~ The Four Noble Truths ~

~ Jeff Taska 2012

This is Buddha's first teaching, and is also known as The Sutra of Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma

1. "This is the noble truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; union with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five aggregates (e.g., form/matter, feeling/sensation, cognition/discrimination, thoughts/ideas, and consciousness) subject to clinging are dukkha." Please note here the Pali term dukkha is usually translated into English as suffering. Hence, the First Noble Truth is usually translated as Life is suffering. If we stop here with this most rudimentary understanding - as unfortunately many people non-familiar with Buddhism often do - Buddhists are then viewed as pessimists at best, and at worst, complete and utter nihilists. How then do we explain the observation that most Buddhists (e.g., sangha meaning monks and nuns) are usually seen smiling almost constantly? This observation seems quite at odds with this most rudimentary and perhaps ignorant is the proper term to use here view of Buddhists. Moreover, the term dukkha actually connotes the implication that life is somehow unsatisfactory. This is a view all of us can relate to, I would think, as what dukkha really means is we have some anxiety or fear about the future; we feel stress in the present as a result. It is fair to say that most (if not all) of us as human beings, have at some time thought to ourselves, There has to be more to life than this... This realization is more close to what Buddhists mean by dukkha than the word suffering connotes alone. Suffering in this sense does not mean life as a human being is one unending stream of nothing but pain and torture. To say this is rather pessimistic, and in most instances, also untrue. A more realistic view of life is it includes intermittent feelings of happiness and sorrow, grief and joy, elation and suffering, pleasant feelings and painful ones. When the First Noble Truth is realized, these feelings are coupled with an awareness of their true nature, which is a realization that as we discriminate between the objects and living beings in the world around us, we automatically tend to label some as pleasant or desirable in one category, and unpleasant or notwanted in the other category. We do this automatically in the sense that often we do not give it much thought; it just happens in our minds without much effort. We then set about our lives trying to amass or be in contact with the desirable objects and beings, while trying to avoid the unwanted objects and beings as much as possible, the acts of which do take a lot of effort. Though greedily hoarding such desirable objects may seem to some like the American Dream, such as stated by the bumper sticker saying, He who dies with the most toys wins. to a Buddhist, it simply leads to attachment, and ultimately to our misery when these things go away as we cannot be in contact with them forever. Or as we might coin another bumper sticker to say, He who dies with the most toys... still dies. On the other hand, avoiding unpleasant objects leads to aversion, which ultimately manifests itself in our emotions and behavior as anger and violence. Human beings are angry when we cannot have what we want. Human beings often use violence to obtain or retain these objects we desire. Again, we might coin another bumper sticker to sum up this feeling as, I want what I want, I want to have as much of it as possible, and I want it right now. It is the point of view of a Buddhist that real wisdom is seeing the nature of things as they truly are, neither as things to be hoarded nor avoided.

2. "This is the noble truth of the origin of dukkha: It is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination."
So a point about the Buddhist perspective on the world must be made here. According to the Buddhist view of the way the world works, all things which exist are dependent upon causes and conditions. Taking yourself for example, we could say you exist only because there is oxygen to breathe right now. We could say you exist only because there were these two people known as your mother and father who met and conceived you. In this way, we can contemplate an infinite regression of all the causes and conditions necessary for your existence in the present moment. The food you've eaten, the people who grew this food, the plants and animals who make up the food, the water, sunlight, and soil that went into making up these plants and animals, and so on... back, back, back... forever... In this way, since there is nothing that is not itself dependent upon causes and conditions (e.g., the principle of dependent origination) , then it is not at all surprising suffering itself is dependent upon its causes and conditions. And if we know its cause and the conditions under which it arises, then perhaps we can eliminate these, thus also eliminating its effect, which is suffering. The Buddhist use of the term karma is verily very much like this principle of cause and effect. So we could say the cause of our suffering is our negative karma, meaning our previous negative thoughts, negative speech, and negative actions have lead us to this state of mind we currently experience known as suffering, or dukkha. Now that we have established our lives as human beings are somehow unsatisfactory, and this sense of unsatisfactoriness must have some cause, it would be terribly depressing and disappointing if Buddha stopped his teaching here. It would be rather like dropping you off in Harlem without a road map (to paraphrase the poet Tom Waits). Fortunately, Buddha does have a road map; there is a way for us to find our way out of suffering. In a nutshell, that effect which is dependent upon causes and conditions can be un-effected out of existence if we the remove its causes and conditions upon which it depends for its continued existence (e.g., negative thoughts, speech, and actions; uproot the negative karma).

3. "This is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha:

It is the remainder-less fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it."
Here we indeed find Buddha speaking of a way suffering can be ended. Another point arises here about the Buddhist term Nirvana. Most people from Western countries (e.g., the continents of North America and Europe) come from a background where they have been taught the existence of Heaven and Hell. So naturally most Westerners equate the concept of Nirvana as a Buddhist Heaven. That is, a place you go when you die, if you are good. However, please note that in truth, Nirvana is not a place. Rather, it is a state of mind... a state of being. Nirvana comes when a person no longer thinks negative thoughts, no longer has negative emotions, no longer says negative things nor performs negative actions: in short, to be in Nirvana is to be free from suffering wherever you might be. To be free from suffering is an enlightened state, and enlightened beings may live among us. So, rather than a place you go when you die, if you are good, Nirvana is a state of mind human beings may have while they are still living. Buddha is an example of an enlightened human being who had reached

Nirvana and there are others. And the good news for us as ordinary human beings is: if he can do it, then certainly so can you or I! But how? This is the question...

4. "This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of dukkha: It is the Noble Eightfold Path; which is: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
So here we are given the road map with which to navigate the seemingly hostile, foreign environment of Harlem. (P;ease note: if you are from Harlem or are very familiar with it, then please just substitute the name of another place which does seem hostile and unfamiliar to you... for example, let's say the mall.) While it is beyond the scope of this introduction to the Four Noble Truths to get into great detail regarding the Noble Eightfold Path, let us pause for a moment to notice the principle involved in its undertaking. Up to this point, Buddha has said that as a human being like the rest of us, he has experienced suffering. Unlike (most of) the rest of us, he has found a way out of it. Because he feels compassion for our suffering, he would like to share this method with us. Like a physician who has found a cure for a terrible disease, he would like to make this cure available to us rather than keep it to himself. However, please be aware this is not a magic pill such as one finds at the pharmacy. Instead, it requires time and effort on our part. Buddha makes no claim that he can cure us of our dukkha. Rather, he has said This is how I did it. Try it yourself. It is free. You have nothing to lose but your misery. If it doesn't work, we'll gladly refund your misery. Yes, this is another glib bumper sticker translation, but it hits the mark in a way all of us can understand. The principle involved here is cause-and-effect. In many ways it operates just like cause-and-effect principle as it pertains to matter we all learned about in physics class. In this case, we are applying cause-and-effect to our actions in a moral sense, rather than being simply a physical explanation. So, we might say someone who contemplates doing violence all day long is more likely to contemplate violence again in the future, say again tomorrow for example. Moreover, this person who thinks about violence also is prone to speak violently, as in making threats of physical harm to others. Then it is not a great leap to learn this person who has mentally rehearsed and consistently spoken about doing violent harm actually does it one day. And having once harmed another violently, this person later finds it easier to repeat this act on another person tomorrow. This is how it works... It being karma. So karma need not be some mystical, esoteric, obscure concept we cannot explain easily. Rather, it can be easily explained and understood as a principle by which if my intentions are negative, I am likely to speak and act negatively, and these things are likely to recur, bring harm to myself and others, without end. If I wish to end this cycle of karma, to reach Nirvana, to become enlightened, to escape the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (e.g., reincarnation) as a being who suffers, I should practice doing, saying, and thinking the right thing. Which begs the question, What is the right thing? While in practice, this is often a very difficult thing to know and to do, a simple rule of thumb might be, The right thing to do (say, speak, etc.) is that which benefits other beings. Notice here we said do that which benefits others, rather than helping ourselves. By helping others, I really help myself, as shown by the Law of Karma, or Law of Cause-and-Effect. Let's do the math: Because there are so many more other beings in the world than just the one me, the number of others is astronomically larger than the number of mes. Notice how just saying or reading the word me in the plural doesn't even make any sense. But the other beings in the world most definitely are plural. Hence, our simple math tells me the most efficient way to really help myself is to help all of them. Because there are so many of them, there are many more opportunities to be of benefit if I am helping them rather than my much more limited number of opportunities to help myself. When I help all of these countless other beings, I create vast amounts of karma, which benefits me as much as it benefits them, and what could be better than this? (Note: Yes, I realize there is no self to speak of; save it for another day.)

Note: for a more thorough examination and explication of The Four Noble Truths by a much wiser and more compassionate person than I, please see Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness The Fourteenth Dalai Lama's book aptly entitled, The Four Noble Truth, which looks like this: