The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are the heart of the Buddha’s teaching. According to tradition, he set them out in his first teaching, given in the Deer Park near Varanasi to five former companions. Every Buddhist tradition accepts them.

The four truths

1. Suffering. Life involves dukkha: suffering, unease and unsatisfactoriness. Birth, ageing, sickness and death are dukkha. So are being separated from what we love, meeting what we dislike and not getting what we want.

2. The origin of suffering. Suffering arises from craving (taṇhā): craving for sensual pleasure, for existence and for non-existence.

3. The ending of suffering. When craving fades away and ends completely, suffering ends. This is nirvana.

4. The path. The way to that ending is the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Like a doctor’s diagnosis

The truths are often compared to a doctor’s method: naming the illness, finding its cause, stating that a cure is possible, and prescribing the treatment. The comparison is a later one, but it captures the practical spirit of the teaching. It is not a gloomy view of life. It is a diagnosis offered so that something can be done.

A task for each truth

In the first teaching, the Buddha said that each truth has its own task. Suffering is to be fully understood. Craving is to be let go of. Its ending is to be realised. The path is to be developed. He said that only when he had completed all four tasks did he claim to be fully awakened.

This shows that the truths are not just beliefs to accept. They are things to work with.

How important they are

In one sutta, the Buddha picks up a handful of leaves and asks which is more: the leaves in his hand or those in the forest. The forest leaves, his monks reply. Similarly, he says, what he has understood is vast, but what he teaches is little, because only this is useful for the end of suffering. What he teaches, he explains, is the Four Noble Truths.

Starting with the truths

You can begin by noticing the first two truths in daily life: a moment of dissatisfaction, and the wanting behind it. Seeing that link clearly is already the start of the path.