The Four Noble Truths

Ancient Indian philosophical tradition often presented the work of philosophy in the structure of a medical diagnosis: identify the disease, identify its cause, determine whether cure is possible, and prescribe the treatment. The Buddha explicitly adopts this structure. The four truths are: the truth of dukkha (the disease), the truth of samudaya (the cause — craving), the truth of nirodha (the cure is possible — dukkha can cease), and the truth of magga (the treatment — the Eightfold Path). The structure is simultaneously a philosophical analysis and a practical programme.

The first truth is often translated as "life is suffering" — a rendering that has led many Western readers to dismiss Buddhism as pessimistic. The Pali word dukkha is richer than "suffering": it encompasses obvious physical and mental pain, the suffering inherent in impermanence (the pain of losing what we love or getting what we hate), and the pervasive unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence — the sense that even pleasant experiences are tinged with the anxiety of their ending. The first truth is not the claim that life is nothing but misery; it is the recognition that conditioned existence has an inherent fragility and unsatisfactoriness that we typically ignore.

The second truth identifies craving (tanha — literally "thirst") as the origin of suffering. Specifically, three forms of craving: craving for sensual pleasure (kama-tanha), craving for continued existence (bhava-tanha), and craving for non-existence or annihilation (vibhava-tanha). What these have in common is the basic structure of clinging — the insistence that things be other than they are, that pleasant things continue, that painful things cease. Craving is not desire as such; the Eightfold Path itself involves desire for liberation. It is compulsive, driven desire that generates suffering.

The third truth — that the cessation of craving leads to the cessation of suffering — is the guarantee that the medical treatment is possible. Without it, the diagnosis and the path would be exercises in futility. The fourth truth, the Eightfold Path, is the practical programme through which the cessation is achieved. Together, the third and fourth truths make the Four Noble Truths not merely a description of the human condition but a transformative teaching: here is what is wrong, here is why, here is the fact that it can be remedied, here is how.

The Four Noble Truths are first proclaimed in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta — the "Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dhamma" — which records the Buddha's first discourse after his enlightenment. All major Buddhist traditions accept the Four Noble Truths as foundational, though they interpret them differently: Theravada emphasises the eradication of craving through individual effort; Mahayana adds the Bodhisattva ideal of working for the liberation of all beings before entering nirvana oneself.