The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are the first Buddha’s teaching to the five Brothers Kondanna, who were the first five disciples of the Buddha. This Sutra has been considered as the guideline of Buddhism, the pillars of Buddhism.

The Five Brothers used to practice austere life with the Buddha, but later, they left Him just because of disagreement with His practice. As soon as the Buddha got Enlightenment, He came to see the Five Brothers. He gave them a lecture of the middle way (Madhyamāpratipad) in order to get their anger out. The Buddha gently explained to them His practice, and why He couldn’t accept the austere practice and then He brought the best practice of middle way to light.

Pleasure or austereness is a wrong way of practice. Only a proper practice could help monks get healthy and progressing.

Thanks to the Buddha’s lecture, the Five Brothers calmed down and listened to the next one that has been extremely important for human beings forever.

The Four Noble Truths contain the four phrases:

• The Suffering,

• The Cause of suffering,

• The Extinction of suffering,

• The Noble Path of Nirvana. 

The Buddha explained this Sutra very briefly; however, if His disciples are able to significantly develop the meaning, then the meaning of the four phrases would become infinite. This is so amazing that we would never know the Truth of life and universe are contained in the Four Noble Truths.

For this reason, if we have ability to develop new theories later, any of those should never be separated from this Sutra. There is no better way to practice than the Four Noble Truths that bring people happiness and common sense, because this is the most important core of Buddhism. We are only afraid that there is someone who cannot fully understand His sayings and then expands this Sutra in a wrong way.

The Sutra is able to contain the boundless meaning, even though this has only four phrases:

– The Suffering (Dukkham). This is the suffering of human beings 

– TheCcause of suffering (Ayam Dukkham-Samudayo). This is a cause of suffering.

– The Extinction of suffering (Ayam Dukkham-Nirodha). This is a state of ending suffering.

– The Noble Path to Nirvana (Ayam Dukkham-Nirodha-Gamini). This is a path guiding to the state of ending suffering.

This was the Four Noble Truths that helped the Five Brothers attain Enlightenment, and became the first five Arhats, the first five disciples of the Buddha.

Now, we are reminded of the Buddha’s first saying, the noblest Sutra of the human beings, and the eternal statement of Buddhism.

For this reason, we should concentrate our minds to think carefully about this Sutra so that we can be illuminated with the supreme truth.

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