Recent Essays/Post-14

The Four Noble Truths

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] The teaching on the four noble truths (Tibetan: བདེན་པ་བཞི་ bden pa bzhi, Sanskrit: catvāri āryasatyāni, Chinese: sìshèngdì) is perhaps the most well known of the Buddhist teachings. Delivered to his five friends in Deer Park seven weeks after the Buddha attained enlightenment, the four noble truths form the earliest set of teachings and the soteriological basis of the Buddha’s spiritual system. The Buddha proclaimed that,

There is suffering.

There is the cause of suffering.

There is the cessation of suffering.

There is the path to the cessation of suffering.

In today’s idiom, the Buddha declared that,

Life has many problems.

Problems come out of causes.

There are solutions to the problems.

There are paths to the solution.

After identifying the four noble truths in the first round of utterances, the Buddha is then said to have announced in the second round of utterances that,

Suffering is to be recognized.

The cause of suffering to be eliminated.

The cessation of suffering to be attained.

The path to the cessation adopted.

The Sublime Continuum, Verse IV.52, succinctly captures this message using the common medical analogy.

ནད་ནི་ཤེས་བྱ་ནད་ཀྱི་རྒྱུ་ནི་སྤང་བྱ་ལ། །

བདེ་གནས་ཐོབ་བྱ་སྨན་ནི་བསྟེན་པར་བྱ་བ་ལྟར། །

སྡུག་བསྔལ་རྒྱུ་དང་དེ་འགོག་པ་དང་དེ་བཞིན་ལམ། །

ཤེས་བྱ་སྤང་བྱ་རེག་པར་བྱ་ཞིང་བསྟེན་པར་བྱ། །

Just as a disease is to be known, the cause of the disease is to be relinquished,

The state of well-being is to be attained, and medicine is to be relied upon,

Suffering, [its] cause, its cessation, and, likewise, the path, respectively,

Are to be known, to be relinquished, to be reached, and to be relied upon.

For more details, see the page on Verse IV.52.

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