The Encyclopedia of World Religions

156 S four noble truths

The fourth noble truth tells us how. It spells out the Buddha’s “Middle Way” between starv ing our senses and indulging them. The Buddha invites his followers to pay attention to, indeed, to change eight areas of life. As a result, the Buddha’s way is known as the eightfold path. The first two steps in the eightfold path help us acquire wisdom. We need to convince ourselves of the truths of Buddhism. This is known as right thought. But one can think the same thought with many different attitudes. According to the Buddha, one should try to think without craving and leave greed, hatred, and delusion behind. This is right understanding. The next three steps in the eightfold path focus on morality. We should avoid killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. This is right action. We should also always speak the truth—right speech. Further more, a great deal of every person’s life consists of working for a living. We should not do jobs that harm other beings, such as hunting or selling liquor. This is right livelihood. The last three steps involve concentration with the help of MEDITATION . We should be diligent in our practice. That is right effort. We should also work for right mindfulness and right concentra tion. T HERAVADA B UDDHISM is the form of Buddhism that adheres to the eightfold path most closely. In Theravada, right mindfulness and concentra tion usually mean practicing two different forms of meditation, samadhi meditation and vipassana meditation. Buddhism teaches that those who practice the eightfold path are transformed. They experience, think of, and act in the world differently. Eventu ally they lose ignorance and craving, escape from duhkha, and enter NIRVANA . four unlimited virtues In B UDDHISM , four atti tudes accessible to all, which can be cultivated by meditation. They are Unlimited Friendliness, Unlimited Compassion, Unlimited Sympathetic Joy, and Unlimited Equanimity of Mind. They are said to be unlimited or immeasurable because there is no end to the extent to which they can be

Sibyl, 1996); Huston Smith, The World’s Religions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999); Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958).

four noble truths Four compact statements that express the basic teachings of B UDDHISM . Accord ing to tradition, the B UDDHA Siddhartha Gautama discovered these truths during the night of his enlightenment. He then taught them in his first sermon, which he preached in the Deer Park near B ANARAS . In the four noble truths, the Buddha thinks like a doctor. He sets out to cure the disease that plagues all sentient beings (beings who have con sciousness). The first noble truth tells what the symptoms of the disease are. The next noble truth identifies what causes them. The third noble truth sets out what can be done about the disease. The fourth provides a detailed prescription. According to the Buddha, we can describe the symptoms of our disease with a single word: duh kha. Unfortunately, this word is difficult to trans late. It means “suffering,” but suffering in a very profound sense. According to the Buddha, ultimate satisfaction cannot be found in conditioned exis tence, that is, in this world or in any other. Even moments of profound happiness are characterized to some extent by duhkha. The second noble truth tells us what the cause of duhkha is: craving. Many later thinkers say that crav ing itself derives from ignorance. We ignore the fact that we are temporary collections of elements pro duced by outside causes and mistakenly think that we have selves. We also ignore the fact that every thing around us is unstable and impermanent. There fore, we do not accept things as they are. Instead, we crave, and our craving produces suffering. The third noble truth holds out hope. The disease from which sentient beings like us suffer is not an incurable cancer; in that case the only option is to make the patient as comfortable as possible. Instead, our disease can be cured. If one eliminates craving, duhkha ceases. But how can anyone do that?