Buddha Community

The Four Noble Truths form the basis of Buddhist teaching and are considered to be  part of the first discourse given by the Buddha after his enlightenment. 

The four Noble Truths are:

1. There is suffering, stress, painfulness, or mental dis-ease  (Dukkha in Pali)

2. The cause of Dukkha is craving

3. There is a solution or cure for this problem - the cessation of Dukkha

4. The cure is a practical path described as the Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path and its three divisions are:

Wisdom 
                    Right View
                    Right Aspiration (or Intention or Thought) 
             
Virtue 
                    Right Speech 
                    Right Action 
                    Right Livelihood 

Meditation 
                   Right Effort
                   Right Mindfulness 
                   Right Concentration

Do Not Believe The Four Noble Truths!

Buddhist teachings are not meant to be believed in as dogma. They are meant to be reflected upon against our own experience, here and now. They are practical teachings. The more we treat them as abstract dogma, the less useful they become. Over the 200 or so years that western cultures have been aware of Buddhist teachings, one problem has been to translate from the ancient Pali language in which the teachings were recorded, into  English and other modern languages. The pali word - 'dukkha' - is a well-known problem. No single English word equates to it. 'Suffering ' has been commonly used as the English equivalent. And so then we get a dogmatic translation of the first noble truth as 'all is suffering'. We perhaps read or hear people saying that the Buddha taught that everything is suffering and what a negative and pessimistic religion Buddhism is.  Of course for the vast majority of us, all is not suffering.  If we are fortunate, we may often experience times when we are not suffering or we have happiness in our lives. This is where the use of 'suffering' as a translation for dukkha is too narrow, for dukkha means the frustration arising from blindly attaching to inherently unstable, undependable, imperfect conditions. So even a happy time can fool us into believing it will last and lead to anguish and frustration when the happy conditions change.

If we phrase the first noble truth as  - There is suffering  - then this is a statement which encourages us to reflect and examine our experience. We can also explore craving and gain an understanding of what this means and the good news that dukkha has an end. The Noble Eightfold Path then provides practical methods - or a virtuous circle - which leads us to the end of suffering here and now.

So the truth is that Buddhism provides a practical set of teachings based upon the positive premise that we can do something about dukkha - craving, anguish, and suffering - here and now. The Buddhist path could rightly be described as the serious pursuit of true happiness for ourselves and others.