reference :

"In my practice, I have seen that attachment to my desires is suffering. There is no doubt about that. I can see how much suffering in my life has been caused by attachments to material things, ideas, attitudes or fears. I can see all kinds of unnecessary misery that I have caused myself through attachment because I did not know any better. I was brought up in America - the land of freedom. It promises the right to be happy, but what it really offers is the right to be attached to everything. America encourages you to try to be as happy as you can by getting things. However, if you are working with the Four Noble Truths, attachment is to be understood and contemplated; then the insight into non-attachment arises. This is not an intellectual stand or a command from your brain saying that you should not be attached; it is just a natural insight into non-attachment or non-suffering."
(from the site http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm)

I especially like the part I have italicized - it rings so true. I was thinking this morning, that for me, the suffering of being "alone," of not having a mate, just seems so unbearable, and has for most of my life. I know about codependence, but the feelings I have go beyond just codependence and actually cause me suffering. I thought about why this is still so, especially after all the counselling and therapy I have had. Why doesn't that part of me just get "healed?" Why won't those feelings go away? And what the fuck is so wrong with me, that even after 6 years of sobriety, and working the steps multiple times, and going to meetings - even Codependents Anonymous meetings - and counselling, and therapy, etc..... do I still feel like this? I wish I could just cut myself open and rip out that piece of me that causes me to feel that way.

And so I have been thinking, just why is it so important for me to have someone? And I honestly think it has a lot to do with all of those stupid fucking fairy tales that we all hear as kids - ranging from the "Princess and the Frog" to the tales of the Bible. In so many of them, there is someone who is ugly or downtrodden - the Beast, the frog, Daniel, etc - and that person, becuase they are good at heart, is "miraculously" granted happiness in the form of either a mate (a beautiful mate too - that's important) who loves them for who they are, or some new place in society where they are respected and have some authority. The basic message? Be a good person, and no matter how bad/ugly/unfortunate you are, you will get what you most desire.

But we all know that is just simply bullshit. The ugly people don't get what they truly desire unless they are wealthy, or they just steal it. The ugly people don't 'miraculously' transform into beautiful people like the frog did - we stay ugly, and with age, get even more ugly with flab, wrinkles, bad teeth, etc. And the good people don't often win. In fact, they rarely win. Face it - for an ugly, short, athletically challenged kid like I was, it would have been much better to just tell me the truth about the way the world was so I could more easily accept my fate and my place in society; instead of filling my head with bullshit, only to have me reach adulthood and realize that none of that shit mattered on fuckin' bit. The rich, good looking assholes are the ones pulling in all the babes - not the "ugly ducklings."

And perhaps that's why I have some to like and appreciate Buddhism so much. There are no bullshit promises about what may happen to us - or at least what happened to other people - because they were so "good" and favored by God. When you are a good little kid who says his prayers every night and is kind to animals and such, and you get verbally abused by your mom and teased by kids at school, how can you help but think "why doesn't even God love me?" It's fucking cruel is what it is. Buddhism does not set up any of those false ideas. It says simply, that life is suffering, that there is a cause to suffering, that there is a way to be free from that suffering, and that there is a path leading to that liberation. Now that's an ideology I can believe in! Thank God that Christianity didn't wipe out all the other religions - thank God for Buddhism.