The four Noble Truths

The four Noble Truths

and the eightfold path to salvation

And the Blessed One thus addressed the five Bhikkhus (ascetics): 'There are two extrernes, O Bhikkhus, which he who has given up the world, ought to avoid. What are these two extremes? A life given to pleasures, devoted to pleasures and lusts: this is degrading, sensual, vulgar, ignoble, and profitless; and a life given to mortifications: this is painful, ignoble, and profitless. By avoiding these two extrernes, O Bhikkhus, the Tathâgata (the Buddha, the Enlightened) has gained the knowledge of the Middle Path which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to the Sambodhi, to Nirvâna.

   'Which, O Bhikkhus, is this Middle Path the knowledge of which the Tathâgata has gained, which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to the Sambodhi (Awakening), to Nirvâna (Extintion)? It is the holy eightfold Path, namely, Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood (Subsistence), Right Endeavour (Effort), Right Mernory, Right Meditation. This, O Bhikkhus, is the Middle Path the knowledge of which the Tathâgata has gained, which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to the Sambodhi, to Nirvâna.

   'This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of Suffering: Birth is suffering; decay is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering. Presence of objects we hate, is suffering; Separation from objects we love, is suffering; not to obtain what we desire, is suffering. Briefly, the fivefold clinging (attaccamento) to existence is suffering¹.

   'This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cause of suffering: Thirst, that leads to re-birth, accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding its delight here and there. (This thirst is threefold), namely, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for non existence.

  'This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering: (It ceases with) the complete cessation of this thirst,--a cessation which consists in the absence of every passion,--with the abandoning of this thirst, with the doing away with it, with the deliverance from it, with the destruction of desire.

   'This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Path which leads to the cessation of suffering: that holy eightfold Path, that is to say, Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavour, Right Memory, Right Meditation.

Digha Nikaya 22; Majjhima Nikaya – Sammaditthi Sutta, 3

 

1 The five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, tendencies, and consciousness —the karmic formations that characterize phenomenal existence.