The Four Noble Truths

After he gained enlightenment, Shakyamuni Buddha began to preach the Dharma. This is called the setting in motion of the Dharma wheel. He was thirty years old.

First, he taught the four noble truths. Namely:

The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; meeting a hated one is suffering; being separated from a loved one is suffering; not being able to satisfy one's desires is suffering. In short, a life that cannot free itself from attachments is suffering. This is the Noble Truth of Suffering.

If we look for the causes of these human sufferings, we cannot doubt that they are due to the passions that beset the human heart. If we go back to the origin of these passions, we find it rooted in all the intense desires with which we come into the world. These desires, based on an imperious need to live, seek to seize everything we see and hear. There are even desires that turn to death. This is the Noble Truth about the Origin of Suffering.

If man succeeds in completely uprooting his passions and getting rid of all his attachments, he will end his suffering. This is the Noble Truth of the Suppression of Suffering.

To enter the state where there is no desire and no suffering, one must follow the path of eight branches, namely: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Life, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. These are the so-called Noble Truths on the Path to the Removal of Suffering.

These truths must be kept clearly in mind, for the world is full of suffering and if one wishes to escape from suffering, he must untie the bonds of the passions. Only through enlightenment can one obtain a state free from passions and suffering. And only by following the eightfold path can one attain enlightenment.

Those who seek enlightenment must know these Four Noble Truths. If one does not know them, one wanders endlessly in the maze of worldly illusions. When a man understands these Four Noble Truths, he is said to have acquired the eye of enlightenment.

If one understands these Four Noble Truths clearly, one can free oneself from one's passions; and if one frees oneself from passions, one does not quarrel with anyone, one does not kill, one does not steal, one does not commit adultery, one does not lie, one does not slander, one does not flatter, one does not envy, one does not get angry, and, without ever forgetting the transient nature of life, one does not deviate from the right path.

Following the Noble Path is like entering a dark room with a torch. The darkness vanishes and light fills the room. If one understands the meaning of the Noble Truths and follows the Noble Path, one possesses the light of Wisdom that drives away the darkness of ignorance.

Causality

There is a cause for all suffering and there is also a way to end it. And why? Because everything in this world is the result of a vast combination of causes and conditions, and everything disappears when these causes and conditions change.

Whether it rains, the wind blows, a plant blooms, leaves fall, everything has a cause to be born and another cause to perish.

A child is born under certain conditions created by the parents; when it is born, its body grows through food and its mind develops through education and experience.

Both the body and the mind depend on causes and they evolve through causes.

The meshes of a net are held together by the knots that bind them. In the same way, everything is held together by ties. It would be a serious mistake to think that a mesh in the net can stand on its own. A mesh is a mesh because of the other meshes. Each mesh is necessary for the existence of the other meshes.

A flower blooms by the concurrence of several causes and the leaves also fall by the concurrence of several causes. Without these causes, the flower does not bloom and the leaf does not fall. The flower blossoms because of certain causes and the leaf falls because of certain other causes. Everything must undergo changes. Nothing can exist by itself and nothing can remain unchanged.

This is the only thing that does not move between heaven and earth, the only thing that is unchanging: everything is born with one cause and perishes with another cause.

The chain of causes

Where is the source of suffering, sorrow, pain and anguish? In the fact that we are ignorant and full of desires. One clings to a life of wealth and honor, to a life of well-being and pleasure, to a life of restlessness and selfishness, without knowing that the very desire for these things is a source of suffering.

From the beginning of the world, man has been afflicted with all kinds of calamities. Moreover, he cannot avoid sickness, old age and death, three things which are the cause of sorrow and pain.

However, if we reflect, we see that it is because of attachments that sadness and pain exist. If we could only put an end to these attachments, sadness and pain would disappear.

The cause of these attachments is ignorance and all the false conceptions that fill man's heart. This ignorance and misconceptions come from the fact that man is ignorant of the true law governing the succession of things. Because of this ignorance and misconceptions, one covets what one cannot obtain, and clings to it and clings to it. To discriminate where there should be no discrimination comes from ignorance and covetousness. Making a distinction between good and evil where there is none comes from ignorance and covetousness.

Because of ignorance, beings always have wrong thoughts and they always lose the right way of seeing. Because of ignorance, they become attached to themselves and commit evil. They then get lost on wrong paths.

Here is a comparison: the field of actions (Karma) is a field; the discriminating thought (the dualistic view) is the seed; it is covered with ignorance; it is watered with evil desires and egoism; the fertilizer of covetousness is added: this is how error is born.

All this happens in the mind. Therefore, it is the mind that is the cause of this world of illusions, sufferings, sorrows, pain and anguish. This whole illusory world is only a shadow caused by the mind, but it is also from the mind that enlightenment comes.

There are three errors in this world; if one clings to these errors, there is no way out in this world.

The first mistake is to believe that everything in the world is governed by Fate. The second mistake is to think that everything is created by a god and depends on his will. The third error is to assert that everything comes from chance without any cause or condition.

If everything depended on Fate, good and evil would be predestined, happiness and misfortune would be predestined and there would be nothing that is not predestined. In that case, it would be impossible to say, "You must do this and not do that." Beings would lose hope and the taste for effort; there would be no progress or advancement in this world.

To say that everything is under the dependence of a god or that there is no cause or connection meets with the same objection. If things were so, there would be no reason to do anything to avoid evil and do good.

So these three ways of seeing are false, because everything is born of a cause and everything perishes by a cause.

For 50 years the Buddha went around the country preaching. But when he reached 80 years of age, while in Vaisali, on the road from Rajagriha to Śravasti, he fell ill and announced that three months later he would attain Nirvana. He traveled again to Pava, where he was stricken even more severely with illness as a result of a meal offered by the blacksmith Cunda. Then, in small steps, despite his great suffering and weakness, he reached the forest near Kusinagara.

There, lying down between two large Sala trees, he continued to teach his disciples until the last moment. Then, when he had finished his work as the greatest of humanity's spiritual teachers and as the most lovable of men, he entered Perfect Tranquility.

Under the leadership of Ananda, his dearest disciple, the Buddha's friends burned his body at Kusinagara. King Ajataśatru and seven neighboring kings requested that the ashes be shared with them. At first, the king of Kusinagara refused this idea and this led to a quarrel that almost ended in war. However, on the advice of a wise man named Drona, the quarrel was resolved and the ashes were shared among the eight kingdoms. The ashes of the funeral pyre and the earthen vessel that had contained the body were given to two other kings to be similarly honored. Thus, great towers commemorating the Buddha, the Stupas, were built to contain the ashes and remains of the Blessed One.

During the fifty years that he taught, he never wrote anything. It was his disciples who, after his death, gathered to compile all his teachings in the form of sutras and commandments.

Compilation of sutras - Formation and translation of Buddhist scriptures

A sutra is a book that describes the teachings of the Buddha. Sutra is a Sanskrit word that means "thread". It is the thread that ties together and refers to simple rules. The sutras were not written by the Buddha himself, but were created by his disciples after his death, collecting and revising the teachings they had heard.

In addition to the "Sutras", which represent the Buddhist canon, there are the "Commandments". These constitute the set of rules and commandments to be followed by those who live according to the teachings of the Buddha. Later on the content of the Sutras and commandments was examined and books of commentaries and philosophical thoughts were written. These are called "treatises". The Sutras, commandments and treatises of Buddhism were combined to form the triple basket (sk. Tripitaka, jp. Sanzô - 三蔵). Originally, the word "sutra" referred to the part of the doctrine preached by Shakyamuni Buddha among the three baskets, but in China and Japan, these three baskets were collectively grouped under the term "sutra", the word "sutra" referring from then on, to Buddhism in general.

Compilation of the Buddha Sutras

After the Buddha's death, councils were organized so that the disciples could collect and preserve the teachings in a proper way. This is called the compilation of Buddhist scriptures. The main councils are said to be the following four.

The first council took place in the year of Shakyamuni Buddha's death. Five hundred monks gathered in the south of Rājagṛha in the kingdom of Magadha, under the aegis of King Ajatasatru. Mahakasyapa, the first heir of the Buddha's transmission, presided over this council, at which Upari recited the commandments and Ananda the Dharma, which were classified and put in order.

The second council was held at Vaiśālī, one hundred years after the Buddha's death, where seven hundred monks, led by King Kalaśoka, recited the commandments, the central theme of the council, in order to control the Order. During the recitation, disagreements on the most subtle points of doctrine and practice, came to light. From these disagreements arose a split into two groups: the pro-traditionalist "current of the elders" and the innovation-tolerant "current of the masses". This split is called the "fundamental division of Buddhism". The period before this schism is called "primitive Buddhism", while the period after it is called "Buddhism of the currents", which gave birth to the Hinayana current (the Small vehicle) and the Mahayana current (the Great vehicle).

The third council, led by Maudgaliputra Tiśya took place about 200 years after the Buddha's death and drew a thousand people to Keionji Temple in the city of Pāṭaliputta, under the tutelage of King Asoka. This council is said to have completed the three baskets of sutras, commandments, and treatises in an effort to correct the confusion within Buddhist doctrine.

The fourth council took place about 400 years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, under the tutelage of King Kanishka. It is said that five hundred monks met to edit a compilation of the Abhidharma mahavibhasha (Major Text of Alternatives).

Introduction of Buddhism in China

In the first century CE, the emperor Mingdi saw a golden man with a haloed head in a dream. An advisor told him that this was a description of a western god named Buddha, so Mingdi sent emissaries to Tianzhu (天竺, Tiānzhú, northwestern India) to bring back effigies.

The advisor would be designated as Zhong Hu, and the delegation, consisting of 18 people, would have been led by Cai Yin, Qin Jing and Wang Zun. According to some sources, they were the ones who, in 67, brought back from Afghanistan the two monks Kasyapamatanga and Dharmavanya with effigies and forty-two Buddhist quotations constituting the Sūtra in forty-two sections (《四十二章經》).

In 68, the Mingdi emperor patronized the founding of the White Horse Temple (白馬寺, Báimǎsì), the first Buddhist temple in China, which Yang Xuanzhi (6th century) locates south of Luoyang Imperial Avenue, three lilies from Xiyang Gate. Legend has it that the sutras were carried by a white horse, and that the location of the temple was chosen by the animal which stopped short of the capital, refusing to go any further.

From then on and for several centuries, the sutras were introduced into China. The problem that arose was translation. Translating unknown concepts written in a foreign language is not easy. For example, at first the Chinese equated emptiness, the central concept of Buddhism, with the nihilism of Lao-tzu. Many monk-translators set to work, but the one whose imprint remains unchallenged is Tripitaka Kumarajiva (350-409). During the last fifteen years of his life, he directed the translation into Chinese of at least twenty-four works which had a considerable influence on Chinese Buddhism. His translations, written in a fluent and clear language, imbued with the thought of the perfection of wisdom and the Middle Way, are still authoritative. He is considered the founder of the Three Treatises school (jp. Sanron shû, cn. Sānlùnzōng 三論宗).

However, despite the excellence of the translations, Chinese understanding was not up to par. At the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589) there were ten different types of Buddhist teachings, three south of the Yangtze River and seven in the north.

It was not until the 6th century that Zhiyi, the great Tendai master, appeared and established a clear and unequivocal classification of all the Buddha's teachings.

He established a classification according to three criteria.

1. Chronology, stating the order in which Shakyamuni gave his teachings

2. The content of the teachings, comparable to the composition of a medicine

3. The method of teaching, comparable to the dosage of medicine.

Zhiyi thus determined five periods of teachings, four doctrinal contents and four teaching methods.