..续本文上一页t. With any form of suffering — physical or mental - we usually just react, but with understanding we can really look at suffering; really accept it, really hold it and embrace it. So that is the second aspect,

　　We should understand suffering

　　.

　　The third aspect of the First Noble Truth is:

　　Suffering has been understood.

　　 When you have actually practised with suffering - looking at it, accepting it, knowing it and letting it be the way it is — then there is the third aspect,

　　Suffering has been understood

　　, or

　　Dukkha has been understood.

　　 So these are the three aspects of the First Noble Truth:

　　There is dukkha

　　;

　　It is to be understood

　　; and,

　　It has been understood.

　　This is the pattern for the three aspects of each Noble Truth. There is the statement, then the prescription and then the result of having practised. One can also see it in terms of the Pali words pariyatti, patipatti and pativedha. Pariyatti is the theory or the statement,

　　There is suffering.

　　 Patipatti is the practice - actually practising with it; and pativedha is the result of the practice. This is what we call a reflective pattern; you are actually developing your mind in a very reflective way. A Buddha mind is a reflective mind that knows things as they are.

　　We use these Four Noble Truths for our development. We apply them to ordinary things in our lives, to ordinary attachments and obsessions of the mind. With these truths, we can investigate our attachments in order to have the insights. Through the Third Noble Truth, we can realise cessation, the end of suffering, and practise the Eightfold Path until there is understanding. When the Eightfold Path has been fully developed, one is an arahant, one has made it. Even though this sounds complicated - four truths, three aspects, twelve insights - it is quite simple. It is a tool for us to use to help us understand suffering and non-suffering.

　　Within the Buddhist world, there are not many Buddhists who use the Four Noble Truths anymore, even in Thailand. People say,

　　Oh yes, the Four Noble Truths - beginner

　　s stuff.

　　 Then they might use all kinds of vipassana techniques and become really obsessed with the sixteen stages before they get to the Noble Truths. I find it quite boggling that in the Buddhist world the really profound teaching has been dismissed as primitive Buddhism:

　　That

　　s for the little kids, the beginners. The advanced course is....

　　 They go into complicated theories and ideas - forgetting the most profound teaching.

　　The Four Noble Truths are a lifetime

　　s reflection. It is not just a matter of realising the Four Noble Truths, the three aspects, and twelve stages and becoming an arahant on one retreat — and then going onto something advanced. The Four Noble Truths are not easy like that. They require an ongoing attitude of vigilance and they provide the context for a lifetime of examination.

《The Four Noble Truths - Contents》全文阅读结束。