An Introduction to Buddhism Teachings, History and Practices

What are generally known as the four ‘Noble Truths’ (Pali ariya-sacca, Skt ārya-satya) are the focus of what Vin.i.10–12 portrays as the first sermon of the Buddha: the Dhamma-cakka-ppavattana Sutta. As found in the early Sutta (Skt Sūtra) collections known as the Nikāyas or Āgamas, the ariya-saccas are subjects of an advanced teaching intended for those who have, by the ‘step-by-step’ discourse (see p. 48), been spiritually prepared to have them pointed out. If the mind is not calm and receptive, talk of dukkha (Skt duḥkha) – the mental and physical pains of life, and the painful, stressful, unsatisfactory aspects of life that engender these – may be too disturbing, leading to states such as depression, denial and self-distracting tactics. The Buddha’s own discovery of the ariya-saccas was from the fourth jhāna (Skt dhyāna), a state of profound meditative calm (M.i.249). The Mahāyāna later came to see the teachings on the ariya-saccas as themselves preliminary to higher teachings – but there is none of this in the Nikāyas or Āgamas. In these, they are not teachings to go beyond, or unproblematic simple teachings, but about deep realities to be seen by direct insight (S.v.442–3 (BW.362–3)), and then responded to in appropriate ways.

The translation of ariya-sacca as ‘Noble Truth’ (e.g. Anderson, 1999), while well established in English-language literature on Buddhism, is the ‘least likely’ of the possible meanings (Norman, 1997: 16). To unpack and translate this compound, one needs to look at the meanings of each word, and then how they are related. The term sacca (Skt satya) is regularly used in the sense of ‘truth’, but also to mean a ‘reality’, a genuinely real existent. In pre-Buddhist works, Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.15.3 sees the universal Self as satya, and Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.3 talks of two forms of Brahman: sat, which is mortal, and tyam, which is immortal, with 2.3.6 implying that the latter is ‘the real behind the real [sayasya satyam iti]’ (Olivelle, 1996: 28), that is, satya encompasses all reality, which is twofold in its nature. There is also a connection to sat, meaning existence.