Monday Morning Blues; Morning Blues

Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band § Morning Blues 

There isn't any obvious connection with this song and the teaching I'm posting with it. Just a sweet little song about feeling the blues and Buddha's explanation for its causes.

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth

"The blues, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is the blues, aging is the blues, sickness is the blues, death is the blues, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are the blues; association with the loathed is the blues, dissociation from the loved is the blues, not to get what one wants is the blues — in short, the blues is the five categories of clinging objects.

"The origin of the blues, as a noble truth, is this: It is the craving that produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust, and enjoying this and that; in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being.

"Cessation of the blues, as a noble truth, is this: It is remainderless fading and ceasing, giving up, relinquishing, letting go and rejecting, of that same craving.

"The way leading to cessation of the blues, as a noble truth, is this: It is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.