Four Noble Truths

In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: चतुरार्यसत्यानि, romanized: caturāryasatyāni; Pali: caturāriyasaccāni; "The Four Arya Satya") are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones".[1][web 1][2] The truths are:

• dukkha ('not being at ease', "suffering,"[note 1] from dush-stha, "standing unstable,"[3][4][5][6]) is an innate characteristic of the perpetual cycle (samsara, lit. 'wandering') of grasping at things, ideas and habits;[web 2][7][8]
• samudaya (origin, arising, combination; "cause"): dukkha (unease) arises simultaneously with taṇhā ("craving, desire or attachment, lit. 'thirst').[web 3][9][10][note 2][12]
• nirodha (cessation, ending, confinement): dukkha can be ended or contained by the confinement[11][12] or letting go of this taṇhā;[13][14][15][16]
• marga (path, Noble Eightfold Path) is the path leading to the confinement of tanha and dukkha.[17][18][19]

Part of a series on
Buddhism
Glossary Index Outline
History Timeline The Buddha Pre-sectarian Buddhism Councils Silk Road transmission of Buddhism Decline in the Indian subcontinent Later Buddhists Buddhist modernism
Dharma Concepts Four Noble Truths Noble Eightfold Path Dharma wheel Five Aggregates Impermanence Suffering Not-self Dependent Origination Middle Way Emptiness Morality Karma Rebirth Saṃsāra Cosmology
Buddhist texts Buddhavacana Early Texts Tripiṭaka Mahayana Sutras Pāli Canon Sanskrit literature Tibetan canon Chinese canon Post-canon
Practices Three Jewels Buddhist Paths to liberation Five precepts Perfections Meditation Philosophical reasoning Devotional practices Merit making Recollections Mindfulness Wisdom Sublime abidings Aids to Enlightenment Monasticism Lay life Buddhist chant Pilgrimage Vegetarianism
Nirvāṇa Awakening Four Stages Arhat Pratyekabuddha Bodhisattva Buddha
Traditions Theravāda Pāli Mahāyāna Hinayana Chinese Vajrayāna Tibetan Navayana Newar
Buddhism by country Bhutan Brazil Cambodia China India Indonesia Japan Korea Laos Malaysia Mongolia Myanmar Russia Singapore US Sri Lanka Taiwan Thailand Tibet Vietnam
Religion portal
v t e

The four truths appear in many grammatical forms in the ancient Buddhist texts,[20] and are traditionally identified as the first teaching given by the Buddha.[note 3] While often called one of the most important teachings in Buddhism,[21] they have both a symbolic and a propositional function.[22] Symbolically, they represent the awakening and liberation of the Buddha, and of the potential for his followers to reach the same liberation and freedom as him.[23] As propositions, the Four Truths are a conceptual framework that appear in the Pali canon and early Hybrid Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures,[24] as a part of the broader "network of teachings"[25] (the "dhamma matrix"),[26] which have to be taken together.[25] They provide a conceptual framework for introducing and explaining Buddhist thought, which has to be personally understood or "experienced".[27][note 4]

As a proposition, the four truths defy an exact definition, but refer to and express the basic orientation of Buddhism:[28] unguarded sensory contact gives rise to craving and clinging to impermanent states and things,[29] which are dukkha,[30] "unsatisfactory,"[4] "incapable of satisfying"[web 4] and painful.[29][31][32][note 1] This craving keeps us caught in saṃsāra,[note 5] "wandering", usually interpreted as the endless cycle of repeated rebirth,[note 6] and the continued dukkha that comes with it,[note 7] but also referring to the endless cycle of attraction and rejection that perpetuates the ego-mind.[note 6] There is a way to end this cycle,[34][note 8] namely by attaining nirvana, cessation of craving, whereafter rebirth and the accompanying dukkha will no longer arise again.[note 9][35] This can be accomplished by following the eightfold path,[note 3] confining our automatic responses to sensory contact by restraining oneself, cultivating discipline and wholesome states, and practicing mindfulness and dhyana (meditation).[36][37]

The function of the four truths, and their importance, developed over time and the Buddhist tradition slowly recognized them as the Buddha's first teaching.[38] This tradition was established when prajna, or "liberating insight", came to be regarded as liberating in itself,[39][40] instead of or in addition to the practice of dhyana.[39] This "liberating insight" gained a prominent place in the sutras, and the four truths came to represent this liberating insight, as a part of the enlightenment story of the Buddha.[41][42]

The four truths grew to be of central importance in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism by about the 5th-century CE,[43][44] which holds that the insight into the four truths is liberating in itself.[45] 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.[46] The Mahayana tradition reinterpreted the four truths to explain how a liberated being can still be "pervasively operative in this world".[47] Beginning with the exploration of Buddhism by western colonialists in the 19th century and the development of Buddhist modernism, they came to be often presented in the west as the central teaching of Buddhism,[48][49] sometimes with novel modernistic reinterpretations very different from the historic Buddhist traditions in Asia.[50][51][52]

^{[examples needed]}