noble truths

02-27-2004, 11:05 AM

After his enlightenment or awakening (bodi), under the pipal three in
Gaya ca 525 BC, Gautama went to the deer-park in Benares, and
preached his enlightenment through the 4 noble truths:

- Everything is suffering
- The cause of our suffering is our covet and our clinging to transient things
- There exists a Nirvana, the end of suffering
- There exists a way, preached by the Buddha, which leads to Nirvana

Birth is suffering. Degenerattion is suffering. Disease is suffering.
Death is suffering. The same applies to sorrow and want..
To be bound to things we dislike and to be separated from things we
like, that is also suffering. To not attain what one not desires, that
is also suffering. In short, this body, this five-fold congregation
based on climbing, that is suffering.

(Samyutta Nikaya, 421)