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THE 4 NOBLE TRUTHS
{These are some notes on my studies of the Buddhadharma. My *main* guide used for this first entry is the text entitled
"The Four Noble Truths" by Ven. Lobsang Gyatso. They will be continually updated by date - see links at left of
page. I hope these notes can be of some use to you.}
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The 4 Noble truths were expounded by the Buddha in his first "Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma". The Turning
of the Wheel of the Dharma (more commonly understood as the Buddha's cycles of teaching or "preaching") happened
3 or 4 times depending on varying accounts. The first turning therefore deals primarily with these 4 Truths.
They are called "The 4 Noble truths" because they are self evident truths for those beings who directly realize
them. These beings are then known as "Aryas" or "Noble Ones" and they also have a direct cognition of
shunyata or emptiness (the true nature of reality).
Concisely expressed, the 4 Noble truths explain what are called:
1.true sufferings
2.true origins of suffering
3.true cessation of suffering
4.true paths of cessation
The word "true" indicates that these truths are not obvious to minds that are obscured by ignorance. Although
universally true, they are only recognized as being "truths" when these obscurations have been removed from the
mind.
By understanding the first two truths one realizes how it is that we come into and experience our environment of suffering
known as samsara.
By understanding the last two truths one realizes there is a way out of this environment of suffering and also how to
attain this way out.
The 4 Noble truths accord with reality and are something that can be validated with logical inference and more importantly,
the individuals direct experience. This is possible with practice.
"This, O'Bhikkhus, is the Arya Truth of suffering..."
Our experience of ourselves and of our lives can be described in terms what is called the five heaps (skandhas), or the
five aggregates of experience. This encompasses all of "what we are" as well as the entirety of our experience as
so called "limited" or conditional beings.
The 5 aggregates of experience are:
FORM
FEELING
DISCRIMINATION
MENTAL ELABORATION
CONSCIOUSNESS
~ FORM = whatever one experiences as form, as shape, as color, as body, as matter, as the four elements (solidity, cohesion,
temperature, motion) both internal and external.
~ FEELING = whatever one experiences as feeling, as pleasantness, painfulness, neutrality.
~ DISCRIMINATION = whatever one experiences as mere perception, the bare distinguishing and recognition of objects and
feelings.
~ MENTAL ELABORATION = whatever one experiences as mental elaboration, as impulse, as secondary mental responses and factors
like; volition, will, concentration, greed, hatred, delusion or ignorance, conceit, etc, all positive and negative actions
(karmic impulse) and reactions of body, speech and mind.
~ CONSCIOUSNESS = whatever one experiences as consciousness of, as bare awarenesses or consciousness of sense experience
via the six senses of; vision, sound, smell, taste, touch, mentation or thought.
What we take to be a "me", a "self" a "person" is nothing more than the collection of these
everchanging experiences known as the five aggregates. And because this everchanging collection of experiences arises out
of the interaction of karma and ignorance, the five aggregates are said to be "contaminated".
The actual cyclically repeating environment of experience (what we take as "reality") in which these five aggregates
function is called samsara. Basically, there are six of these dualistic "realms" of experience (samsaric realms)
that we repeatedly produce through our own doing.
Together then, these two - the five aggregates and the environment of their functioning - encompass all 'contaminated
phenomena', and this is referred to as the second of the four seals marking a philosophy as being "Buddhist".
The four seals are as follows:
~All produced phenomena (ie, all caused and conditioned realities or "dharmas") are impermanent.
~All contaminated phenomena (ie, all conditioned realities or "dharmas" - being products of ignorance and karma)
are suffering.
~All phenomena (ie, all realities or "dharmas") without exception, are empty and without self or intrinsic nature.
~Only Nirvana is true cessation (ie, Nirvana is beyond permanence and impermanence, is uncaused, is unconditioned and
is uncontaminated - therefore is 'true peace').
These "four seals" are accepted (with some variations) by all schools and tenets of Buddhism. The first three
are also called the "3 characteristic marks of existence" (anicca, dukkha, anatta). It is the liberation from the
second "mark" that is the main goal of Buddhism called nirvana or enlightenment.
So here we can see that the "truth of suffering" points out the all encompassing quality of suffering, for it
is embedded in our "essence" (as the five contaminated aggregates) as well as our environment itself (as samsara).
These two aspects of our being have as their very nature suffering, and they cannot be removed from that quality.
There is a way out though!
MORE "NOTES" IN THE LINKS ABOVE AND LEFT - maroon column
OR...
STUDY THE DHARMA! - USE THE LINKS BELOW TO BEGIN
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