THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

I. All is DUKHA (DUKKHA, Pali)

All is sour vs. SUKHA (SUKKHA): literally "sweet"

SUKHAVATI - The Pure (Sweet) Land in Pure Land Buddhism

Common translations: All is ill, all is suffering, all is transient, all things are frustrated

II. DUKHA is caused by TRISHNA (TANHA, Pali) craving, passion, clinging, grasping for things that can't be obtained.

CHANDA - ordinary desires for food, clothes, shelter, and family are OK.

TANHA, caused by AVIDYA--ignorance of the twelve-fold chain of causation.

Three types of craving: sensual craving, craving for eternal (substantial) existence, and craving for temporal happiness. Subtlest craving is for permanent substance or permanent self.

III. The end of craving is NIRVANA (NIBBANA, Pali). Two etymologies of Nirvana--"blowing-out" of the fires of passion or cessation of the turnings of the wheels of the mind ("internal dialogue") and the wheel of Samsara.

Self-frustration is brought to an end. Nirvana is, in a word, freedom--freedom from hate, lust, and greed, and freedom from craving.

Nirvana "with substrate" (while in a body) vs. Nirvana "without substrate."

IV. Fourth Noble Truth of the Eight-Fold Path (given in Sanskrit).

1. SAMYAG-DRISHTI - "suitable" view, belief, understanding.

2. SAMYAK-SAMKALPA - "suitable" resolve, aim, purpose, aspiration.

3. SAMYAK-VAK - "suitable"words, speech.

4. SAMYAK-KARMANTA - "suitable" behavior, action, deeds, conduct.

5. SAMYAG-AJIVA - "suitable" livelihood, vocation.

6. SAMYAG-VYAYAMA - "suitable" efforts.

7. SAMYAG-SMRITI - "suitable" thoughts, alertness.

8. SAMYAK-SAMADHI - "suitable" concentration, thought, meditation.

Note: The Buddha acknowledged that he did not discover the 8-fold path but that it as "an ancient road tranversed by the fully enlightened ones of former times" (Sanyutta Nikaya 12.7.65)

Nine DHYANAS (Pali, JHANAS) under #8. Please note the "neither/nor" dialectic in these stages of meditation. For dialectic, see web reading on dialectic.

Note: the first four are while in the body; the second four are out-of-body experiences.

1st--joy and ease, but reasoning continues

2nd--no reasoning, but joy and ease

3rd--no reasoning, no joy and ease       

4th--neither no reasoning or no joy and ease

5th--realm of the infinity of space

6th--realm of the infinity of consciousness

7th--realm of nothingness                                     

8th--neither perception nor non-perception

9th--cessation of perception and sensation.

Please note (Stryk, p. 46) the odd and probably significant fact that the Buddha chooses to leave Samsara after the fourth Jhana, not the ninth. Does this mean that he prefers the embodied state, or that it is more difficult to leave Samsara while embodied? What do you think?

Please note that the knowledge attained at the highest jhanas is prajna (panna, Pali) and it is of the destruction of defiling impulses.

See Stryk, pp. 234-36 for another account of the Jhanas.  Also see Kalupahana (2), chap. II.

Levels of the gods and the jhanas: The gods attain the divine realm by attaining virtue and perfecting the jhanas. Eight levels of jhanas explained in H. Saddhatissa, Buddhist Ethics, 8-9. Infinity of space–noncollision of objects; infinity of consciousness–noncollision of ideas. The Buddha had to leave from the 4th jhana, otherwise he would have remained in a divine state. 8th jhana is a form of "cognition so subtle that it cannot be said whether it exists or not."

The abhassara devas reside in the second jhana and they retain only sight and hearing. They are still subject to death and rebirth. Brahma was a rupavacara god, subject to birth and death.

Robert Thurman (Inside Tibetan Buddhism, p. 17) has taken a little liberty with the Four Noble Truths, but the result is an important qualification that takes the nihilistic implications out of the first truth:

All egocentric life is suffering

This suffering is caused by misknowing and its consequences

There is real freedom from this suffering

The path to that freedom is eightfold.