The 4 Noble Truths
The Four Noble Truths were expounded by Buddha Sakyamuni during the First Sermon, or commonly known as the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.
The Pali term for these Four Truths is Chattari-ariya-saccani (Sanskrit: Chatvari-arya-satyani), where noble (Pali: ariya; Sanskrit: arya) refers to those who understand them. A more accurate interpretation of the First Sermon, therefore, might be “four truths for the spiritually worthy ones”; they are four facts that are known to be true by those with insight into the nature of reality but that are not known to be true by ordinary beings. The Buddha stated in his First Sermon that when he gained absolute and intuitive knowledge of the four truths, he achieved complete enlightenment and freedom from future rebirth.
The Four Noble Truths form a foundation for understanding the Dharma and is accepted by all traditions of Buddhism. They may be summarized as follows.
- 1st Truth: Suffering (Pali: dukkha; Sanskrit: duhkha) where suffering refers to incapable of satisfying, painful) is an innate characteristic of existence with each rebirth;
- 2nd Truth: Cause of Suffering (Pali and Sanskrit: samudaya) where the origin of this dukkha is the “craving, desire or attachment” as a result of the mental state of ignorance. This ignorance causes one to wrongly perceive the nature of things, such as seeing pleasure where there is pain, beauty where there is ugliness, permanence where there is impermanence, and self where there is no self.
- 3rd Truth: Cessation of Suffering (Pali and Sanskrit: nirodha), where the cessation of this dukkha can be attained by eliminating all “craving, desire, and attachment” thereby attaining Nirvana.
- 4th Truth: The Path to the Cessation of Suffering (Pali: magga; Sanskrit: marga) where Noble Eightfold Path is the means to end this dukkha.
The four truths can be divided into two pairs of cause and effect, known as the cause and effect of ‘thorough affliction’ or samsara, and the cause and effect of ‘complete purification’ or nirvana.
A complete realisation of the Four Noble truths enables one to be “enlightened” or be freed from the sufferings of cyclic rebirths.