The Four Noble Truths – The Buddha's First Teaching

The Buddha's first teaching at Sarnath

Teachings · Dharma basics

The Four Noble Truths

四圣谛

The Buddha's first teaching, in the deer park at Sarnath. Everything else in Buddhism is a commentary on these four lines.

Think of the Buddha as a doctor: the illness, its cause, the cure exists, the prescription.
1Diagnosis
2Cause
3Prognosis
4Treatment

Tap each truth.

1

There is suffering

苦谛 · Dukkha · to be understood

Not that life is only misery — but that nothing we hold on to stays. Birth, ageing, sickness, loss, not getting what we want, getting what we don't. Even pleasure carries the ache of knowing it will end.

2

Suffering has a cause

集谛 · Samudaya · to be abandoned

Craving — the constant wanting and pushing away — rooted in not seeing how things really are. We suffer not because of the world, but because of how we grasp at it.

3

Suffering can end

灭谛 · Nirodha · to be realised

This is the hopeful truth. Because suffering depends on causes, when the causes stop, so does the suffering. Peace is not a reward from outside; it is what remains when grasping is let go.

4

There is a path

道谛 · Magga · to be practised

The Eightfold Path — right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. In short: ethics, meditation and wisdom, practised together.

How this connects to what we do at TGBC

The path has two engines: wisdom (understanding these truths for ourselves) and merit (the positive energy that lets understanding actually take root). Saturday prayers, teachings and these pages build the first; offerings and pujas build the second. Neither works well alone.

Try it this week
  1. Once a day, when something goes wrong, silently say: this is suffering; this is normal; this is workable.
  2. Ask: what am I grasping at right now?
  3. Let the breath out slowly. That small release is the third truth, in miniature.