The Four Noble Truths

Sermon at Deer Park

The famed sermon of Deer Park was the beginning of the spreading of many aspects of Buddha's legacy. This sermon was the very first of its kind, and it gave way to Buddha's reveal of the Four Noble Truths to his disciples. The Truths expose the causes of human suffering and provide a cure: the Noble Eightfold Path. 

Those who seek the path must first remove all luxuries and treasures. This is because objects of material significance, including the body, are not to be compared with the perpetual substances of wisdom, virtue, and the soul.

To enjoy true health, happiness, and inner peace, one must first learn discipline and gain control of the mind. This control will lend its user the power to truly know the Four Noble Truths firsthand. These truths are as follows:

Suffering

Suffering is the hardships and frustrations brought about by worldly life and living. It comes from the difficulty in acknowledging that everything contained on this earth is impermanent and transitory. All life is subjected to the following four stages of suffering: birth, sickness, age and the fear of disintegration, and death and the knowledge of its inevitability.

Desire

This means that the cause of suffering is ultimately due to ignorance. Ignorance causes one to make believe that the perceived world is indeed real and constant. The desire to seek fulfillment for the material self through material means at the expense of other life forms causes suffering to not only the self, as all desire leads to eventual emptiness after it has been used up, but to many other individuals as well. From this stems the fundamental Buddhist concepts of Interconnectedness and Compassion. Part of one's duty is to understand another life as an extension of the self, as comrades and fellow beings of the same reality.

Suffering Can Be Ended By Eliminating Desire

So, if the cause of suffering is the ignorance towards the life's impermanence, paired with the desire to live in its material impermanence, then logically, the cure lies in overcoming the limits of ignorance and self-interest altogether. Overcoming desire is possible by substituting personal wants with the Middle Way, or the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path Leads to Enlightenment and Nirvana

The way out of samsara is through the Noble Eightfold Path to Enlightenment:

• Right Understanding leads to Wisdom
• Right Motivation leads to Divine Inclination
• Right Speech leads to Honesty
• Right Behavior leads to Goodwill
• Right Livelihood leads to Sharing
• Right Effort leads to the Nirvana
• Right Mindfulness leads to a Significance in Living
• Right Absorbtion leads to Unity