The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path
The last teaching listed in the Fourth Foundation or Establishment of Mindfulness is the Four Noble Truths, the most central, bedrock teaching of all Buddhism. And within the Four Noble Truths lies the Eight Fold Path.
It is no accident that this teaching comes at the very end of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. The practitioner had much to learn in order to begin investigating the Four Noble Truths in earnest. First was mindfulness of body, then feelings, then the mind, and finally all the elements of the dharmas or “the way things are” - the five hindrances to mindfulness, the five aggregates of clinging, the six sense spheres, and the seven factors of enlightenment. With this foundation, the practitioner is equipped to contemplate the first truth of suffering, the second truth of the causes of suffering, the third truth of the end of suffering, and the fourth truth of the eightfold path.
Bhikku Bodhi in his Preface to The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering, describes the importance of these teachings this way:
The essence of the Buddha’s teaching can be summed up in two principles: the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The first covers the side of doctrine, and the primary response it elicits is understanding; the second overs the side of discipline, in the broadest sense of that word, and the primary response it calls for is practice. In the structure of the teaching these two principles lock together into an indivisible unity called.. in brief, the Dhamma. The internal unity of the Dhamma is guaranteed by the fact that the last of the Four Noble Truths, the truth of the way, is the Noble Eightfold Path, while the first factor of the Noble Eightfold path, right view, is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. Thus the two principles penetrate and include one another, the formula for the Four Noble Truths containing the Eightfold Path and the Noble Eightfold Path containing the Four Truths.
He goes on to say in his first chapter, "The Way to the End of Suffering," that the Buddha’s teachings can be evaluated much as one might evaluate trust in a doctor. First, did the doctor get the diagnosis right? Second, does he or she seem to understand the underlying causes? Third, does the doctor believe there can be an end to this disease? And what does the doctor prescribe?
The Buddha encouraged his followers to see for themselves. He could point the way but the practitioner must do the investigating that would build the faith that this is the way out of suffering. Come and see for yourself, was the Buddha’s invitation.
It seems fitting for this time we live in that we might be more aware than ever of the first Noble Truth. This is Dukkha. The Pali word dukkha can be translated as suffering, but also as unsatisfactoriness. And in fact, there is such a range of suffering that this truth would not be believable if it only pertained to one kind of suffering.
Joseph Goldstein in his book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, describes three kinds of suffering. (p.291-3) There is the suffering of painful experience - the painful experiences brought on by wars, violence, natural disasters, political and social injustice, and oppression. There are the inevitable painful experiences of the body related to sickness, injury, aging, and death. There are painful experiences of the mind which are often caused by deeply held conditioning - feelings of fear, anger, jealously, hatred, anxiety, grief, envy, loneliness. We have all had opportunities to work with these painful experiences whether by changing our behavior to find relief, or by going into seclusion from the suffering in concentration practice, or by turning toward and opening to these experiences and knowing the truth of suffering for ourselves.
The second kind of suffering Goldstein describes is that brought about by the changing nature of things. We want good things to last and bad things to go away. We are continually frustrated in this wanting of something that is not possible. As an example of this, daffodils are in huge, glorious, vibrant profusion just now. And when one comments upon it, the inevitable response is “too bad they won’t last.” Good things don’t last, bad things last too long. So we are frequently beset with this wanting, this sense of unsatisfactoriness.
The third kind of suffering is the suffering of conditioned experience. In its simplest description, everything that arises also passes away. That which is born will die. Goldstein breaks it down into smaller and larger suffering from conditioned experience. Taking care of ourselves, maintenance of our bodies and our lifestyles is one level of suffering. We shower, brush our teeth, launder our clothes, shop for food, prepare meals, take out the trash, clean and straighten our homes, pull weeds and mow the lawn, go to work, exercise.... And before we know it, we have to do it all again. If we don’t continually breathe air, drink water, and eat, our bodies will stop functioning. The deterioration of body is constant causing us to have to wash, use the bathroom, change our clothes, and wash again. And eventually no matter how well we take care of our bodies, these bodies will sicken and die. That is the hard truth of suffering. Our bodies are not permanent. They grow, grow old, can be injured, can become sick, and eventually die. As Goldstein quotes the Satipatthana Sutta, (The Four Foundations of Mindfulness), “‘Here one knows as it really is - this is dukkha.’"
This realization - taken into our bodies, our minds, our hearts as it really is - is, as Goldstein says, “the gateway” to awakening, to freedom from suffering. It is also the gateway to compassion. “Compassion is that feeling in the heart that wants to help others and ourselves be free of suffering. It’s the feeling described by the Japanese Zen master and poet Ryokan, ‘O that my monk's robes / were wide enough / to gather up all the people / in this floating world.’ The first noble truth leads us to the practice of compassion, because it is the practice of letting things in, letting people in, letting all part of ourselves in.” (Goldstein, p. 297)
As Goldstein concludes, the profound importance of the first noble truth to awakening is contained in the words of the Buddha the night he was enlightened, “’This noble truth of dukkha has been fully understood:' thus, monks, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.’” (Ibid, 297)