6.3. The Four Noble Truths

[Full title: Distinctive Issues of the Five Nikāyas and some Important Buddhist Terms Relating the Study; (3): The Four Noble Truths]

The Buddha’s teaching is called the Dhamma which we have considered in the section §3.6.1 above. The Dhamma itself is not a body of immutable dogmas or a system of speculative thought. It is essentially a means, a raft for crossing over from the ‘near shore’ of ignorance, craving, and suffering to the ‘far shore’ of transcendental peace and freedom (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 22.13). The main teaching of the Buddha lays its focus neither on philosophical speculation about a Creator God or the origin of the universe, nor on a heaven world ever after. The teaching, instead, is centred on the down-to-earth reality of human suffering and the urgent need to find the lasting relief from all forms of discontent. The entire teaching of the Buddha is contained in the Four Noble Truths that are content of the first sermon, ‘The Discourse of Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Law’ (Dhamma-cakkappavattana Sutra), which Buddha exhibited at Benares (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 141.2). The contents of the Four Noble Truths are presented in several Suttas in the Five Nikāyas, particularly in Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 141 where they are expounded in detail by the venerable Sāriputta.

The Four Noble Truths which are discovered and taught by the Buddha are as follows.

i. The noble truth of suffering (dukkha)
ii. The noble truth of the origin of suffering (dukkhasamudāya)
iii. The noble truth of the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodha)
iv. The noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā)

The concept of dukkha is inclusively accounted in Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 141.10-20 in terms of three basic aspects:

(i) suffering as pain (dukkha-dukkhatā) including both physical and mental feelings such as illness, death, separation from loved ones, not getting what one desires and so on.;

(ii) the suffering in change (vipariṇāma-dukkhatā) that is sufferings resulted from the impermanent nature of all things; and

(iii) the suffering inherent in the formations (saṃkhāra-dukkhatā), referring to the oppressive conditioned nature of all formations of existence with their continual arising and passing away.

In its philosophical aspect, the First Noble Truth shows that man is a combination of ever-changing physical and mental processes called the five aggregates (paññcakhandha), namely the aggregate of material form (rūpa) which includes the physical body with its sense faculties as well as external material objects; the aggregate of feeling (vedanā) is the affective element in experience, either pleasant, painful, or neutral; the aggregate of perception (saññā) is the factor responsible for noting the qualities of things and also accounts for recognition and memory; the aggregate of formations (saṅkhāra) is an umbrella term that includes all volitional, emotive, and intellective aspects of mental life; and the aggregate of consciousness (viññāṇa) is the basic awareness of an object indispensible to all cognition. Such momentary and transitory combination is, of course, the object of impermanence; and anything is impermanent regarded as leading to suffering, and therefore non-self. In his explanation of the First Noble Truth, the Buddha emphasizes that “In short, the five aggregates affected by clinging are suffering.” The five aggregates affected by clinging (pañcaupādānakhandhā) are a classificatory scheme that the Buddha had devised for demonstrating the composite nature of personality. The scheme comprises every possible type of condition state, which it distributes into five categories–material form, feeling, perception, mental formation, and consciousness which we have just seen above.

The origin of suffering is said to be generated from craving (taṇhā) in its three major aspects:

(i) craving for sensual pleasures (kāmataṇhā);
(ii) craving for being (bhāvataṇhā); that is, for continued existence; and
(iii) craving for non-being (vibhāvataṇhā); that is, for personal annihilation.

And with the elimination of craving the suffering that originates from it will cease without remainder. Such the extinction of dukkha via the cessation of craving is itself the state of nibbāna (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 141. 21-2). The fourth noble truth completes the pattern established by the first three truths by exposing the way to eradicate craving and thereby leads to the end of suffering. It is the Middle Way or the Noble Eightfold Path (ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga) discovered by the Buddha himself. This path is called the Middle Way because it avoids the two extremes of a sensuous and luxurious life on one hand and self-mortification on the other.

The Noble Eightfold Path is classified into eight factors as follows:

i. right view (sammā diṭṭhi),
ii. right intention (sammā saṅkappa),
iii. right speech (sammā vācā),
iv. right action (sammā kammanta),
v. right livelihood (sammā ājīva),
vi. right effort (sammā vāyāma),
vii. right mindfulness (sammā sati),
viii. right concentration (sammā samādhi).

The Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 44.11. explains that the eight factors can be incorporated into three aggregates of training, namely,

(i) the aggregate of virtue or moral discipline (sīla) which includes the middle three factors; that is, right speech, right action, and right livelihood;

(ii) the aggregate of concentration (samādhi) which includes the last three states; that is, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration; and

(iii) the aggregate of wisdom (paññā) which consists of the first two factors; that is, right view, and right intention.

All these eight factors are in closed relation to each other (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 44.10, 117; 141).

Designed to take a holistic and philosophical view and present the same in discourses, the first task in the Buddhist practice is to recognize the nature and variety of suffering to which humans are susceptible. As an up-to-date and practical reference strategy, the hypothesis of the second noble truth presents an accessible description and exposes that the essential causes of suffering are to be found as desires within the mind. However, these afflictive tendencies can be released from the mind through the realization of the third and the fourth noble truths which offer a noble ethical path, the Middle Way, and thus helps to transform the mind and, to eliminate its afflictions and defilements in order to lead to liberation completely. The content of the Four Noble Truths, thus, does not only mention about suffering as having been mistaken by many people but reveals specific psychological insights into the Buddha tracing dukkha to its roots within the human mind as well. Those are themselves craving and clinging, further and deeper as rooted from ignorance. Since suffering arises from the human mind, the way to end it, therefore, must be started from the mind; that is, removing, eradicating, and rooting out all imperfections and defilements of mind that are seen as craving’s children. And the way to complete it is only the Noble Eightfold Path, not any others. Thus, the process of training mind sets in from a defiled and tainted mind and ends at a pure and librated mind and free from all taints. Such Middle Way is called ‘noble’ because it is the only one way leading to the final goal of enlightenment and liberation. The Four Noble Truths are said to be the framework of the entire of the Buddhist doctrines. It embraces all other principles and to be compared as the elephant’s footprint which contains the footprints of all other animals (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 28.2).