“The Letting Go of Craving”: Third Noble Truth (SN 56.11)

By Tim Yu · Updated 2026-06-08

At the very heart of the Buddha’s first teaching is a promise: suffering can end. And here is exactly how he defines that ending — not as gaining something, but as the complete letting go of craving. Here is the line, its meaning, and its source.

“The remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very craving.” — The Buddha, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11), trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu

What it means

This is the Buddha’s definition of the Third Noble Truth — the truth of the cessation of suffering (nirodha). To grasp it, you have to hold the second truth beside it: that the origin of suffering is craving (taṇhā), the thirst that wants experience to be other than it is. If craving is the cause, then the end of suffering is, quite simply, the end of craving.

Notice how the Buddha says it. He does not give one word but a small heap of them — fading, cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, letting go — circling the same reality from every side so it cannot be mistaken for something partial. And the first word, “remainderless,” seals it: this is total release, nothing held back. When the grasping is fully let go, the suffering that was built upon it has nothing left to rest on, and falls away.

It is striking that the goal of the whole path is stated not as an attainment but as a release — not adding, but letting go. That is the surprising shape of Buddhist freedom.

Where it comes from

The line is from the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (“Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion,” SN 56.11) — the Buddha’s first sermon, given to his five former companions — in the Pali Canon, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Why it matters

This is the hinge of the Four Noble Truths: the point where the diagnosis of suffering turns into the promise of its end — explored in full in our deep-dive on the third truth, the cessation of suffering. And it reveals why letting go is not just good advice in Buddhism but the very shape of liberation, of Nibbāna itself.

Browse more sourced lines in our Buddhist quotes collection.