Four Noble Truths

[18] As propositions, the Four Truths are a conceptual framework that appear in the Pali canon and early Hybrid Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures,[19] as a part of the broader "network of teachings"[20] (the "dhamma matrix"),[21] which have to be taken together.

[22][note 4] As a proposition, the four truths defy an exact definition, but refer to and express the basic orientation of Buddhism:[23] unguarded sensory contact gives rise to craving and clinging to impermanent states and things,[24] which are dukkha,[25] "unsatisfactory,"[3] "incapable of satisfying"[web 3] and painful.

[40] They are less prominent in the Mahayana tradition, which sees the higher aims of insight into sunyata, emptiness, and following the Bodhisattva path as central elements in their teachings and practice.

[53] According to the Buddhist tradition, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, "Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion",[web 6] contains the first teachings that the Buddha gave after attaining full awakening, and liberation from rebirth.

"[56] The earliest form of the mnemonic set was "dukkham samudayo nirodho marga", without the reference to the Pali terms sacca[57] or arya,[53] which were later added to the formula.

[21]As a proposition, the four truths defy an exact definition, but refer to and express the basic orientation of Buddhism:[23] sensory contact gives rise to clinging and craving to temporary states and things, which is ultimately unsatisfactory, dukkha,[77] and sustains samsara, the repeated cycle of bhava (becoming, habitual tendencies) and jāti ("birth", interpreted as either rebirth, the coming to be of a new existence; or as the arising of the sense of self as a mental phenomenon[28][web 4]).

By following the Noble Eightfold Path, to moksha, liberation,[84] restraining oneself, cultivating discipline, and practicing mindfulness and meditation, one starts to disengage from craving and clinging to impermanent states and things, and rebirth and dissatisfaction will be ended.

[40] The well-known eightfold path consists of the understanding that this world is fleeting and unsatisfying, and how craving keeps us tied to this fleeting world; a friendly and compassionate attitude to others; a correct way of behaving; mind-control, which means not feeding on negative thoughts, and nurturing positive thoughts; constant awareness of the feelings and responses which arise; and the practice of dhyana, meditation.

[113] In the contemporary Vipassana movement that emerged out of the Theravada Buddhism, freedom and the "pursuit of happiness" have become the main goals, not the end of rebirth, which is hardly mentioned in their teachings.

According to Gil Fronsdal, "when Asian teachers do talk about freedom, it is primarily in reference to what one is free from – that is, from greed, hate, delusion, grasping, attachment, wrong view, self, and most significantly, rebirth".

In contrast, freedom in the creative modern interpretation of Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path means living happily and wisely, "without drastic changes in lifestyle".

[109][124][125][126] According to Schmithausen, three positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished regarding the possibility to retain knowledge of the oldest Buddhism:[127] Buddhologist Eviatar Shulman proposes that in its original form the Four Truths were rooted in meditative perception of mental events, building on his analysis of the Pāli term ayam which is equivalent, he claims, to an immediate perception, such as this here right now in front of me.

[133] According to Anderson, only by the time of the commentaries, in the fifth century CE, did the four truths come to be identified in the Theravada tradition as the central teaching of the Buddha.

[38][note 27] According to Anderson, ... the four noble truths were probably not part of the earliest strata of what came to be recognized as Buddhism, but that they emerged as a central teaching in a slightly later period that still preceded the final redactions of the various Buddhist canons.

"[167] For example Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught, a widely used introductory text for non-Buddhists, uses the four truths as a framework to present an overview of the Buddhist teachings.

"[177] According to Anderson, "these autors suggest a more complex reading of the four noble truths than those who locate the teaching as the key to or as a crucial element within the grand scheme of Buddhism.

[181] According to the Buddhist tradition, the first talk of Gautama Buddha after he attained enlightenment is recorded in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta ("Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma", Samyutta Nikaya 56.11).

"[54] According to Stephen Batchelor, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta contains incongruities, and states that The First Discourse cannot be treated as a verbatim transcript of what the Buddha taught in the Deer Park, but as a document that has evolved over an unspecified period of time until it reached the form in which it is found today in the canons of the different Buddhist schools.

[149]According to Bronkhorst, this indicates that the four truths were later added to earlier descriptions of liberation by practicing the four dhyanas, which originally was thought to be sufficient for the destruction of the arsavas.

According to the Ekavyāvahārika, the words of the Buddha were spoken with one transcendent meaning, and the Four Noble Truths are to be understood simultaneously in one moment of insight.

[99][100][101][102] Nirvana refers to the cessation of the defilements and the resulting peace of mind and happiness (khlesa-nirvana); to the final dissolution of the five skandhas at the time of death (skandha-nirvana or parinirvana); and to a transcendental reality which is "known at the moment of awakening".

[103] According to Geisler and Amano, in the "minimal Theravada interpretation", nirvana is a psychological state, which ends with the dissolution of the body and the total extinction of existence.

[203] According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, the "elimination of craving culminates not only in the extinction of sorrow, anguish and distress, but in the unconditioned freedom of nibbana, which is won with the ending of repeated rebirth.

[218] Some contemporary Tibetan Buddhist teachers have provided commentary on the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta and the noble eightfold path when presenting the dharma to Western students.

"[45] According to Gowans, many Western followers and people interested in exploring Buddhism are skeptical and object to the belief in karma and rebirth foundational to the Four Noble Truths.

[46]According to Keown, it is possible to reinterpret the Buddhist doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths, since the final goal and the answer to the problem of suffering is nirvana, and not rebirth.

It is devoid of rebirth, karma, nirvana, realms of existence, and other concepts of Buddhism, with doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths reformulated and restated in modernistic terms.

Bhikkhu Bodhi, for example, states that rebirth is an integral part of the Buddhist teachings as found in the sutras, despite the problems that "modernist interpreters of Buddhism" seem to have with it.

[web 33][note 55] Thanissaro Bhikkhu, as another example, rejects the "modern argument" that "one can still obtain all the results of the practice without having to accept the possibility of rebirth."

However, the Dalai Lama's belief, adds Flanagan, is more sophisticated than ordinary Buddhists, because it is not the same as reincarnation—rebirth in Buddhism is envisioned as happening without the assumption of an "atman, self, soul", but rather through a "consciousness conceived along the anatman lines".