The Second Noble Truth is that the cause of suffering is our clinging or grasping from the mental forces of greed & possessiveness, of hatred & aggression, and of ignorance & delusion. And this clinging or grasping must be let go of.The cause of most human suffering on the earth right now, is in our hands. Individually we grasp at how we think it should be; we don’t want things to change. Or we do want them to change. We don’t want to grow old and we don’t want to lose certain things. We don’t want certain things to happen the way they do. So when you’re suffering, see where there is attachment, where there is grasping, clinging.

Study where you grasp – to your children, your money, your work, your spiritual beliefs — so many ways we grasp. See what happens when you are rigid about your spiritual beliefs. Study how you sit, moment to moment, each sitting. Each moment we can see the grasping — I want this, and I don’t want that. This is pleasant– I want more of that. This is unpleasant—none of that, please. Or we check out completely. It’s called the body of fear, the small self. That place from which we live that is afraid to let go and change. The body of fear is always protecting. The whole sense of self gets created by trying to make safety and territory.

And out of the body of fear, out of clinging, grasping and possessiveness and aggression those come wars, racism, tribalism, us and them, and most of the hunger in the world and the deaths from illnesses. To unclench the fist of clinging doesn’t mean that we don’t respond to the world, that we don’t try to help. But we can let go of our clinging to an outcome–deep down the cause of suffering is this gut level grasping of how it should be. And from this, fear, manipulation, aggression, rigidity, holding, dukkha arises. The more we cling, the more we suffer.