THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
Gautama Buddha said that “it is just suffering
and the cessation of suffering that I
teach.” (1)
Under the spreading Bo (Bodhi) Tree on the
bank of the swift-flowing Neranjara river
near
the big village of Senanigama
Siddhartha Gautama penetrated and unlocked
the secret of life and death during the
fourth and
last watch of the night. He clearly saw and
identified the four fundamentals of dukka
(existential suffering), and he named them
as the
Four
Noble Truths: of suffering, its cause, its
cessation, and the path of cultivation to
the
complete end of suffering. (2)
With this profound insight, Siddharta shattered
the karmic chains of ignorance and craving,
and
freed himself forever from suffering and
from the
ever-turning cycle of birth and death
(samsara).
At the break of dawn, he attained the supreme, perfect enlightenment
(anuttara-samyak-sambodhi), complete, perfect and unsurpassable enlightenment,
or omniscience, in the light of the full moon on the 15th Vesak day
of the Kason month (April) in the male wood horse year of Jaya in 528 B.C.,
over two and a half millennia ago. He became a buddha, the first human being to
do so in recorded history, after forty-nine days of meditation, mindful
practice and deep concentration (samadhi).
Urged on by Brahma Sahampati. the Hindu creator god, the Buddha made up
his mind to share his earthshaking enlightenment experience and knowledge with
all other human beings. And he taught the
Four Noble Truths in the first sermon he gave to the group of five
ascetics, led by Kondanna, with whom he had trained for six tortuous years in
extreme asceticism and futile self-mortification. (3)
As spelt out in his first sermon delivered to a handful of old spiritual
colleagues, the five long-suffering ascetics, in the Deer Park at Isipatana
(modern Sarnath) near Benares (present-day Varanasi), a city in NE India, the
doctrine of the Four Noble Truths
(Cattari Ariyasaccani) forms the critical core of the Buddha’s timeless
teaching on spiritual liberation and enlightenment. (4) 23-24.4.2005 0021
The complete and consummate penetration and understanding as well as realization
of the four Noble Truths brings
spiritual liberation and release from samsara forever. 24.4.2005 0329 0405
The First Noble Truth is the perennial and
universal problem of Suffering (dukkha)
in this Saha world. As expressed by the Buddha in his first sermon:
What is the Noble Truth of Suffering? Birth
is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, dissociation from the
loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in short the five categories
affected by clinging are suffering.
There is this Noble Truth of Suffering:
such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing and light that arose in me about
things not heard before.
This Noble Truth must be penetrated by
fully understanding suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing,
and light that arose in me about things not heard before.
This Noble Truth has been penetrated by
fully understanding suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing
and light that arose in me about things not heard before. (5)
Everything in this world is impermanent, and, as a result, dukkha also arises from unceasing change
and flux. Said the Buddha: “Whatever is impermanent is dukkha” (6)
Buddha has compared human life to a mountain river which “goes on
flowing and continuing” without stopping. “The world is in continuous flux and
is impermanent,” he said to Ratthapola, a Brahmin. (7)
Stressing the need to understand clearly the basic truth of dukkha, Buddha said: “Whoever sees
suffering, sees also the arising of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and
the Path leading to the cessation of suffering.” (8)
In other words, the Four Noble Truths are inter-connected. The Truth of
suffering is fourfold in nature. And suffering, the pervasive and underlying
truth of human existence, can be overcome and transcended.
The Second Noble Truth is the Cause of
the existential problem of Suffering: the Truth of the Origin of Suffering.
Said the Buddha:
What is the Noble Truth of the Origin of
Suffering? It is craving which renews being and is accompanied by relish and
lust, relishing this and that: in other words, craving for sensual desires,
craving for being, craving for non-being. But whereon does this craving arise
and flourish? Wherever there is what seems lovable and gratifying, thereon it
arises and flourishes.
There is this Noble Truth of the Origin of
Suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing and light that arose
in me about things not heard before.
This Noble Truth must be penetrated to by
abandoning the origin of suffering…
This Noble Truth has been penetrated to by
abandoning the origin of suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom,
knowing and light that arose in me about things not heard before. (9)
According to the teaching in Theravada Buddhism, tanha (meaning thirst, craving, desire or greed) is the “principal
thing” (pradhanygartha) and the
“all-pervading thing” (sarvatragartha)
in the cause or origin (samudaya) of
suffering. (10)
The Buddha said the world is “enslaved: to tanha (tanhadaso). (11)
He, however, added: “Whatever is of the nature of arising, all that is
of the nature of cessation.” (12)
The Buddha has found that the fundamental cause of suffering is ignorance (avidya in Sanskrit).
And he has called ignorance “the greatest of all sins.” Thus he has
advised: “Throw this sin away, O man, and become pure from sin.” (13) Become
wise and enlightened.
The Third Noble Truth is the Cessation
of Suffering. Said the Buddha:
What is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of
Suffering?
It is the remainderless fading and
cessation of that same craving; the rejecting, relinquishing, leaving and
renouncing of it. But whereon is this craving abandoned and made to cease?
Wherever there is what seems lovable and gratifying, thereon it is abandoned
and made to cease.
There is this Noble Truth of the Cessation
of Suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing and light that
arose in me about things not heard before.
This Noble Truth must be penetrated to by
realizing the Cessation of Suffering…
This Noble Truth has been penetrated to by
realizing the Cessation of Suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom,
knowing and light that arose in me about things not heard before. (14)
The
cessation of dukkha marks
emancipation, liberation, and freedom from suffering. And the extinction of
thirst, the main root of dukkha -- (tanhakkhayo). (15)
Buddha has called the Absolute Unconditioned (Asamkhata) as the extinction of desire (ragakkhayo), the extinction of hatred (dosakkhayo), and the extinction of illusion (mohakkhayo). Moha is
illusion, delusion, ignorance. (16)
“The core of all the obstructions to enlightenment is the triad of
greed, hatred and delusion,” Venerable Sucitto, an English scholar-monk, has
written (17)
With the cessation (nirodha), one enters the realm of the Buddhas. And only when one
becomes a Buddha, will one fully realize the cessation of all suffering.
It’s stated in the authoritative Nyingma text Ways of Enlightenment (p. 260): “The truth of cessation proclaims
that victory over the delusion and confusion of samsara can be achieved. Others
(who have thus triumphed spiritually) have come before us: the Lord Buddha, the
Bodhisattvas, and the Arhats…”
The truth of the cessation of suffering should be realized by all
sentient beings. It is everyone’s spiritual birthright and destiny. 25.4.2005 2207 27.4.2005 1649
The Fourth Noble Truth is of the Path
of spiritual cultivation leading to the Cessation of Suffering. Said the
Buddha:
What is the Noble Truth of the Way leading
to the Cessation of Suffering? It is this Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say:
Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood,
Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.
There is this Noble Truth of the Path
leading to the Cessation of Suffering: such was the vision, insight, wisdom,
knowing and light that arose in me about things not heard before….
This Noble Truth must be penetrated to by
cultivating the Path….
This Noble Truth has been penetrated to by
cultivating the Path: such was the vision, insight, wisdom, knowing and light
that arose in me about things not heard before (18).
The Path entails the diligent practice of the Dharma (the Buddha’s
teaching).
Buddhist practice consists of morality (sila), meditative-concentration
(samadhi), and wisdom (prajna), as enshrined in the Noble Eightfold Path.
Buddha said: “From the moral precepts comes meditative-concentration,
and out of meditative-concentration arises wisdom.” (19)
This is the Path to spiritual liberation; the Path that we can take,
with confidence of reaching our goal.
“To be totally free from the weight of past deeds and from the thralldom
of desire, hatred and ignorance is called liberation, or nirvana. When we are
able to eliminate delusions and karma by realizing the natural purity of the
mind, total peace follows and we gain complete freedom from the cycle of
suffering,” the Dalai Lama has written. (20)
We reach the true destination of our spiritual odyssey in the oceans of
beginningless time and infinite space when we ultimately return to the
starting-point – in the origin and essence of our buddha-nature. And we come
home to the pristine light of mental clarity, spiritual purity and pure
radiance. (21)
In
the Mangala Sutta, the Buddha says:
Self-control, pure life,
Perception of the Noble Truths,
And realization of Nibbana,
This is the Supreme Blessing. (22)
25.4.2005 0537
27.4.2005 2355
NOTES: THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
- Maha-Parinirvan Sutra, as quoted in BUDDHISM: A
Brief Introduction by Venerable Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua (1918-95),
published by Buddhist Text Translation Society,
- In THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH (published by Buddhist Publication
Society,
Lanka, 1984, and subsequently published for free
distribution by Selangor Buddhist Vipassana
Meditation Society, Petaling Jaya , Malaysia
“This fact of dukkha,
the Buddha says, is the only real spiritual problem. The other problems – the
theological and metaphysical questions that have taunted religious thinkers
through the centuries – he gently waves aside as “matters not tending to
liberation.” What he teaches, he says, is just suffering and the ending of
suffering, dukkha and its cessation.
“The Buddha does not stop with generalities. He goes
on to expose the different forms that dukkha
takes, both the evident and the subtle. He starts with what is close at
hand, with the suffering inherent in the physical process of life itself. Here dukkha shows up in the events of birth,
aging, and death, in our susceptibility to sickness, accidents, and injuries,
even in hunger and thirst. It appears again in our inner reactions to
disagreeable situations and events: in the sorrow, anger, frustration, and fear
aroused by painful separations, by unpleasant encounters, by the failure to get
what we want.
“Even our pleasures, the Buddha says, are not immune
from dukkha. They give us happiness
while they last, but they do not last forever; eventually they must pass away,
and when they go the loss leaves us feeling deprived. Our lives, for the most
part, are strung out between the thirst for pleasure and the fear of pain. We
pass our days running after the one and running away from the other, seldom
enjoying the peace of contentment; real satisfaction seems somehow always out
of reach, just beyond the next horizon. Then in the end we have to die: to give
up the identity we spent our whole life building, to leave behind everything
and everyone we love. 24.4.2005 0042
“But even death, the Buddha teaches, does not bring us
to the end of dukkha, for the life
process
does not stop with death. When
life ends in one place, with one body, the “mental continuum,” the
individual stream of consciousness,
springs up again elsewhere with a new body as its physical
support. Thus the cycle goes on
over and over – birth, aging, and death – driven by the thirst for
more existence. The Buddha
declares that this round of rebirths – called samsara, “the
wandering” – has been turning
through beginningless time. It is without a first point, without
temporal origin. No matter how
far back in time we go we always find living beings –
ourselves in previous lives –wandering
from one state of existence to another.
“The Buddha describes various
realms where rebirth can take place: realms of torment, the
animal realm, the human realm,
realms of celestial bliss. But none of these realms offer a final
refuge. Life in any plane must
come to an end. It is impermanent and thus marked with that
insecurity which is the deepest
meaning of dukkha. For this reason
one aspiring to the complete
end of dukkha cannot rest content with any mundane achievement, with any
status, but must win
emancipation from the entire
unstable whirl.”
Dr Konrad Lorenz
(1903-89) has written “No one is exempt from suffering” in his book The
Waning of Humaneness,
published by Unwin Hyman, London
zoologist and founder of
ethology, the study of animal behaviour. Lorenz was awarded the Nobel
prize in 1973.
- Gautama’s inaugural sermon set the
Wheel of Dharma in motion. And although it was attended
by a large audience including many heavenly beings
like the brahmas and devas, the five ascetics
were the only humans present among the rapt listeners.
However, only Kondanna was the first and only one to
understand the new teaching on the spot. On his instant conversion, Mahasi
Sayadaw, a distinguished Burmese monk and scholar, has commented in his book on
the Buddha’s first sermon Dhammacakkappavatta
Sutta, The Great Discourse on the Wheel of Dhamma (published for free
distribution by Sukhi Hotu, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 1998, p. 123): “…Realizing
thus the four (Noble) Truths himself, firm confidence that the Buddha himself
had also realized the four Truths arose. Such confidence is known as aveccappasada nana, knowledge born of
complete faith. It is like the confidence a patient placed in his physician
whose treatment has effectively cured him of his disease. Thus, for having seen
the four truths exactly as expounded by the Buddha, Kondanna made the request
for monkhood…”
- The 6th century Ch’an/Zen
Patriarch Bodhidharma has taught: “Every suffering is a Buddha-seed,
because suffering impels mortals to seek wisdom. But
you can only say that suffering gives rise to buddhahood. You can’t say that
suffering is buddhahood. Your body and mind are the field. Suffering is the
seed, wisdom the sprout, and buddhahood the grain…”
Quoted in Notes, PURE
LAND ZEN/ZEN PURE LAND: Letters from Patriarch Yin Kuang, translated by
Master Thich Thien Tam, et all, edited by Forrest Smith, published by Sutra Translation Committee of
the United States and Canada, New York, 1992, and reprinted for free
distribution by Amitabha Buddhist Society, Singapore, p. 29.
In a letter to Teng Po-ch’eng, a layman, Pure Land
Master Yin Kuang (1861-1940) wrote: “…The Buddhas view suffering as their
teacher, thus achieving Ultimate Enlightenment…” (ibid., p. 22)
The Master then advised (p. 23): “Sakyamuni Buddha and
Amitabha Buddha, out of compassion for sentient beings who lack the strength to
rid themselves of evil karma, especially taught the method of “relying on the
Buddha’s power to take residual karma along to the Pure Land
In Buddhism of
Wisdom and Faith, Master Thich Thien Tam has written: “…With the help of
the Buddha (Amitabha), his karma (that of the Pure Land Pure Land
In the Preface to PURE
LAND ZEN/ZEN PURE LAND (p.2), the New York-based Van Hien Study Group has
written: “If you are suffering and if
you realistically discover that you have only average motivation, fortitude and
self-discipline, then Pure
Land Pure Land
Rebirth in the Pure Land Pure
Land Pure Land
- Samyutta Nikaya
LVI, 11, as quoted in The Four
Noble Truths by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho,
published by Amaravati Publications, England Malaysia
Ven. Ajahn Sumedho is an American bhikkhu (mendicant
monk) of the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. He was ordained in Thailand Hertfordshire ,
England
The five categories affected by clinging are also
referred to as the five constituents of existence: physical form, feelings,
thoughts, volitional formations, and consciousness.
- Quoted by Walpola Sri Rahula, What the Buddha taught, published
by Gordon Fraser,
1978, p.19
- Ibid., pp. 23-24
- Samyutta Nikaya:
(v), Truths, III, 10
- Samyutta Nikaya
LVI, 11, as quoted by Ven. Ajahn Sumedho in The Four Noble Truths, p. 29
On the Buddha’s teaching on “the truth of the origin
of dukkha”: Bhikkhu Bodhi comments in
his work THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH (pp.
8-9): “The origin he locates within ourselves, in a fundamental malady that
permeates our being, causing disorder in our own minds and vitiating our
relationships with others and with the world. The sign of this malady can be
seen in our proclivity to certain unwholesome mental states called in Pali kilesas, usually translated
“defilements.”
“The most basic defilements are the triad of greed,
aversion, and delusion. Greed (lobha)
is self-centered desire: the desire for pleasure and possessions, the drive for
survival, the urge to bolster the sense of ego with power, status, and prestige.
Aversion (dosa) signifies the
response of negation, expressed as rejection, irritation, condemnation, hatred,
enmity, anger, and violence. Delusion (moha)
means mental darkness: the thick coat of insensitivity which blocks out clear
understanding.
“From these three roots emerge the various other
defilements – conceit, jealousy, ambition, lethargy, arrogance, and the rest –
and from all these defilements together, the roots and the branches, comes dukkha in its diverse forms: as pain and
sorrow, as fear and discontent, as the aimless drifting through the round of
birth and death.
“To gain freedom from suffering, therefore, we have to
eliminate the defilements. But the work of removing the defilements has to
proceed in a methodical way. It cannot be accomplished simply by an act of
will, by wanting them to go away. The work must be guided by investigation. We
have to find out what the defilements depend upon and then see how it lies
within our power to remove their support…”
In the book VISION
OF THE BUDDHA: The Buddha and His Teachings (compiled and published by Ven.
Weragoda Sarada Maha Thero, Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre, 1998), Narada
Maha Thera has commented: “…There are three kinds of craving. The first is the
grossest form of craving, which is simple attachment to all sensual pleasures (kammatanha). The second is attachment to
existence (bhavatanha), The third
attachment is attachment to non-existence (vibhatanha).
“According to the commentaries the last two kinds of
craving are attachment to sensual pleasure connected with the belief of
Eternalism (sassataditthi) and that
which is connected with the belief of Nihilism (ucchedaditthi).
“This craving is a powerful mental force latent in
all, and is the chief cause of most of the ills of life. It is this craving
that leads to repeated births in Samsara and that which makes one cling to all
forms of life…”
A contemporary Nyingma text Ways of Enlightenment (published by Dharma Publishing, Nyingma
Institute, Berkeley , California
“Belief in a self as a permanent or unitary entity is
false, as there is nothing fixed in “this accumulation of things that perish”
that could be called a self…”
The Buddha has stressed that the two extreme beliefs
in eternalism (existence of a permanent, everlasting and eternal self) and
nihilism (denying existence of an afterlife, of karmic rebirth, and of karmic
retribution) are both obstructions to enlightenment.
“Because he saw that clinging to the extreme of
eternalism would bind us in samsara, the Buddha was careful to teach us to
avoid belief in an independent, permanent self; seeing that the possibility of
freedom could be destroyed by the sharp teeth of belief in a self, he therefore
asked us to avoid the extreme of eternalism,” Dr Peter Della Santina, an old
student of H.H. Sakya Trizin, leader of the Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism,
has written in a comprehensive survey of Buddhist philosophy and practice, The Tree of Enlightenment (published by
Chico Dharma Study Foundation, California, 1997, p. 103).
“Understanding that clinging to the extreme of
nihilism would lead to catastrophe and rebirth in the states of woe, the Buddha
was also careful to teach the reality of the law of cause and effect, or moral
responsibility; seeing that we would fall into the misery of the lower realms
should we deny this law, he therefore taught us to avoid the extreme of
nihilism.
“This dual objective is admirably achieved through the
teaching of interdependent origination, which safeguards not only our
understanding of the conditioned and impermanent nature of the personality, but
also our understanding of the reality of the law of cause and effect.”
Santina has noted (pp. 70-71): “The Buddha’s
attainment of enlightenment was essentially an experience of the destruction of
ignorance. This experience is most frequently described by the Buddha himself
in terms of understanding the Four Noble Truths and interdependent origination,
both of which are concerned with the destruction of ignorance. In this sense,
ignorance is the central problem for Buddhism. The key conception in both the
Four Noble Truths and interdependent origination is ignorance, its consequences
and elimination.”
Santina has also noted (p. 353): “It has been said
that interdependent origination is the greatest treasure of the Buddha’s
teaching. Understanding interdependent origination is the key to undoing the
knot that has kept us bound for so long in samsara.”
This key Mahayana concept of interdependent
origination and inter-relatedness of all things in the universe (pratityasamutpada in Sankrit) explains
the Buddhist view of the reality of nominal existence, and reveals the truth of
universal oneness, sameness, and equality. 25.4.2005 0021
- Rahula, What the Buddha taught, p. 29
- Ibid., p. 30
- Ibid., p.
- BUDDHA’S TEACHINGS, translated by Juan Mascaro, published by Penguin, 1995, verse
243,
p. 48
In THE NOBLE
EIGHTFOLD FATH (p. 9), Bhikkhu Bodhi comments: “The Buddha teaches that
there is one defilement which gives rise to all the others, one root which
holds them all in place. This root is ignorance (avijja in Pali). Ignorance is not mere absence of knowledge, a lack
of knowing particular pieces of information. Ignorance can co-exist with a vast
accumulation of itemized knowledge, and in its own way it can be tremendously
shrewd and resourceful.
“As the basic root of dukkha, ignorance is a fundamental darkness shrouding the mind.
Sometimes this ignorance operates in a passive manner, merely obscuring correct
understanding. At other times it takes on an active role: it becomes the great
deceiver, conjuring up a mass of distorted perceptions and conceptions which
the mind grasps as attributes of the world, unaware that they are its own
deluded constructs…”
In Essential
Teachings (published by North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 1995, p.
71), the Dalai Lama quotes from the Four
Hundred Stanzas (Catuhsataka) of Aryadeva (c. 170-270 C. E.) of the Middle
Way (Madhyamaka) school on the path of buddhahood: “As the sense organs are one
with the body, the power of ignorance is constant within us; consequently, all
illusions which exist can only be conquered by victory over ignorance.” 2,799 words 24.4.2005 0824
2,953 words 24.4.2005 0914
14.
Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11, as
quoted in The Four Noble Truths, p.
38
- What the Buddha taught, p. 35
- Ibid., p. 35
- Ibid., p. 36
In THE NOBLE
EIGHTFOLD PATH (p. 117), Bhikkhu Bodhi has noted down: “Ignorance is actually
identical with the unwholesome root “delusion” (moha). When the Buddha speaks in a psychological context about
mental factors, he generally uses the word “delusion”; when he speaks about the
causal basis of samsara, he uses the
word “ignorance” (avijja).”
- THE DAWN OF THE DHAMMA, published by Buddhadhamma Foundation,
18. Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11, as quoted in The Four Noble Truths, p. 50
In this book (p, 13), Ven. Ajahn Sumedo has written:
“The Four Noble Truths are a lifetime’s reflection… They require an ongoing
attitude of vigilance and they provide the context for a lifetime of
examination (and practice).”
A background paper on the Buddhist path of cultivation
THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH (NEP) is
obtainable from: Mahasthama
Mindfulness Center Ipoh Perak ,
Malaysia
19. Shurangama Sutra, one of the major Mahayana scriptures, as quoted in BUDDHISM: A Brief
Introduction, p. 24
20. THE
WAY TO FREEDOM, by His
Holiness The Dalai Lama, published by Thorsons, London
1997, p. 3
21. “Buddha-nature” as defined in The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and
Zen: “According
to the Mahayana view, (buddha-nature) is the true,
immutable, and eternal nature of all beings. Since all beings possess
buddha-nature, it is possible for them to attain enlightenment and become a buddha,
regardless of what level of existence they occupy… the Mahayana sees the
attainment of buddhahood as the highest goal; it can be attained through the
inherent buddha-nature of every being through appropriate spiritual
practice.” Quoted in Glossary, PURE LAND PURE MIND: The Buddhism of
Masters Chu-hung and Tsung-pen, translated by J.C. Cleary, published by
Sutra Translation Committee of the United States and Canada, New York, 1994,
and reprinted for free distribution by The Corporate Body of the Buddha
Educational Foundation, Taiwan, November 2003, p. 217.
22.
Quoted
by Tan Teik Beng in his essay on AWAKENING TO BUDDHISM, published in K. SRI
DHAMMANANDA felicitations, Buddhist Gem Fellowship, Petaling Jaya,
1999, p. 156
Nibbana/Nirvana connotes the extinction of evil
passions and the liberation from suffering as well as the attainment of the
highest wisdom. It is the final goal of Buddhist aspiration, faith and
practice.
11 pages 4,530 words
25.4.2005 2315
27.4.2005 1729
28.4.2005 2124
25 Selasar Rokam 40
31350 Ipoh
Telephone: 05-3134941
11 pages 4,525 words
25.4.2005 0543 2319 2321 27.4.2005 1726
Comments
Post a Comment