CHAPTER 3
THE BASIC TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA

KEY TERMS & TEACHINGS

Anatta/Anatman: Literally “no-self,” this term refers to the denial of a fixed, permanent, unchanging self or soul (atta/atman). On a more general level, it refers to the Buddha’s denial of any fixed or permanent substantial nature in any object or phenomenon. According to the Buddha, everything lacks inherent existence, because all things arise in dependence on impermanent causes and conditions.

Dukkha/Duhkha: The subject of the Four Noble Truths, whose root meaning refers to an off-center wheel hub, “dukkha” captures the fact that life never quite lives up to our expectations, hopes, dreams and plans. Usually translated as “suffering,” it includes the broader psychological ideas of dissatisfaction, lack of contentment, discontent, pain, misery, frustration, and feeling ill at ease.

Eightfold Path: A basic summary of the Buddha’s teachings in morality/sila (right or appropriate speech, action, and livelihood), mental concentration or meditative cultivation/samadhi (right or appropriate effort, mindfulness, and concentration), and wisdom/panna (right or appropriate view or understanding, and thought or intention).

Four Noble Truths: The Buddha’s insight into Dukkha; the source or arising or coming to be or cause of dukkha (tanha); the cessation or ceasing of dukkha (niroda); and the path or way (magga) leading to the extinction of dukkha.

Kamma/Karma: Literally “action” or “deed,” this term refers to the fact that actions and intentions have or produce consequences. The basic Buddhist account of it is that both appropriate and inappropriate tendencies or habits lead to actions that ultimately produce fruits or consequences.

Middle Way: In metaphysics, or matters relating to being, becoming, and non-being, the middle way of interdependent arising lies between the extremes of eternalism (things or selves or substances exist) and annihilationism (no-thing or self or substance exists). The middle way recognizes “things” as processes or events or happenings arising from prior conditions. In epistemology, or matters relating to knowledge, truth, belief, and ignorance, the middle way of ultimate truth may be said to lie between the extremes of ignorance (neither truth nor knowledge) and conventional belief (what is thought and said to be true but is not). In ethics, or matters relating to proper living, the middle way of the Eightfold Path lies between the extremes of sensual indulgence and ascetic mortification.

Nibbana/Nirvana: Literally “to blow out” or “extinguish,” this term refers to both the final release from samsara and the ultimate liberation from dukkha. Understood in this way, it refers to the quenching of the fires of tanha, and thus may be thought of as the goal of Buddhist practice.

Panna/Prajna: In the traditional presentation of the teachings of the Eightfold Path, “wisdom” refers to the liberating knowledge of truth achieved in awakening or enlightenment. Right or appropriate view or understanding, and right or appropriate thought or intentions are the first two elements of the path to insight into the true nature of existence.

Paticca-Samuppada/Pratitya-Samutpada: Variously translated as, “dependent arising,” “dependent origination,” “conditioned co-production,” “co-dependent origination,” “inter-dependent-origination,” or “interdependent arising” all of these refer to the Buddha’s account of causality. In short, this cluster of terms refers to the law-governed dynamics of change in which the events or happenings in the world are causally conditioned by and dependent on other processes, events, or happenings.

Samadhi: In the traditional presentation of the teachings of the Eightfold Path, “concentration” or “meditation” refers to the “right” or “appropriate” kinds of intellectual attitude required for sustaining one’s practice of the path. The appropriate mental states include: right or appropriate effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

Samsara: Literally “wandering on/about,” this term refers to the ongoing and seemingly endless cyclical process of birth, life, death, and rebirth. In a more general way, it refers to the conditioned world of this life, its karma, and its concomitant dukkha.

Sila: In the traditional presentation of the teachings of the Eightfold Path, “moral excellence” or “morality” refers to the three kinds of virtues required for the “right” practice of the path. These include: correct speech, correct action, and correct livelihood.

Tanha/Trsna: Within the context of the Four Noble Truths, “tanha” or selfish craving, grasping, wrong desire, greed, lust, and attached wanting, is the cause or root condition of dukkha. At its most basic level it is the drive for selfish gratification and possessiveness that fuels the fires of our suffering.

THREE TEACHINGS

Although the exact events in the life of Siddhartha Gautama will probably never be known, the sketch of Chapter 2 provides the background against which his basic philosophical ideas and teachings may be considered.

As we have seen, the man who became “the Buddha” or the “Awakened One,” underwent a radical re-visioning of life and his understanding of it. Whatever the specifics of his enlightenment were, there can be no doubt that according to his followers the Buddha’s awakening consisted essentially of a “new way” of seeing the world and understanding its functioning. This epistemological paradigm shift may be likened to the experience of awakening from a dream and realizing that what one thought was real was not. According to the Buddha’s followers, this awakening is captured in the three most basic teachings of Sakyamuni: the “Middle Way,” the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path.

First, the Buddha teaches a “Middle Way” between the extremes of the sensual pleasure of self-indulgence and the rigors of ascetic self-mortification.

“Bhikkhus, these two extremes should not to be followed by one who has gone forth into homelessness. What two? The pursuit of sensual happiness in sensual pleasures, which is low, vulgar, the way of worldlings, ignoble and unbeneficial; and the pursuit of self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble and unbeneficial. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata has awakened to the middle way; which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana.
“And what, bhikkhus, is the middle way awakened to by the Tathagata, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana ? It is this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This, bhikkhus, is that middle way awakened to by the Tathagata, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana.”1

Having lived and experienced both the excesses and deficiencies of these extremes, he was painfully aware of their debilitating consequences. On the one hand, the excesses of his princely life were not satisfying for at least two reasons. While enjoying them he was poignantly aware of their imminent passing, and while not enjoying them he found himself longing for what he knew could not truly satisfy him because of their inherent transience. On the other hand, his experiments with ascetic practices left him physically emaciated and mentally unfulfilled. Moreover, these practices failed to produce their advertised and promised ends; in fact, they left him both mentally distracted and physically enfeebled. So his followers insisted that one of the most basic teachings of the “Awakened One” was his insistence on the “Middle Way” between these two extremes.

A second basic teaching of the Buddha involves a new philosophical outlook or “truth”—a new way of seeing and understanding the world and its metaphysical structure. This way of knowing and being in the world is set forth in what is traditionally referred to as his First Sermon and is succinctly summarized in what is commonly referred to as the Four Noble Truths. According to the Buddha,

“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: Birth is suffering; aging is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.
“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.
“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it.
“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is this Noble Eightfold Path that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
“‘This is the noble truth of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of suffering is to be fully understood’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of suffering has been fully understood’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of the origin of suffering is to be abandoned’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of the origin of suffering has been abandoned’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of the cessation of suffering is to be realized’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of the cessation of suffering has been realized’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering is to be developed’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“‘This noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering has been developed’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.
“So long, bhikkhus, as my knowledge and vision of these Four Boble Truths as they really are in their three phases and twelve aspects was not thoroughly purified in this way, I did not claim to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, in this generation with its ascetics and Brahmins, its devas and humans. But when my knowledge and vision of these Four Noble Truths as they really are in their three phases and twelve aspects was thoroughly purified in this way, then I claimed to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, in this generation with its ascetics and Brahmins, its devas and humans. The knowledge and vision arose in me: ‘Unshakable is the liberation of my mind. This is my last birth. Now there is no more renewed existence.”2

According to this passage, the path to liberation from the cycle of rebirth and karma begins with a reorientation in one’s knowledge, understanding, and causal interaction with the world. The specifics of his Truths will be discussed shortly, but for now we may summarize them as follows:

1. Everything involves dukkha.

2. Dukkha has an origin or cause and condition.

3. Dukkha can be overcome or cured.

4. There is an Eightfold Path for reorienting one’s practices and life.

Third, the Buddha teaches the Eightfold Path as a practical method of thinking, living, and relating to the world that leads to the cessation of dukkha. According to his First Sermon, the steps of the Path, which may be seen as a basic outline of ethical advice, are:

1. Right or appropriate view

2. Right or appropriate thought

3. Right or appropriate speech

4. Right or appropriate action

5. Right or appropriate livelihood

6. Right or appropriate effort

7. Right or appropriate mindfulness

8. Right or appropriate concentration

THE BUDDHA AS DOCTOR

One of the most common and helpful ways of presenting and understanding the teachings of the Buddha is to consider them as analogous to the best practices of a medical doctor. Imagine, for a moment, that you are ill and in need of medical attention. According to this method of presentation, the Buddha should be seen as a “healing physician” who can diagnose your sickness, identify its cause or causes, prescribe a treatment plan, and finally help you overcome your illness. Your illness in this scenario is not, however, a bodily disease like cancer, a pulled muscle, or a broken leg. Your illness is dukkha.

Following his enlightenment, the Buddha set in motion the wheel of truth of his teaching by returning to his fellow ascetic practitioners to convey the fruits of his experience and Dharma. Although we cannot be sure about the exact content of this sermon, it seems both plausible and appropriate in the light of the traditional stories of his life that the compassionate Buddha would begin his teaching by returning to the band of ascetics with whom he had spent so much time.
As we have seen, the Buddha informed them that those who have already set out on the path of spiritual enlightenment and renounced the ordinary life of a householder must avoid the extremes of indulgence in sensual pleasures and rigorous self-mortification. He was speaking from experience. The Buddha had devoted himself to a life of self-indulgent pleasure and found it unsatisfying and hollow. He had also devoted himself to the common practices of ascetic self-mortification and found them unbearably painful. According to the Buddha, both extremes were “unworthy and unprofitable,” precisely because he experienced them as inappropriate to the goals of enlightenment and Nibbana. He informed the “ailing” ascetics that his realization of the “Middle Way,” and not the experience of the two extremes, was what produced the vision, knowledge, calm, insight, enlightenment, and Nibbana that they sought. He had experienced the release that he and they had been seeking, and he insisted that it was to be found in the Eightfold Path of the “Middle Way.”

One can only imagine the reaction of the ascetics. On the one hand, they needed to overcome their anger, disappointment, resentment, and suspicion of Siddhartha for having abandoned their way of life, and on the other, they were probably curious about his experiences because he was known to be quite adept at ascetic practices. One can also imagine the compassion of the Buddha for his fellow seekers. He had finally realized the truth of the “Middle Way,” and he was now in a position to offer help, guidance, and “medical attention” to those still bound by the ignorance and dissatisfaction of unfulfilling practice. The “patients,” who rather paradoxically, were both painfully aware and blissfully ignorant of their ongoing sicknesses, were finally in the presence of a real “doctor.” What did the doctor recommend?

THE BUDDHA’S DIAGNOSIS: THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH

According to his First Sermon, the Buddha’s diagnosis of the sickness of the ascetics, in particular, and humans, in general, is called the First Noble Truth. This truth is the realization that everything involves dukkha. Being born, growing up, and aging all involve dukkha. We come into the world in a way that produces dukkha for our mothers and fathers and dukkha for ourselves. We go through the processes of growth and maturation and the experiences of dukkha are multiplied and enhanced. We continue to age, and life becomes increasingly difficult as we encounter the debilitating consequences of physical, mental, and emotional sicknesses. And finally, inevitably, we die.

The Buddha’s First Truth is the medical and spiritual diagnosis that our condition is dire. The lives of the ascetics (and our lives too) are full of sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. All of it is dukkha. And who could deny it? Every one of us has experienced the dukkha of unpleasant things, like sickness, physical pain, hunger, sleeplessness, frustration, and anxiety. Every one of us has also experienced the dukkha of losing pleasant things, like friends, and pets, and possessions. Who could truthfully deny that not getting what one wants is dukkha? No one, says the Buddha.

The problem is that we fail to realize all of this is due to blissful ignorance of our own ignorance. We are neither awakened to nor aware of the way things really are, and so we continue the mindless pursuit of our own dissatisfaction—which simply produces more dukkha. The ultimate explanation of all of this is, according to the Buddha, our ignorance of our true selves. We simply do not realize that our ordinary and ignorant way of conceiving of our selves is part of the problem of dukkha. In short, the Buddha teaches that how we conceive and understand who and what we are is basic to our disease—it, too, leads to dukkha. Why and how do we get things wrong?

The First Noble Truth as the Buddha’s diagnosis of the human condition has traditionally been understood to involve important metaphysical and epistemological claims about both the nature of the human person and our knowledge of the ontology of our selves and other things in the world. As the sermon says, “the five aggregates of attachment” are dukkha. Although we shall be considering the features of the Buddha’s metaphysical claims in more detail in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, for now, we shall try to clarify what he means by these “aggregates.”

Recall for a moment that the most prominent Indian schools of religious and philosophical thought at the time of the Buddha argued for the existence of a substantial or essential self—an immaterial being, which transmigrated from past lives into this life and into the next life as well. We shall be considering the Buddha’s detailed response to these claims in Chapter 5 and Chapter 7. For now, we need only recall that they had posited such a being for at least two reasons: first, to explain one’s metaphysical identity in this life as well as in past and future lives, and second, to explain the obvious unity of our perceptual experience. This atman or immaterial self was required, according to the Indian tradition and the Buddha’s contemporaries, to explain how both our personal identity and unified perceptual awareness remained the same in the face of the unending changes of our daily experience.

The Buddha and his followers, however, categorically denied the existence of such a being for at least two reasons: first, it involved a metaphysical hypothesis that was patently unverifiable, and second, it was unjustified because it was ultimately unnecessary for explaining either the phenomena of experience or the truths of rebirth and karma. Let’s look at each of these reasons more carefully.

We have seen that the Buddha himself denied the existence of atman because he refused to posit the existence of an entity whose very being was not verifiable by direct experience. He had personally engaged in the kinds of introspective meditative experience that presumably could and would have confirmed the continuing and ongoing existence of his own atman, but he had failed to discover any fixed inner essence of himself. At least initially, he and his followers denied the existence of enduring selves underlying the ever-changing flux of daily experience, precisely because there simply was no empirical evidence of abiding selves. Instead, the Buddha taught anatman or the no-enduring-self view of the human person. At the same time, the Buddha also rejected the existence of atman as logically necessary to explain the Indian teachings on rebirth and karma. We shall be considering his reasons for this in more detail in Chapter 5.

According to the Buddha, there is an ongoing series or cycle of rebirths that does in fact occur, but there is no fixed and unchanging self, soul, or atman that undergoes the transmigration. So, how, one might ask, do I, or more precisely, what “I” take “myself” to be, reconcile the constantly changing world of experience with my obviously unified experience of “self”? The Buddha explains it in terms of his teaching of paticca-samuppada, or his account of causality.

Variously translated as “dependent arising,” “dependent origination,” “conditioned co-production,” “co-dependent origination,” “inter-dependent-origination,” and “interdependent arising,” paticca-samuppada refers to the Buddha’s teaching about the law-governed dynamics of daily change in which the events or happenings of the world and experience are causally conditioned by and dependent on other processes, events, or happenings. In the Nidanasamyutta or Connected Discourses on Causation he says:

“And what, monks, is interdependent arising? With ignorance as condition, volitional formations come to be; with volitional formations as condition, consciousness; with consciousness as condition, name and form; with name and form as condition, the six sense bases; with the six sense bases as condition, contact; with contact as condition, feeling; with feeling as condition, craving; with craving as condition, clinging; with clinging as condition, existence; with existence as condition, birth; with birth as condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. This, monks, is called interdependent arising.
“But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance comes cessation of volitional formations; with the cessation of volitional formation, cessation of consciousness…Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.”3

This network of interdependent happenings is the Buddha’s way of making sense of the basic features of our ordinary experience of both the world and ourselves without appealing to or positing the existence of either enduring substances (on the part of the “objects” out in the world that we are experiencing) or enduring selves who are undergoing or having the experiences. Unlike those who insist on either enduring selves and substances, or at least enduring selves, in order to make sense of both the world of flux and our experiences of it, the Buddha and his followers categorically deny a fixed essence or unchanging substance in any being. Instead, they teach that reality and our experiences of it are best seen as continuous and ongoing dynamic processes of becoming in which each “part” or “element” is itself both constantly conditioned by and causally contributing to the endlessly cyclical processes of the whole. The traditional Buddhist terms for this are “samsara” and the “twelve-fold chain of interdependent arising,” and it is these terms and their referents that help clarify the Buddha's meaning of “the five aggregates of attachment” in the First Noble Truth.

Against the background of interdependent arising, what the Buddha meant by “the five aggregates of attachment” is that the human person, just like the “objects” of experience, is and should be seen as a collection or aggregate of processes—anatman, and not as possessing a fixed or unchanging substantial self—atman. In fact, the Buddhist tradition has identified the following five processes, aggregates, or bundles as constitutive of our true “selves”:

1. Rupa—material shape/form—the material or bodily form of being;
2. Vedana—feeling/sensation—the basic sensory form of experience and being;
3. Sanna/Samjna—cognition—the mental interpretation, ordering, and classification of experience and being;
4. Sankhara/Samskara —dispositional attitudes—the character traits, habitual responses, and volitions of being;
5. Vinnana/Vijnana—consciousness—the ongoing process of awareness of being.

The Buddha thus teaches that each one of these “elements” of the “self” is but a fleeting pattern that arises within the ongoing and perpetually changing context of process interactions. There is no fixed self either in me or any object of experience that underlies or is the enduring subject of these changes. And it is precisely my failure to understand this that causes dukkha. Moreover, it is my false and ignorant views of “myself” and things as unchanging substances that both causally contributes to and conditions dukkha because these very same views interdependently arise from the “selfish” craving of tanha. It is the causal process of this desiring that the Buddha addresses in his Second Noble Truth.

THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH

The Buddha teaches that the Second Noble Truth of the origin of dukkha involves tanha, or selfish wanting and possessiveness that fuel the fires of dukkha. As the First Sermon reports, tanha and the passionate greed bound up with it causally contribute to “our” rebirth and ongoing participation in the cycle of samsara. This happens in three ways: first, by continuously experiencing new and exciting delights in our senses, we mindlessly develop a drive or lust to fulfill our unquenchable thirst for more and varied sense-pleasures; second, this attached wanting produces a desire and craving for existence in which we seek to preserve our “selves” by trying to be some fixed thing, or imagine our “selves” as becoming some fixed thing; and third, we also simultaneously experience the thirst to remove and overcome the obstacles to our satisfaction, including our “selves” if necessary.

Understood in this way, it is easy to see why tanha is the source and origin of dukkha. In the first case, who would deny that the constantly changing flux of the world and our “selves” is a sure recipe for frustration? Just when we think things are perfect, along comes a new source of distraction and desire. You finally get the new car you have always wanted, and before you know it, next year’s model is even bigger and better. You finally get a date with the person you have been admiring from a distance, and before long you see some new person who captures your attention. Even when you get exactly what you want, there is always some new thing that you do not currently have, and so you experience the hunger of being unfulfilled.

In the second case, you begin to take the steps that you think are necessary to satisfy your desires and help you be what you want to be, and before you know it the karmic consequences of your actions and intentions lead to attachment to samsara. And finally, when things get in the way of our plans, like the slow driver in front of you, or things simply do not go the way that we want them to, when your favorite team loses again, who could deny the often overwhelming frustration and pain of these situations? All of it is dukkha, according to the Buddha, and all of it is caused by tanha. So, you may wonder, what’s the point?

Just when you may be tempted to throw in the towel and call it quits, the “Awakened One” tells us to hold on. There is hope and a way out of our predicament and suffering. The lifeline is the subject of the Third Noble Truth.

THE THIRD NOBLE TRUTH

The Third Noble Truth is concerned with the cessation of dukkha and is rather straightforward and obvious in theory, if not in practice. According to the Buddha, the way to stop dukkha is to stop its cause, tanha. In short, if you want to avoid the fruit of an action or intention, avoid the action or intention. Said another way, if you want to remove an effect, remove its cause. So the Buddha says that the cessation of suffering depends on the complete cessation of the very craving that causes and conditions it. In short, stop tanha, stop dukkha. It seems rather obvious, but perhaps there is more to this truth than first meets the eye. Where is the Buddha leading us with this line of reasoning?

If we recall again that the First Sermon is addressed to his fellow ascetics, the Buddha’s point may be more obvious. He is, both literally and figuratively, hitting them where they live. The Third Noble Truth asserts that the cessation of dukkha depends on the complete and total cessation of tanha. Although the ascetics think they are making such a sacrifice, they are not. One must not simply give up tanha, like giving up candy during Lent or skipping TV for the evening or even renouncing the world and its pleasures. “Giving up” involves much more than doing without. The Buddha seems to be insisting that one must fully renounce tanha, entirely emancipate oneself from tanha, and in the end completely detach oneself from tanha. What he is talking about in a nutshell is both the release from samsara, and the ultimate realization of Nibbana.

The Buddha seems to be telling his fellow ascetics that the ultimate goal of their practice is only attainable when there is complete and total non-attachment—even to the practice itself. He had achieved the goal himself and now he was trying to teach them how to do it as well. In order to achieve Nibbana, the Buddha says, the ascetics need first to recognize the paradox of its realization. In other words, the Buddha seems to be asserting a self-referentially inconsistent claim. If you desire to be free of dukkha, then you must want to stop tanha. This would seem to entail, however, that one must desire to not-desire, and that after all is desire—tanha. What is a good ascetic to do?

One solution is to disregard the Buddha’s truth as fatally flawed in its logic. Another solution is to admit that the Buddha actually does require a desire, presumably of a different sort than ordinary tanha, in order to overcome tanha. A third solution is to consider another possibility. Perhaps what the Buddha is teaching is that the final release from samsara and the ultimate liberation from dukkha can only be realized beyond the quenching of the fires of tanha itself.
What he is telling the ascetics is that they must not only stop the particular desire for sensual pleasures if they want to stop dukkha, but they must also stop the more general desire of tanha itself. In short, they must transcend tanha itself—completely and totally—in order to realize Nibbana. He was not asking them to do the impossible. He had done it himself, and now he was letting them know that they too could realize it if only they would let go of their attachment to their own ways and follow a new path.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH

The Fourth Noble Truth is a specification of the Path leading to the cessation of dukkha. As we have seen, the Eightfold Path includes: right or appropriate view, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. Traditionally these eight elements have been arranged into three subsets concerned with wisdom/panna (view or thought), virtue or moral excellence/sila (speech, action, and livelihood), and concentration/samadhi (effort, mindfulness, and concentration). Although the actual order of presentation of the groupings is moral excellence, concentration, and wisdom, most scholars do not think that there is any real significance to the ordering of either the elements of the Eightfold Path or its subsets. The reason for this is that elements of each are continuously and iteratively reinforcing one another throughout the day. What is significant, however, is that the Buddha has proposed a specific and manageable ethical plan for eliminating dukkha and realizing Nibbana. In fact, the Majjhima Nikaya reports that the Buddha insists, “both formerly and now what I teach is suffering and the cessation of cessation.”4

As we have seen, the first three Noble Truths are basically concerned with metaphysical and epistemological claims related to the realization of Nibbana. The First Noble Truth is concerned with the way things are in our “selves” and the world and how they ought to be seen. The second Noble Truth focuses on the cause of the First Truth. The Third Noble Truth specifies that the cause can be eliminated. The Fourth Noble Truth then offers the practical moral advice necessary to remove both tanha and dukkha and achieve the ultimate goal, Nibbana.

According to the Buddhist tradition, the Fourth Noble Truth’s path to Nibbana begins with an initial acceptance of the Buddha and his teachings as provisionally true. In other words, one must first hear and then commit themselves to the Buddha and what he teaches as the starting point of the path. In order to begin the path, one must at least provisionally believe in karma, samsara, rebirth, and one’s responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions and intentions. One must also be committed to the appropriateness of the Buddha’s view. In short, one must take the Buddha at his word and then follow his advice. Second, one’s thoughts and emotions must be directed to the “Middle Way” between the extremes of sensuous pleasure and aggravating want. Third, one must employ appropriate forms of speech. One must avoid lying and all forms of harmful speech and instead speak, like the Buddha himself, with compassion and kindness toward all beings. Fourth, one must always act in the appropriate or morally correct way. Fifth, one ought to make one’s living by morally praiseworthy means that do not cause harm and suffering for others. Sixth, one must be fully committed to the effort involved in pursuing the path. One must be consciously and mindfully aware, at all times and in all places, of the thoughts and responses one is having to the way things are going both in our selves and in the world around us. Seventh, one must be continuously cultivating the motivation and mental awareness required to practice the path in the appropriate way at all times. Finally, one must foster the various levels of mental calmness and collectedness that are the fruits of appropriate mental concentration.

At the same time, it is important to point out that the Buddha imagines pursuit of the path as taking place in different ways and at different levels or stages for different followers. In the Anguttara Nikaya he says:
“Just as the great ocean slopes away gradually, falls gradually, inclines gradually, not in an abrupt way like a precipice; even so, Paharada, is this Dhamma and Discipline: there is a gradual training, gradual practice, gradual progress; there is no penetration to final knowledge in an abrupt way.”5

This quote and the remaining part of the First Sermon seem to support the idea of the Buddha as a skillful teacher who recognized that his audiences and followers were going to be at various levels or stages of preparation for following his advice. In fact, the last part of the First Sermon clearly recognizes a three-step process or threefold perspective on each of the Four Noble Truths. First, each Truth must simply be heard or made available. Second, its full import and meaning must be grasped and understood. Third, the Four Noble Truths must be followed, lived and realized. Only when all of these had been fully understood and diligently practiced did the Buddha report his own realization of perfect enlightenment and release from samsara, and promise this to his followers as well.

Taken together, the First Sermon and the quotation from the Anguttara Nikaya seem to complement and reinforce one another. On one hand, they introduce the newcomer to Buddhism to the most basic teachings of the Buddha, and on the other they inform the beginner of the gradual process of initiation, development, and realization open and available to anyone willing to follow the Buddha’s Path—the path to the cessation of dukkha. This early technique of the Buddha adapting his message to his audience eventually became known as upaya or skillful means. This method of practice is one of the fundamental teachings in the latter Mahayana tradition, and a perfect example of the kind of “seed of truth” first found in “Mainstream Buddhism” that is later cultivated by the developing Buddhist tradition. We shall be examining similar seeds in the remaining chapters of Part II, and then study their fruit in the chapters of Part III.