FromChapter 1: Fundamentals
The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path

In this book we shall look at various aspects of the Buddhist tradition, and in particular at how Buddhism developed as a philosophy. This is so that we can get a comprehensive idea of Buddhism as a whole, because the type of Buddhism practiced by Tibetans is not based on one particular school of Buddhism as such; rather, it tries to incorporate a variety of practices and philosophical thought from many different traditions. This is known as the "three yanas" perspective on Buddhism. Yana (Sanskrit) is the spiritual "vehicle" that transports the individual from the samsaric condition to the freedom of nirvana.

So even though Tibetan Buddhists may emphasize certain aspects of Mahayana teachings, this does not mean that they do not practice any aspect of the Theravadin tradition as we find it in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Some people feel that Tibetan Buddhism has no link or association with the Buddhism that is practiced in those countries. But Tibetan Buddhism contains elements of teachings as we find them in all parts of the world—for example, we can even find elements of the Zen tradition in Tibetan Buddhism.

The Buddha's Awakening

Buddhism was founded by the Buddha about twenty-five hundred years ago. What we know about the Buddha is that he claimed to have seen the reality of things and to have gained enormous insight into the nature of the human condition. He did not claim to be an incarnation of some higher being nor to be a messenger of any kind. Neither did he say that he was an intermediary between some higher reality and human beings. He said that he was an ordinary human being who applied himself through the practice of meditation and was able to purify his own mind, so that insight was born in him, enabling him to see things as they are. And Buddha also said that this ability can be developed by anyone.

At the time of the Buddha, some people were claiming that only those of a certain social standing who were sanctioned by a divine being had the ability to aspire toward higher religious goals, while other, "lesser" beings did not have that ability. Others were saying that men had the ability to develop themselves spiritually but women lacked that capacity. The Buddha said that this ability to develop in a religious sense has nothing to do with our social or cultural background, our religious background, or even our sex, but is available to everyone who spends the time and makes the effort to develop the insight. For this reason Buddha is known as the Enlightened One, because to gain this insight into the nature of things is to become enlightened, and that is the same as Buddhahood. The word buddha literally means "awakened."

As ordinary human beings we are not fully awake, because our thoughts and behavior are conditioned by ignorance, confusion, misunderstanding, and lack of insight. When the mind is purified of all these defilements or pollutants (also referred to as "obscurations") and the consciousness becomes pure and aware, then one is able to realize the nature of things; and this is the same as the attainment of Buddhahood.

We must remember that the Buddha gave these teachings within the context of the Indian tradition. He rejected two major Indian traditions. One is the teachings that came from the Upanishads, which emphasized the importance of realizing the nature of one's own self as being identical with the reality of the world. The essence of the world is perceived as Brahman, the Absolute, and this is identical with the pure nature of one's own self, which is Atman. Thus, the aim of a religious practitioner is to realize the identity of one's own higher self and the reality of the world. The Buddha rejected that as being an extreme position, which he called the eternalist or absolutist position.

He also rejected another extreme position, which was materialist-based. Believers in this extreme, called Ajivikas or Lokayatas, rejected the existence of consciousness and moral responsibility because they believed that we are made up of five elements that dissolve at the time of death, leaving nothing. There is no consciousness that persists after death, and because there is no consciousness we cannot talk of morality or anything of this nature, since these are just social conventions. The Buddha called these people nihilists.

He said that the followers of the Upanishads, the absolutists, overestimated reality, positing the existence of many kinds of things that in fact have no existence. The Buddha said that there is no essence or reality to be found either in the world or in the nature of the self; these are metaphysical constructions, fictions created by the human mind but not available to human experience.

At the same time, the nihilists underestimated reality by rejecting the existence of consciousness and so on. So the Buddha taught what he called the middle view. In terms of practice it is known as the Middle Way. The Buddha realized that many people either were very lax in their morality, overindulging in sense gratification, or engaged in extreme ascetic practices like self-mortification. According to the Buddha, both of these two methods are inappropriate for realizing the nature of reality. He himself engaged in ascetic practices for some time but found them wanting. However, he emphasized the importance of restraint and moderation, not falling into the extreme of overindulgence.

The Four Noble Truths

The Truth of Suffering
This teaching is contained in the Four Noble Truths, in which Buddha emphasized how the middle view is to be cultivated and how to practice the Middle Way. The first of the Four Noble Truths is suffering, which is the usual translation of the Sanskrit word duhkha (Pali, dukkha). We should qualify that translation by saying that this does not mean that the Buddha didn't acknowledge the existence of happiness or contentment in life. The point that he was making is that there is happiness and also sorrow in the world; but the reason why everything we experience in our everyday life is said to be duhkha is that even when we have some kind of happiness, it is not permanent; it is subject to change. So unless we can gain insight into that truth and understand what is really able to give us happiness, and what is unable to provide happiness, the experience of dissatisfaction will persist.

Normally we think our happiness is contingent upon external circumstances and situations, rather than upon our own inner attitude toward things, or toward life in general. The Buddha was saying that dissatisfaction is part of life, even if we are seeking happiness and even if we manage to find temporary happiness. The very fact that it is temporary means that sooner or later the happiness is going to pass. So the Buddha said that unless we understand this and see how pervasive dissatisfaction or duhkha is, it is impossible for us to start looking for real happiness.

According to the Buddha, even when we think we are trying to find real happiness, we are not doing it effectively, because we don't have the right attitude and we don't know where to look for it. The Buddha was not against happiness; rather, he gave us a method of finding out how to overcome that sense of dissatisfaction, and this method is part of the last Noble Truth. We shall come to that in a few pages.

The key to understanding the truth of suffering is what the Buddha called the "three marks" of everything that exists. All conditioned phenomena, he said, are pervaded by these three marks: impermanence (anitya), dissatisfaction or suffering (duhkha), and insubstantiality (anatman, "without self"). According to the Buddha, if we do not understand how conditioned phenomena are marked by these three aspects, then we will not be able to understand the first Noble Truth. We may do all we can in order to avoid facing the fact that everything is contingent and transient—we may try to hide ourselves from it, and we may even spin out all kinds of metaphysical theories of an unchanging, permanent, substantial reality to avoid this all-pervasive nature of ephemerality. Also, if we do not understand that conditioned phenomena are unsatisfactory, we will not think about restraining ourselves from overindulgence in sensory gratifications, which makes us lose our center and become immersed in worldly concerns, so that our life is governed by greed, craving, and attachment. All of these things disturb the mind. If we do not understand that everything is insubstantial—anatman—then we may believe that there is some kind of enduring essence or substance in things, or in the personality, and because of this belief we generate delusion and confusion in the mind.

The Origin of Suffering
The second Noble Truth is the origin of suffering, which means that once we have realized that suffering or dissatisfaction exist, we next have to find out where that suffering comes from: does it originate within, or does it come from some kind of external situation or condition? The Buddhasaid that when we start to examine ourselves and see how we respond to situations, how we act in the world, how we feel about things, then we will realize that the cause of suffering is within. This is not to say that external social or economic conditions don't create suffering; but the main suffering that afflicts us is created by our own mind and attitude.

The Buddha said that if we want to overcome dissatisfaction, which is intimately linked with our experience of suffering, then we have to deal with craving, grasping, clinging, and attachment—all these exaggerated forms of desire. Now, some people think that Buddhists encourage the idea of eradicating desire altogether, but that is not what the Buddha said. He said that we should try to overcome excessive and exaggerated forms of desire, which manifest as craving, grasping, and so on, because they make our condition worse by increasing our sense of dissatisfaction and discontentment. It is the more obsessive types of desire that the Buddha said we should try to overcome. As long as we have these strong forms of desire, they will always be accompanied by aversion, hatred, resentment, and so forth, because when we can't get what we want, we become frustrated, angry, and resentful. Or, if we find some obstacles in the way of satisfying our desire, we want to eliminate them, eradicate them, or attack them. We may even resort to violence and deception in order to satisfy our greed and craving. So the Buddha said that we need to deal with these extreme forms of desires; but we should not aim to eradicate desire altogether, because we can use desire in all kinds of positive ways as well. (We will look at that later.)