The Four Noble Truths And Dependent Origination

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I. The core of the enlightenment

The four noble truths and dependent origination jointly represent the unique discovery of the Buddha, the heart of his enlightenment.

1. In the Buddha’s first discourse (SN 56:11, SA 379), he says that as long as he did not purify the knowledge and vision of the four noble truths, he did not declare that he had attained supreme enlightenment. It was only when he had perfected the knowledge and vision of the four noble truths could he claim to have attained supreme enlightenment.

(See SN V 423; T II 104a2-7.)

2. When the Buddha describes his enlightenment he describes it as the realization of three higher knowledges (tevijjā). The last of these is the knowledge of the four noble truths. See MN 4, MN 19, etc., and MA 102.

3. The Buddha’s reflection after his enlightenment underscores the importance of dependent origination. See (MN 26; SN 6:1; Chinese parallel in DA 1, T I 8b15-21.) From this, we see that the “dhamma” that the Buddha realized on the occasion of his enlightenment had two aspects: dependent origination and nibbāna, the conditional dynamics behind the cycles of samsara, and the cessation of samsaric becoming.

4. What is the relation of these two teachings? We will take them in turn. First we will consider the four noble truths.

II. The four noble truths: general considerations

1. These are often understood to be the basic teaching of Buddhism. This, however, is not the case. The Buddha presents the four noble truths in a particular context. He does not teach them to everyone and on every occasion, but to those who will be receptive to them, who have the capacity to understand them.

2. The threefold structure of the Buddha’s teaching:

1. to promote well-being and happiness in this present life;
2. to promote a favorable rebirth;
3. to bring liberation, the highest good.

3. The Buddha has different teachings designed to achieve each purpose. We can make a distinction between those teachings that “ripen” his listeners and those that guide them to liberation. The four noble truths belong to this last class, or to (c) in the threefold classification of the teachings. They are teachings directed to liberation, taught to people with ripe faculties. See Upali Sutta, MN 56, MA 133.

III. The four noble truths as a pragmatic adaptation

1. A problem: The twelvefold formula of dependent origination shows us that ignorance is the root cause of suffering. So why does the teaching on the four noble truths posit craving as the cause of suffering?

2. A solution: This presentation serves a practical purpose; it makes the Dhamma more convincing, more “directly visible,” it gives the teaching a more experiential flavor.

3. To see how this is so, consider that there are two ways to explain the causation of suffering: “vertical” and “horizontal.” Vertical = immediate causation; horizontal = long-term causation, causation extended over time.

4. The “vertical” explanation shows how suffering is caused by factors that operate in the present; it brings the causal origination of suffering into range of our experience. It gives us a way to confirm the causation of suffering for ourselves. We can directly see how suffering arises from craving and clinging; we can also see how suffering ceases with the removal of craving and attachment. Thus the vertical explanation has a psychological flavor. The suffering that afflicts us is sorrow, grief, anxiety, distress. Its cause is desire and attachment. When these are removed, we are free from sorrow and distress.

Example: Discourse spoken to the layman Bhadraka;  SN 42:9 = SA 913.

5. But there is another type of causal explanation for suffering. To approach this causal explanation, we have to take account of the deeper and wider meaning of suffering. Here, suffering is not just sorrow and distress, but bondage to the round of rebirths.
Text SN 15:3-4: Sentient beings, blocked by ignorance and fettered by craving, run from life to life. They shed more tears than water in the ocean; they drink more mothers’s milk than water in the ocean. From this perspective, all bhava, cyclic existence, is suffering; all sankhāras are impermanent and imperfect. To get free, we have to investigate the causal process that binds us to cylic existence. This brings us to dependent origination.

IV. Dependent origination

1. Dependent origination gives us a deeper and more detailed perspective on suffering, its causation, and the way to liberation.

2. The familiar twelvefold formula lays out the causal process in twelve factors, spread out over three lives. I won’t explain this in detail; just give general idea.

3. Instead, a concise account at AN 3:76 (= EA2 42). Here, existence (bhava) stands for suffering, the suffering of samsara. Ignorance and craving bind consciousness to bhava; karma directs consciousness to a particular state of existence, a particular bhava, low, medium, or superior. But all are dukkha.

4. Therefore: to gain liberation we must end ignorance and craving.

V. The noble eightfold path

1. The Buddha has constructed a practical path to eliminate ignorance and craving, the noble eightfold path. In first sermon, he says: “This path leads to vision, it produces knowledge; it leads to peace, higher knowledge, enlightenment, nibbana.”

2. The path itself is a “dependent origination.” Each path factor arises based on its predecessor. See MN 117, SN 45:1, AN 10:104; SA 748.

3. The path imposes four tasks: to fully know the truth of suffering; to abandon the truth of its origin; to realize the cessation of suffering (= nibbana); to cultivate the path factors. See SN 56:29, SA 382.

4. The path unfolds through three trainings: sila, samadhi, and pañña.

5. Cultivating the path gives rise to knowledge, to the world-transcending wisdom. This wisdom is precisely a knowledge that combines the four noble truths and dependent origination. That is, with wisdom, one can take any factor of dependent origination and understand it according to the pattern of the four noble truths. One understands the factor, its cause (the preceding factor), its cessation (extinguishing the cause), and the noble eightfold path as the way to extinguish the cause.

6. Wisdom eradicates ignorance in four stages. There are  four layers of ignorance and other defilements. Accordingly, there are four world-transcending attainments to remove the defilements. Each attainment eradicates one layer, until the fourth attainment eliminates the last layer, the subtlest traces of the ignorance and craving that sustain the samsara, the three taints or “influxes.” This brings the highest fruit, the fruit of arahantship, “the liberation of mind, the liberation by wisdom, that is taintless through the destruction of the taints.”

7. However, we should not merely dream about the highest realizations. The Buddha is a practical teacher, and thus we have to proceed practically, in accordance with our situation and capacity, in our everyday lives. This means especially clarifying our understanding of Dhamma through the study of the Buddha’s teachings (right view); developing a right motives (right intention); maintaining right speech, action, and livelihood; and with diligence (right effort) practicing the four establishments of mindfulness (right mindfulness) with the aim of attaining right concentration. In this way we gradually approach closer to unshakable liberation of mind, to the cessation of suffering.