The Four Noble Truths

Stuart D. Pierson

5/18/2013

The Four Noble Truths: Teaching of Gautama Buddha

The Buddha’s first teaching after awakening

After his awakening Siddhartha Gautama gave his first teaching as the Buddha. Before sitting in meditation with the commitment to reach enlightenment he had found wisdom in following a middle path. Choosing that path meant that he would reject the asceticism championed by the Sramana monks with whom he traveled and served as their teacher. The monks felt he had abandoned the path they whole heartedly followed and they subsequently abandoned him. Yet when the newly awakened Buddha encountered them again they sat with him and listened to what he had to say.

In that teaching, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, he introduced his Middle Way and the Four Noble Truths. The Middle Way teaches that the extremes of sensual indulgence and asceticism do not lead to awakening and wisdom. The Four Noble Truths first taught to those ascetic monks over two thousand five hundred years ago are a timeless explanation of the root problem of being human. The predicament of the human condition remains the same today. There still is dukkha, often interpreted as suffering or unsatisfaction. The cause of dukkha still is craving. By working to eliminate the cause, we see there can be an end to dukkha. Extinguishing suffering, the end of dukkha, can be realized through a system of practice.

The Buddha’s basic wisdom concerns everyday life and not exalted themes such as whether there is a creator of the universe and the like. This makes the Buddha’s teaching, Buddhadharma, immediate and applicable. Furthermore, the teaching contained in the Four Noble Truths is complete. We can gain much by probing deeper into the extensive literature and practices of Buddhadharma, but foremost is the effort put into the essential nature of the Four Noble Truths. 

The Four Noble Truths

There is dukkha (We find ourselves in unsatisfying conditions and circumstances)

Human beings want to be happy. Human beings want to be successful and to live free of problems. Human beings want acceptance, respect and love from other human beings. Human beings want what is pleasant and fulfilling to go on uninterrupted. We cling to things and people we love and hold dear. Even though these conditions are universally yearned for, human beings often find they are not happy, unsuccessful at times, beset by all sorts of problems, rejected by others, disrespected and possibly found to be of ill repute. Many of us experience being unloved and rejected by someone we thought to be our soul-mate. And at some point we will be separated from those we love and hold dear, either by our own death or by theirs, or just by one of us ending the relationship. Lastly, the things we value don’t persist or at least can’t travel with us past this life.

There is a cause of dukkha (Suffering, being dissatisfied doesn’t just happen)

So, there is a tension set up in our hearts. We find that in the midst of preferred conditions and pleasant experiences we feel satisfied with things and life in general. Then these circumstances end. We painfully learn early on that every morning can’t be Christmas morning. We encounter not getting what we desire and imagine how life would be better if our desires were fulfilled. In our minds we imagine that satisfaction, happiness, or at least being comfortable, can be permanent conditions and yet, perplexingly, they are fleeting. When we distill this idea of what causes human unhappiness, we find the cause to be in our clinging to what we desire and not being okay with not having what we desire.

There is an end to dukkha (Extinguishing craving and clinging ends suffering)

Here the Buddha shows us that though stress, dissatisfaction and suffering are seemingly inevitable, leaving craving and clinging behind ends dukkha. Any person enlightened or not, experiences difficulty. How we perceive and respond to difficult situations defines whether stress and suffering become part of the picture. Dukkha is defenseless against one who doesn’t crave or cling. Not clinging, conditions are conditions with only that in the picture.

Wishing for an end to our personal suffering can be the reason why we first seek out the Buddhadharma. It can seem selfish, rather than selfless, to want to end our own suffering. Yet we begin with ourselves only to find that selflessness emerges as dukkha diminishes. That alone brings out our ability to see the suffering in others.

There is a path leading to the end of dukkha (Practicing the Eightfold Path well can end suffering)

The Noble Eightfold Path is presented as a list of sorts detailing how we should practice as we lead our lives in light of the Noble Truths. It includes right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. This last of the Four Noble Truths is often seen as a stand-alone subject. But the truths are a whole teaching. The Buddha teaches that the fact that there is dukkha is to be comprehended, that the cause of dukkha is to be abandoned, that the cessation of dukkha is to be directly experienced, and that the Eightfold Path leading to the cessation of dukkha is to be developed. The path is to be practiced, not dabbled with. In a real sense, practicing the path is Buddhism.

Making the Four Noble Truths manifest

Many of us live with a feeling that things are not quite right, that conditions lack full satisfaction. If we are honest we sense an existential disconnection from family and others. Even if it seems that a true experience of being part of everyone should be possible, we can’t get past feeling isolated and confined to the limits of the physical body. An assertion that this problem can be seen as primal suffering, intrinsic to just being alive, can be made.

Aware or not, we butt up against dukkha. Expecting things to be a certain way invariably leads to dissatisfaction. What we are dissatisfied with is having tension in our hearts. It is greatly painful to know we are undefinable, indeed boundless, but seemingly destined to live within the definitions ascribed to us. Beginning the work of not resisting what life presents begins the tension reduction process. If we continue to work and remain willing to engage with the mind, a glimmering that there could be something beyond just putting up with what seems to be an incomplete life emerges. The teachings discussed here can make our aspirational work more than just a glimmer.