The Four Noble Truths: Gautam Buddha's Key Teachings

His name is Gautam Buddha; also famously known as Buddha, the Sanskrit term "Buddha" signifies "one who is awake." He is referred to as the Enlightened One as well. In Lumbini, Nepal, where he was raised as the son of a warrior king, he was born into a royal family. Buddha had a wife, a kid and had all the lavish comforts and facilities. But when he was tired of the luxuries of royal life, Gautama roamed into the world to find understanding. To understand the reality of the world around him, he gave up his royal status and took up the monastic life. 

At 29, he came upon an old guy, a sick man, a corpse, and an ascetic. Despite his luxury, He realized he would not be immune to illness, aging, or death. The desire to find mental peace emerged in Siddhartha Gautama after encountering a beggarly "holy man." He decided to practice meditation beneath the Bodhi fig tree until he gained enlightenment. He eventually learned how to be free from pain and, ultimately, to reach redemption. After experiencing this awakening, Gautama became known as the Buddha, or the "Enlightened One."  Buddha traveled throughout India for the rest of his life and made it his mission to pass on his knowledge to others so they might follow his path.

The Four Noble Truths

The Theravada tradition is based on the four noble truths of Gautam Buddha, which all other schools acknowledge as capturing the core of the Buddha's teachings. These four realities serve as an introduction to the reality that life is painful too. But if this pain is caused by something, so there will be cause for a need for this pain. The suffering has an answer too.

Through meditation, the Buddha came to understand these truths, and so can we. The four noble truths are significant because they serve as a helpful map. We may achieve long-lasting liberation from our pain by taking action and following this road map. They emphasize the end of suffering (Dukkha), which results in enlightenment and stops the cycle of reincarnation.

These are the Four Noble Truths of Gautam Buddha:

• The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
• The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
• The truth of the end of suffering (Nirodha)
• And the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering (Magga)

The First Noble Truth of Buddhism

Suffering does exist, which is the first of the four noble truths. Dukkha, pain, unhappiness, or dissatisfaction in Sanskrit, is used here to refer to suffering.

While hearing this first noble truth, which is sometimes referred to as "all life is suffering," and believe wrongly that we are being informed that there is no such thing as joy or pleasure. The Buddha does not contest the reality of joy or pleasure. Instead, he serves as a reminder that the happiness and pleasure we seek are not enough to fulfill us.

The five aggregates of attachment and suffering, which the Buddha described as "the five aggregates of suffering," are referred to as skandhas (Sanskrit for "heaps" or "aggregates"). These are as follows:

• Rūpa – form, material impression
• Vedanā – one’s feelings, sensations produced by form, 
• Samjñā – perceptions derived from form
• Sańkhāra – psychological activity in reaction to form
• Vijñāna – psychological activity shapes one's consciousness

These five elements induce attachment to the delusion that form is eternal and that everything is not just that one is an immutable being (that one has a fixed identity), but also that one is. 

The world is constantly evolving. We'll eventually reach the bottom of the ice cream, our new automobile will be an old car, and we'll have wasted all our hard-earned money. We're evolving as well. We are getting older, regardless of how cozy our situation may be. We were born into an ephemeral world because we are human, and nothing lasts forever. This irrationality and unpredictability keep us paralyzed with dread and unsatisfied.

The Second Noble Truth of Buddhism

According to the Theravada tradition, our suffering results from our cravings. Tanha, or craving, is the never-ending desire and greed that connects us to suffering. We don't want to suffer, yet our erroneous search for stability and happiness focused on transient pleasure, things, and people only results in unhappiness and dissatisfaction. 

We need to be more accurate in our assumptions about what will provide us with a sense of security. Ignorance is the cause of our hunger. The main mistake that perpetuates the futile cycle of attachment and repulsion is ignorance. We erroneously think that after we eventually achieve what we want or successfully avoid what we don't want, contentment will follow.

Additionally, ignorance keeps us caught in the notion of a distinct self. We secretly believe that we are more worthy and deserving than other people. We constantly fail to uphold the ego's sense of superiority. Our participation in this futile conflict results in nothing except pain for ourselves and other people.

The Third Nobel Truth of Buddhism

The third noble truth of Gautam Buddha says that the result of a disorganized, untrained mind is the ignorance that keeps us mired in the cycle of wanting. We cannot understand the true nature of reality while we are under the stress and compulsive, habitual behavior we are currently experiencing. It makes sense that we have a misunderstanding of the true source of satisfaction. This is not the awful news that we might have anticipated hearing. It may even feel relieving. Because if our flawed minds are to blame for our pain, they are also the solution. We may break the loop that keeps us stuck in the compulsive habit of clinging to some things and avoiding others by calming the mind and growing in wisdom. 

It takes more than merely wishing for this attachment tendency to disappear. As with everything, the cessation of desiring, or nirodha, results from causes and circumstances. In the fourth noble truth, the Buddha properly explains the reason why suffering will come to an end.

However, it is simple to declare that one should cease craving; doing so is quite another. For instance, one can be aware that they should stop smoking cigarettes yet quit them. Buddha, however, is only asserting the third fact when he says it is possible to end craving. This is similar to how a therapist or support group could persuade someone to quit smoking by first reassuring them that it is possible. The fourth truth contains his explanation of how to achieve it.

The Fourth Noble Truth of Buddhism

The path to the end of suffering is precisely laid out for us in the fourth noble truth. But the path itself does not set us free. We create the circumstances that lead to our awakening by acting and pursuing the path. The map given us is the noble eightfold road or Arya ashtanga marga. Its counsel to practice meditation, live morally and gain insight comes to life via implementation. We've spent our entire lives setting off the conditions that result in pain. To change this, we dedicate our life to having the correct perspective, the right intention, the right words, the right action, the right way of living, the right effort, the proper awareness, and the appropriate concentration. The four noble truths are very closely tied to the four Buddhist seals and are known as the Dharma, the Buddha's teachings.

We discover that we are elevated as a result. Still a human, free from the cycle of misery and fully conscious of the true source of happiness.

Conclusion

As previously said, not all Buddhist schools of thought equally comprehend and implement the Eightfold Path and Four Noble Truths of Gautam Buddha. Following the Buddha's passing, his followers institutionalized his teachings in institutions of higher learning, which shortly (by 383 BCE, at the Second Council meeting, led to debates over what his original vision was and how it should be practiced) led to conflicts. The initial rift resulted in the founding of the Mahasanghika and Sthaviravada schools, from which many others derived. Today's top three schools of learning are:

• Theravada Buddhism (The School of the Elders)
• Mahayana Buddhism ( The Great Vehicle)
• Vajrayana Buddhism (The Way of the Diamond)

Although Vajrayana is essentially a subset of Mahayana, all three schools claim to follow the original teachings. Still, they differ in how they interpret and put into practice the Buddha's vision. 

Theravada and Mahayana both say that one must make a conscious effort to end desiring, which is one of the fundamental differences between the first two and the final centered on Truth 3—cessation. In contrast, Vajrayana holds that one need only recognize the first two truths, and craving will end as one pursues lasting values and true reality, leaving illusion. As one accepts non-attachment to a world where nothing stays the same, one leaves behind a craving for impossibly unattainable states of being.

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