Four Noble Truths


In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths are "the truths of the noble one," a statement of how things really are when they are seen correctly. The four truths are
  • dukkha. Dukkha is an innate characteristic of transient existence; nothing is forever, this is painful;
  • samudaya : together with this transient world and its pain, there is also thirst for and attachment to this transient, unsatisfactory existence;
  • nirodha : the attachment to this transient world and its pain can be severed or contained by the confinement or letting go of this craving;
  • marga : the Noble Eightfold Path is the path leading to the confinement of this desire and attachment, and the release from dukkha.
The four truths appear in many grammatical forms in the ancient Buddhist texts, and are traditionally identified as the first teaching given by the Buddha. While often called one of the most important teachings in Buddhism, they have both a symbolic and a propositional function. Symbolically, they represent the awakening and liberation of the Buddha, and of the potential for his followers to reach the same liberation and freedom that he did. As propositions, the Four Truths are a conceptual framework that appear in the Pali canon and early Hybrid Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures, as a part of the broader "network of teachings", which have to be taken together. They provide a conceptual framework for introducing and explaining Buddhist thought, which has to be personally understood or "experienced".
As propositions, the four truths defy an exact definition, but refer to and express the basic orientation of Buddhism: unguarded sensory contact gives rise to craving and clinging to impermanent states and things, which are dukkha, "unsatisfactory," "incapable of satisfying" and painful. This craving keeps us caught in saṃsāra, "wandering", usually interpreted as the endless cycle of repeated rebirth, and the continued dukkha that comes with it, but also referring to the endless cycle of attraction and rejection that perpetuates the ego-mind. There is a way to end this cycle, namely by attaining nirvana, cessation of craving, whereafter rebirth and the accompanying dukkha will no longer arise again. This can be accomplished by following the eightfold path, confining our automatic responses to sensory contact by restraining oneself, cultivating discipline and wholesome states, and practicing mindfulness and dhyana.
The function of the four truths, and their importance, developed over time and the Buddhist tradition slowly recognized them as the Buddha's first teaching. This tradition was established when prajna, or "liberating insight", came to be regarded as liberating in itself, instead of or in addition to the practice of dhyana. This "liberating insight" gained a prominent place in the sutras, and the four truths came to represent this liberating insight, as a part of the enlightenment story of the Buddha.
The four truths grew to be of central importance in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism by about the 5th-century CE, which holds that the insight into the four truths is liberating in itself. They are less prominent in the Mahayana tradition, which sees the higher aims of insight into sunyata, emptiness, and following the Bodhisattva path as central elements in their teachings and practice. The Mahayana tradition reinterpreted the four truths to explain how a liberated being can still be "pervasively operative in this world". Beginning with the exploration of Buddhism by western colonialists in the 19th century and the development of Buddhist modernism, they came to be often presented in the west as the central teaching of Buddhism, sometimes with novel modernistic reinterpretations very different from the historic Buddhist traditions in Asia.

The Four Truths

Full set – Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

The four truths are best known from their presentation in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta text, which contains two sets of the four truths, while various other sets can be found in the Pāli Canon, a collection of scriptures in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition. The full set, which is most commonly used in modern expositions, contains grammatical errors, pointing to multiple sources for this set and translation problems within the ancient Buddhist community. Nevertheless, they were considered correct by the Pali tradition, which did not correct them.
According to the Buddhist tradition, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, "Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion", contains the first teachings that the Buddha gave after attaining full awakening, and liberation from rebirth. According to L. S. Cousins, many scholars are of the view that "this discourse was identified as the first sermon of the Buddha only at a later date," and according to professor of religion Carol S. Anderson the four truths may originally not have been part of this sutta, but were later added in some versions. Within this discourse, the four noble truths are given as follows :
According to this sutra, with the complete comprehension of these four truths release from samsara, the cycle of rebirth, was attained:
The comprehension of these four truths by his audience leads to the opening of the Dhamma Eye, that is, the attainment of right vision:

Basic set

According to K.R. Norman, the basic set is as follows:
  • idaṃ dukkhaṃ, "this is pain"
  • ayaṃ dukkha-samudayo, "this is the origin of pain"
  • ayaṃ dukkha-nirodho, "this is the cessation of pain"
  • ayaṃ dukkha-nirodha-gāminī paṭipadā, "this is the path leading to the cessation of pain." The key terms in the longer version of this expression, dukkha-nirodha-gāminī paṭipadā, can be translated as follows:

    Mnemonic set

According to K. R. Norman, the Pali canon contains various shortened forms of the four truths, the "mnemonic set", which were "intended to remind the hearer of the full form of the NTs." The earliest form of the mnemonic set was "dukkham samudayo nirodho marga", without the reference to the Pali terms sacca or arya, which were later added to the formula. The four mnemonic terms can be translated as follows:
  1. Dukkha – "incapable of satisfying", "the unsatisfactory nature and the general insecurity of all conditioned phenomena"; "painful," from dush-stha, "standing unstable,"Dukkha is most commonly translated as "suffering". According to Khantipalo, this is an incorrect translation, since it refers to the ultimately unsatisfactory nature of temporary states and things, including pleasant but temporary experiences. According to Emmanuel, Dukkha is the opposite of sukha, "pleasure", and it is better translated as "pain".
  2. Samudaya – "origin", "source", "arising", "coming to existence"; "aggregate of the constituent elements or factors of any being or existence", "cluster", "coming together", "combination", "producing cause", "rising". Conjunct of:
  3. # sam – "with, together with";
  4. # udaya – "rising," "swelling up"; "rising up, coming forth"; "elevation, exaltation, rise; growth"; "result, consequence";
  5. Nirodha – cessation; release; to confine; "prevention, suppression, enclosing, restraint"
  6. Marga – "path".

    Alternative formulations

According to L.S. Cousins, the four truths are not restricted to the well-known form where dukkha is the subject. Other forms take "the world, the arising of the world" or "the āsavas, the arising of the āsavas" as their subject. According to Cousins, "the well-known form is simply shorthand for all of the forms." "The world" refers to the saṅkhāras, that is, all compounded things, or to the six sense spheres.
The various terms all point to the same basic idea of Buddhism, as described in five skandhas and twelve nidānas. In the five skandhas, sense-contact with objects leads to sensation and perception; the saṅkhāra determine the interpretation of, and the response to, these sensations and perceptions, and affect consciousness in specific ways. The twelve nidānas describe the further process: craving and clinging lead to bhava and jāti.
In the orthodox interpretation, bhava is interpreted as kammabhava, that is, karma, while jāti is interpreted as rebirth: from sensation comes craving, from craving comes karma, from karma comes rebirth. The aim of the Buddhist path is to reverse this causal chain: when there is no sensation, there is no craving, no karma, no rebirth. In Thai Buddhism, bhava is interpreted as behavior which serves craving and clinging, while jāti is interpreted as the repeated birth of the ego or self-sense, which perpetuates the process of self-serving responses and actions.

Truths for the noble ones

The Pali terms ariya sacca are commonly translated as "noble truths". This translation is a convention started by the earliest translators of Buddhist texts into English. According to K.R. Norman, this is just one of several possible translations. According to Paul Williams,
The term "arya" was later added to the four truths. The term ariya can be translated as "noble", "not ordinary", "valuable", "precious". "pure". Paul Williams:
The term sacca is a central term in Indian thought and religion. It is typically translated as "truth"; but it also means "that which is in accord with reality", or "reality". According to Rupert Gethin, the four truths are "four 'true things' or 'realities' whose nature, we are told, the Buddha finally understood on the night of his awakening." They function as "a convenient conceptual framework for making sense of Buddhist thought." According to K. R. Norman, probably the best translation is "the truth of the noble one ". It is a statement of how things are seen by a Buddha, how things really are when seen correctly. It is the truthful way of seeing. Through not seeing things this way, and behaving accordingly, we suffer.