Unit 6 · Key Teachings

In his first sermon, the Buddha taught four truths. Buddhists call them the Four Noble Truths. The first is about dukkha. Dukkha is a Pali word. It is often translated as suffering.

Dukkha covers more than pain. It includes sickness, old age and loss. It includes not getting what you want. It includes the feeling that nothing lasts. Some translators use words like stress or unsatisfactoriness.

The first sermon lists many kinds of dukkha. Birth, aging, sickness and death are among them. Buddhists say naming the problem clearly is the first step, just as a doctor names an illness.

The second noble truth names the cause of dukkha. The Pali word is tanha. It means thirst or craving. Buddhists say it is the grasping wish for things to be different than they are.

The first sermon names three kinds of craving. There is craving for pleasures. There is craving to be or become something. There is craving to get rid of things.

Buddhists say craving is like a thirst that is never satisfied. When one want is met, a new one appears. The second truth, like a doctor’s test, finds the cause.

The third noble truth says dukkha can end. When craving stops, Buddhists teach, dukkha stops too. This ending is called nirvana (Pali: nibbana). The word means blowing out, like a flame.

Buddhists describe nirvana as peace and freedom. They say it is hard to put into words. Different schools explain it in different ways. Some describe it as the highest happiness.

The fourth noble truth names the way to get there. It is the Noble Eightfold Path. In the doctor picture, the third truth says "there is a cure." The fourth is the treatment plan.

The Eightfold Path has eight parts. Each begins with the word right, or wise. They are right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

Buddhist teachers often sort them into three groups. Wisdom includes right view and right intention. Ethics includes right speech, action and livelihood. Meditation includes right effort, mindfulness and concentration.

Buddhists say the parts work together, not one at a time. They compare them to strands of a rope. Each part makes the others stronger. No single part is the whole path.

Right speech, the suttas say, means not lying, not speaking harshly, not gossiping to divide people and not chatting idly. Buddhists try to speak truthfully and kindly.

Right action means not killing, not stealing and not causing harm through sexual wrongdoing. Right livelihood means earning a living in a way that does not harm others.

Buddhist teachers say these parts shape everyday life. A Buddhist shopkeeper, nurse or student can practice them at work or school, not only in a temple.

The last group is about training the mind. Right effort means working to grow good states of mind and let go of harmful ones. Buddhists describe it as steady, not strained.

Right mindfulness (sati in Pali) means paying clear attention to what is happening now. The Satipatthana Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 10, describes paying attention to the body, feelings, mind and teachings.

Right concentration means a calm, focused mind. The suttas describe deep states of meditation. In school we learn what Buddhists say about these practices. We describe them; we do not practice them in class.

The Dharma wheel (dharmachakra) is one of the oldest Buddhist symbols. It often has eight spokes. Buddhists say the spokes stand for the eight parts of the path.

The wheel also recalls the first sermon, "Setting the Wheel of the Dharma in Motion." A wheel rolls forward, like a teaching that spreads. Early Buddhist art often showed a wheel instead of a human figure of the Buddha.

Ashoka’s pillars carried wheels. India’s national flag today shows a wheel, the Ashoka Chakra, with 24 spokes. Buddhist temples around the world use the eight-spoked wheel.

Karma (Pali: kamma) means action. Buddhists use it for intentional actions of body, speech and mind. A sutta has the Buddha say that intention itself is karma.

Buddhists teach that good actions tend to bring good results and harmful actions tend to bring harm. They compare it to seeds. What you plant grows later.

Buddhists do not usually describe karma as a judge handing out rewards. They describe it more like a natural pattern. Teachers from different schools explain it in different ways.

Most Buddhist traditions teach rebirth. They say beings are born again and again. This cycle of births is called samsara, "wandering on." The Jatakas and many sutras refer to it.

Buddhists say karma shapes what kind of rebirth a being has. The Jatakas show this idea. They tell of the Buddha’s many earlier lives as animals and people.

Buddhists say nirvana ends the cycle. Some modern Buddhists, especially in the West, read rebirth in other ways, such as moment to moment. Views differ, and many Buddhists hold the traditional teaching.

Buddhist laypeople, people who are not monks or nuns, often take five precepts. A precept is a training rule. Buddhists usually say it as a promise: "I undertake the training rule to..."

The five are: not harming living beings, not taking what is not given, not misusing sex, not lying, and not taking drinks or drugs that cloud the mind. For children, the third is often explained as keeping faith and promises within families.

Buddhists recite the precepts at temples, often in Pali. They are the same in Theravada and Mahayana lands. Buddhists describe them as training, not commandments from a god.

The first precept is not harming living beings. Many Buddhists take this to mean animals and insects too. Some are vegetarian. Others are not, and traditions differ on food.

The second precept is not taking what is not given. It is wider than not stealing. It means not using or borrowing things without permission. Asking first is part of keeping it.

Buddhists often pair each precept with a good habit. With not harming goes kindness. With not taking goes generosity, or giving freely. Teachers say the good habit helps the promise grow.

The fourth precept is not lying. It connects to right speech on the Eightfold Path. Buddhists try to speak truthfully and kindly. Buddhists say kind truth builds trust.

The fifth precept is not taking drinks or drugs that cloud the mind. Buddhists explain it this way: a clouded mind makes it easier to break the other four.

Teachers say the five precepts protect others and the person who keeps them. When people keep promises, trust grows. Buddhists say a whole community becomes calmer.

The Dhammapada is in the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Pali Canon. Its 423 verses are grouped into 26 chapters. Chapters have titles like "Pairs," "The Mind," "Flowers" and "The Wise."

Buddhists memorize and chant its verses. Monks quote them in talks. Parents teach them to children. There are also early versions in other old Indian languages, and one in Chinese.

A later commentary tells a story for each verse. It says who the Buddha was speaking to and why. Kisa Gotami’s story is told there. Teachers still retell these stories.

The Dhammapada opens with a pair of verses. Verse 1 says that when a person speaks or acts with a harmful mind, suffering follows. It compares this to a cart wheel following the ox that pulls it.

Verse 2 is its partner. It says that when a person acts with a pure mind, happiness follows, like a shadow that never leaves. Chapter 1 is called "Pairs" because its verses come in twos like this.

Buddhists read these verses as saying the mind comes first. Thoughts lead to words and deeds. Teachers link the verses to karma: actions made with intention bring results.

Dhammapada 5 is one of the most quoted Buddhist verses. It says hatred is never ended by more hatred. It is ended by its opposite. The verse calls this an old, lasting rule.

The commentary tells a story behind it. Two women kept harming each other’s children through many lives. The Buddha taught them this verse so the cycle of revenge could stop.

Translators choose different words for what ends hatred. F. Max Muller wrote "love." Other translators use "non-hatred," "friendliness" or "kindness." The Pali word is avera, meaning without hatred or enmity.

In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, many children learn Dhammapada verses in Sunday or Dhamma school. They memorize them in Pali and in their own language. Teachers help them say each line.

Adults quote them too. A verse can be written on a temple wall, printed on a calendar or spoken at a funeral. Buddhists say short verses are easy to carry in the mind.

Scholars note that the Dhammapada shares sayings with other old texts. Some verses are close to ones in Hindu and Jain books from the same time and region.

Chapter 4 of the Dhammapada is called "Flowers." Its verses use flower pictures. One verse compares a wise person in a village to a bee that takes nectar without hurting the flower.

Buddhists read this as a picture of monks who go for alms. They receive food from families, the teachers say, without being a burden, like a bee on a blossom.

The lotus also appears in Buddhist writing and art. It grows from mud but blooms clean above the water. Buddhists often use it as a sign of a pure mind rising from a hard world.