Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths (Pali: Chattari Arya Sachchhani, Chinese: 四聖諦 Sìshèngdì), being among the most fundamental Buddhist teachings, appear many times throughout the most ancient Buddhist texts, the Pali Canon. They arose as the core of the Buddha's enlightenment experience, and are regarded in Buddhism as deep psychological insight and a step-by-step cognitive methodology, and not mere philosophical theory. Therefore, the Buddha said in the Samyutta Nikaya:


 * These Four Noble Truths, monks, are actual, unerring, not otherwise. Therefore, they are called noble truths.

This teaching was the basis of the Buddha's first discourse after his enlightenment, the Discourse on Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma. In the Culamalunkya sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha explained why he taught them:
 * Why have I declared (the four noble truths)? Because it is beneficial, it belongs to the fundamentals of the holy life, it leads to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nirvana. That is why I have declared it.

Four Noble Truths
Venerable Sariputta, the Buddha's chief disciple in wisdom, said that a wise person is one who understands the four noble truths, and an unwise person is one who does not understand them.


 * 1. Dukkha: "Now this, monks, is the noble truth of suffering:


 * 2. Samudaya: Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering:


 * 3. Nirodha: Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering:


 * 4. Marga: Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering:

The form the Buddha used in teaching the Four Noble Truths is similar to that of a medical diagnosis:

1. identify the disease and symptoms

2. its cause or diagnosis

3. its prognosis

4. and prescription

Thus the Buddha treats suffering as a psychological "dissonance" which we can confidently expect to cure by the practice of the Eightfold Path.

Gautama Buddha presented a cure for suffering - a permanent end to suffering which would destroy suffering from its very root. That suffering can end and that each one of us has the power to end it if we learn and practice is indeed a unique message both real and full of hope.