..续本文上一页these five friends or disciples left the Buddha - which gave him the chance to sit under the Bodhi tree and be enlightened.
Then, when they met the Buddha again in the Deer Park in Varanasi, the five thought at first,
We know what he
s like. Let
s just not bother about him.
But as he came near, they all felt that there was something special about him. They stood up to make a place for him to sit down and he delivered his sermon on the Four Noble Truths.
This time, instead of saying
I am the enlightened one
, he said:
There is suffering. There is the origin of suffering. There is the cessation of suffering. There is the path out of suffering.
Presented in this way, his teaching requires no acceptance or denial. If he had said
I am the all-enlightened one
, we would be forced to either agree or disagree — or just be bewildered. We wouldn
t quite know how to look at that statement. However, by saying:
There is suffering, there is a cause, there is an end to suffering, and there is a way out of suffering
, he offered something for reflection:
What do you mean by this
What do you mean by suffering, its origin, cessation and the path
So we start contemplating it, thinking about it. With the statement:
I am the all-enlightened one
, we might just argue about it.
Is he really enlightened
....
I don
t think so.
We would just argue; we are not ready for a teaching that is so direct. Obviously, the Buddha
s first sermon was to somebody who still had a lot of dust in his eyes and it failed. So on the second occasion, he gave the teaching of the Four Noble Truths.
Now the Four Noble Truths are: there is suffering; there is a cause or origin of suffering; there is a end of suffering; and there is path out of suffering which is the Eightfold Path. Each of these Truths has three aspects so all together there are twelve insights. In the Theravada school, an arahant, a perfected one, is one who has seen clearly the Four Noble Truths with their three aspects and twelve insights.
Arahant
means a human being who understands the truth; it is applied mainly to the teaching of the Four Noble Truths.
For the First Noble Truth,
There is suffering
is the first insight. What is that insight
We don
t need to make it into anything grand; it is just the recognition:
There is suffering
. That is a basic insight. The ignorant person says,
I
m suffering. I don
t want to suffer. I meditate and I go on retreats to get out of suffering, but I
m still suffering and I don
t want to suffer.... How can I get out of suffering
What can I do to get rid of it
But that is not the First Noble Truth; it is not:
I am suffering and I want to end it.
The insight is,
There is suffering
.
Now you are looking at the pain or the anguish you feel - not from the perspective of
It
s mine
but as a reflection:
There is this suffering, this dukkha
. It is coming from the reflective position of
Buddha seeing the Dhamma.
The insight is simply the acknowledgment that there is this suffering without making it personal. That acknowledgment is an important insight; just looking at mental anguish or physical pain and seeing it as dukkha rather than as personal misery — just seeing it as dukkha and not reacting to it in a habitual way.
The second insight of the First Noble Truth is:
Suffering should be understood.
The second insight or aspect of each of the Noble Truths has the word
should
in it:
It should be understood.
The second insight then, is that dukkha is something to understand. One should understand dukkha, not just try to get rid of it.
We can look at the word
understanding
as
standing under
. It is a common enough word but, in Pali,
understanding
means to really accept the suffering, stand under or embrace it rather than just react to i…
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