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Four Noble Truths: Dukkha (1 of 5) Introduction to the Truths

Welcome to the beginning of a four-week series of talks on the Four Noble Truths. I will be offering talks each week on one of the Noble Truths, and this week will be the First Noble Truth. Today, I'll say some introductory words about the Four Noble Truths in general.

The Four Noble Truths are often said to be the core teachings of Buddhism. When I was studying Zen in Japan, living in a monastery, I was given a Japanese primer about Buddhism, perhaps meant for high school students. It talked about how the Four Noble Truths were the core teachings of Buddhism, claiming that even a child could understand what they are, but even an old person with lots of life experience might not understand the depths of how powerful these are and how significant they are in their life.

I think something like that is true because the Four Noble Truths are an ever-developing, growing series of insights, ways, and perspectives for understanding our life. There is not just one teaching on the Four Noble Truths; there are many of them for different life circumstances. In the history of Buddhism, there are different interpretations and applications of these Four Noble Truths, with different elaborations of how they apply to all kinds of areas of our life. That idea that there are different elaborations really goes back to ancient times as well.

The Four Noble Truths are a wonderful framework within which to begin studying our lives and looking at our life in a deep way. In that regard, one of the teachings around these Four Noble Truths is that there are tasks—a particular task for each one—and I'll talk about that in a few moments.

The Four Noble Truths have to do with suffering, and the end of suffering. Maybe it's not a coincidence that the discussion about suffering, and taking a good look at suffering, follows last week where we talked about care. Care is a kind of love, a kind of compassion, a kind of goodwill, a caring for ourselves. To be rooted in care as an approach to look at suffering, and to do so in a caring way, recognizes that for human beings, suffering is deep. I wouldn't say it's exactly an inherent part of life, but it's just about an inherent part of life. It's really central to the human experience one way or the other. To value our human lives, to value the lives of others, to care for ourselves, and to care for others is to care for our suffering—our personal suffering, the suffering of others, and our collective suffering as well. How do we do it from some place of groundedness, of centeredness, of non-reactivity? How do we do it in a wise way, in a way that leads to a better future, a freedom from suffering?

It is said that when the Buddha was going to address his suffering and the suffering that he encountered, he was searching, and his search was considered the noble search. This idea that there's a nobility, dignity, or worthiness in the very addressing and meeting of suffering, finding a way through it, and coming to the other side—this is not so we become greater victims of suffering or diminish ourselves. There's really a growth in dignity, nobility, and happiness. The Buddha said that when he was looking for the alternative to suffering, he was looking for happiness. He was looking for a long-term happiness, which we can understand to be happiness that's not dependent on the vagaries and the changing circumstances of our life, where we're kind of tossed around in the seas of change.

So to address this topic, we're going to do these next four weeks on the foundation of last week's topic of care. Also, for those of you who have been doing all seven weeks now of these early morning sittings, you might remember that the first week began on the topic of faith. The whole week was on faith, and that's also considered a foundation for looking at suffering. One of the early etymological meanings in English of the word belief, which I like to resurrect and call forth as we look at suffering, is that belief originally meant to have something that you loved, or that was beloved. That's kind of what belief originally meant. So what is your beloved? What is it you love?

The idea is that care and love is a deep, heartfelt involvement with this topic, touching something deep inside, as opposed to looking upon it as a series of propositions or tenets of Buddhism that you have to believe or adhere to as a creed. We're talking about something that hopefully will touch us all deeply, in some tender spot within, where our value, nobility, dignity, or worthiness has a chance to really touch, feel, and experience the full depth of the challenges and potentials we have as human beings.

We use this word "suffering" a lot in talking about Indian Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths. It's possible it's not the best translation for the word dukkha^[1], but it's the translation I'll use today since it's the most common one, and tomorrow I'll talk about an alternative.

I want to say that some people hear the word "suffering" and immediately think about the big suffering of life, and it might seem a little bit irrelevant to how they're going about their daily life, and a little overwhelming. The word dukkha, translated as suffering, is meant to encompass the full range of ways in which we feel stress, feel distress, and are challenged by this life of ours, from the smallest to the greatest.

The idea being that if we study it and look deeply into suffering, we can find an alternative. We can find a different way of living in the world where something about how we suffer doesn't have to be there. What that is, is part of the exploration, discussion, and hopefully experiencing that we'll do as we go through these four weeks.

While dukkha is translated as suffering, it does also point to the large, big sufferings that we have—the ones that are most challenging for us, that maybe are not part of our ordinary everyday lives. But they are the ones that sooner or later we will encounter, and we can anticipate that we'll encounter them. They are the kind of things that sometimes when we're young, some of us don't think about so much.

The Buddha was said to have lived a life of privilege, protection, and luxury, and he didn't really know about the large existential challenges of sickness, old age, and death. It was when he escaped from the palace, as the myth goes, and saw sickness, old age, and death for the first time, supposedly as a man who was twenty-nine years old^[2]. Imagine living protected from life for that long. It may be because he was so protected that it came as a shock to him.

Maybe for some of you, you've been shocked by your encounter with these things. Sometimes there are sudden losses, deaths, and changes that happen that turn our lives upside down. I like to think that the Buddha designed the Dharma not so much as a way to deal with the everyday stresses of life—certainly it addresses that—but in fact, really to prepare us, or to help and support us, to address with care, maybe love, rootedness, groundedness, steadiness, and courage, and be prepared for the biggest challenges that come existentially in this life.

In this regard, when the Buddha laid out some of the definitions, or examples, of what he's addressing when he talks about suffering, he used powerful words. I want to read these words to you in English translation:

Grief, mourning, pain, distress, and anguish.

In looking at the Four Noble Truths, we're looking at the truths of grief, mourning, pain, distress, and anguish. We're seeing that these powerful things are doorways, vehicles, or conduits to something that is on the other side of them, something the Buddha called freedom or peace. This is not disrespecting these things, but rather, maybe Dharma practice is a very deep respect and acknowledgment, seeing these things to really understand them well.

So we are stepping into tender areas, difficult areas, challenging areas. We have to do it with a lot of care, faith, stability, and groundedness to really do this in an effective way. This idea of a simple presence, of connectivity, of groundedness as we look at this is really a central aspect of all this. We shouldn't talk about this in the abstract or as if it's easy to do all this stuff.

What's interesting in this list, and many of the lists the Buddha has that explicate what dukkha is, is that fear is not mentioned. I don't know why that is, except maybe fear by itself is not always exactly a problem. It doesn't always arise out of mental clinging. There is healthy fear, appropriate fear, and biological fear that exists. The fear of survival is not necessarily rooted in greed, hate, and delusion^[3], or attachment; it's a core thing in human life.

However, the Buddha did say that the world of clinging, the world of our attachments, gives rise to tremendous fear. So to really delve into these deep topics of the Four Noble Truths is also to address fear, or the kind of fear that is rooted in attachment. That is not so far away from what we're doing here. So a few more minutes here, if I may.

In the early layer of Buddhism, as described in the teachings of the Buddha—scholars will say that there are different layers of how these truths were laid out—the earliest layer was very simple. It said: "This is suffering. This is the arising of suffering. This is the cessation of suffering. This is the practice leading to the cessation of suffering." It's very simple and direct.

Then later, the word "truth" was added: "This is the truth of suffering. This is the truth of the arising of suffering. This is the truth of the cessation of suffering. This is the truth of the practice leading to the cessation of suffering."

Then later, the word "noble" was added: "This is the noble truth of suffering. This is the noble truth of the arising of suffering. This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. This is the noble truth of the practice leading to the cessation of suffering."

What we find is that these wonderful statements and little formulas have no pronouns in them. I personally am very inspired by this. The idea of addressing suffering is not directional; it's wherever we encounter it. Certainly, the suffering we have in ourselves is a place we can take the most responsibility, the place we can delve most deeply into the very roots of what it's all about.

But it also addresses the suffering that we encounter in the world, and that's also something that we want to attend to, understand, and look at. As we go through these Four Noble Truths, we want to be inclusive of the world and have our practice be part and parcel of the well-being, freedom, and happiness of all beings.

I want to end with a statement which has a great value for me as we begin this study of the Four Noble Truths. Whether or how universal it is, we can maybe discuss some other time, but this is the statement:

Your suffering is my suffering. My suffering is your suffering. Their suffering is our suffering. Our suffering is their suffering. Your welfare is my welfare. My welfare is your welfare. Their welfare is our welfare. Our welfare is your welfare.

Let's care for the welfare of all. Thank you.