The Third and Fourth Noble Truths of the Buddha

The content of both the first and the second Noble Truth resembles the work of a realist painter: in his account of reality, the Buddha aims to capture a credible and reliable version of the facts, free of distortions—setting aside the fact that every transmission is an adulteration. While the second Noble Truth is merely descriptive in character, it is the third and fourth aspects of the teaching that will take on a prescriptive connotation.

Thus, the third Noble Truth affirms the possibility of extinguishing suffering, which means uprooting its cause: ignorance. And, as Bhikkhu Bodhi explains, if ignorance is a state in which “things are not known as they are, what is needed is a knowledge of things as they really are”. This knowledge, however, is not conceptual but perceptual: a knowing that also involves seeing or apprehending. A knowing that is, in fact, wisdom (pañña). Let us now look at what kind of wisdom we are talking about and what steps must be followed to attain it:

As indubitable knowledge of the ultimate nature of things, wisdom cannot be obtained through mere learning, by gathering and accumulating a battery of facts. On the contrary, says the Buddha, wisdom can be cultivated. It arises through a set of conditions, conditions that we have the power to develop. These conditions are in fact mental factors, components of consciousness, which come together in a systematic structure that can be called a path in the essential sense of the word: a route for movement that leads to a goal. The goal here is the end of suffering, and the path that leads to it is the Noble Eightfold Path with its eight factors: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

The Noble Eightfold Path

In the fourth Noble Truth the Buddha sets out the path to follow in order to eliminate suffering and uproot ignorance. Ignorance, far from being a complex and dense factor, is in fact summed up in Trungpa's idea that “we never want simply to be where we are, nor simply to be what we are”. Hence in Buddhism awakening is described as a realising: whoever pulls out the root realises that there was never a root to pull out... but let us not get ahead of ourselves yet.

As Bhikkhu Bodhi rightly notes, the Buddha's proposal claims to be able to free beings from suffering through a practice, a path to end dissatisfaction. The path in question, which is in fact one of the backbones of the Buddhist teaching, is the Noble Eightfold Path (ariya atthangika magga). In the words of the Theravada monk: “it was the discovery of the path that gave the Buddha's own enlightenment a universal significance and raised it from the status of a wise and benevolent teacher to that of a universal teacher”.

According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, the Buddhist teaching can be summed up in two great principles: the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the first being the aspect that covers the doctrine and that calls for understanding as its response, and the second being the element that covers the discipline and that has practice as its response: “These two principles form an indivisible unity called dhamma-vinaya, the doctrine-and-discipline, or, in short, the Dharma”. In fact, the first three Noble Truths include the fourth, and the fourth includes the other three, since right view (the first aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path) is the acceptance of the four Noble Truths. And, according to the Theravada monk, between the two proposals the superior one is that of the Noble Eightfold Path, since it embodies the teachings: “the Dharma (...) passes from being a collection of abstract formulas to a revelation that continually unfolds in truth”.

As we said earlier, the path of eight divisions is set out in the following order: 1) right view; 2) right intention; 3) right speech; 4) right discipline; 5) right livelihood; 6) right effort; 7) right mindfulness; 8) right samadhi. The exposition itself already poses a problem because, although the factors are explained in this order, the eight factors cannot be followed sequentially at the same time. Ideally the eight elements arise simultaneously. However, as Bhikkhu Bodhi points out, for this one must follow a progression (Bhikkhu Bodhi 1999: 12). Bhikkhu Bodhi takes up Buddhaghosa's classification of the eight steps into three groups (Buswell 2003: 296):

Moral discipline (silakkhandha), made up of “right speech, right action, right livelihood”; meditative concentration (samadhikkhandha), made up of right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration/meditative absorption; and the group of wisdom (paññakkhandha), made up of right view and right intention. These three groups represent three stages of training: training in higher moral discipline, training in higher consciousness and training in higher wisdom.

We can also consider Maitreya's explanation in Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes (Madhyantavibhanga), in which the classification is made into four branches for the training of the aryas: “the branch that completely cuts (tib. yong- su gcod-pa'i yan-lag); the branch that brings understanding (go-bar byed-pa'i yan-lag); the branches that generate confidence in others (gzhan yid-ches-par byed-pa'i yan-lag) and the branches that serve as antidotes (gnyen-po'i yan-lag)”.

This post is the continuation of an article that forms part of a series of instalments of some of the final coursework of students on the Meditation course at Casa Virupa.

Bibliography:

BERZIN, ALEXANDER (n.d.). “The Eightfold Noble Path”. Study Buddhism. Available online: https://studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/lam-rim/the- five-paths/the-eightfold-noble-path

Bhikkhu Bodhi (1999) The Noble Eightfold Path. The way to the end of suffering. Buddhist Publication Society. Available online: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/noble8path6.pdf

CANTO-SPERBER, M. (coord) ET AL (2001). Dicctionaire d’éthique et de philosophie morale. PUF: Paris.

COOMARASWAMY, A (1989). Buddha y el evangelio del budismo. Editorial Paidós: Barcelona.

TRUNGPA RINPOCHÉ, CHÖGYAM (2011) El mito de la libertad. Editorial Kairós: Barcelona