Four Noble Truths · Pāli: cattāri ariyasaccāni; Skt: catvāri āryasatyāni

The Four Noble Truths are the frame the Buddha gave to the whole of his teaching. He sets them out in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11), “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion”, spoken at Varanasi in the Game Refuge at Isipatana to “the group of five monks”. In Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu’s translation the first truth is stated plainly: “Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful”, and “In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful”. The second names the origin, “the craving that makes for further becoming”, in three forms: “craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming”. The third is “the remainderless fading & cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, & letting go of that very craving”. The fourth is the way there: “Precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.”

They are given as tasks rather than as beliefs. Stress “is to be comprehended”, its origination “is to be abandoned”, its cessation “is to be directly experienced”, and the path “is to be developed”, what the Buddha calls his “three-round, twelve-permutation knowledge & vision concerning these four noble truths”. Ven. Sariputta sets out their scope with the simile of the elephant’s footprint, saying that “all skillful qualities are gathered under the four noble truths” (MN 28). The Pali is ariya-sacca, rendered “noble truth”. Traditions that share these four differ over the goal the path serves: most Theravada practitioners aspire to arhatship, while “all serious Mahāyānists take the bodhisattva vow” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Our full guide walks through the Four Noble Truths with examples.