What is the heart of Buddhist teaching? If you don’t know this you should not call yourselves Buddhist because the Buddha had taught human beings to extinguish suffering and the good way to extinguish suffering is to apply the heart of Buddhist teaching. The heart of Buddhist teaching is The Four Noble Truth. The person who can live without suffering or can get the benefit from Dhamma must know and can apply The Four Noble Truth in daily life. This can help the person knowing and using it very well to solve the problem in living, full with suffering. The best way to learn how to use The Four Noble truth to solve the problem is to learn its detail clearly.
There are many points of the meaning of The Four Noble Truth.
1. It is superb truth. It is the truth that always is the truth because it does not change. There is the taught in the past that life mixes with suffering, passion is cause of suffering, extinction of passion is extinction of suffering and practice according to the main of The Four Noble Truth is the way to extinguish suffering. This taught occurred in the long past and now it is still.
2. It is the truth of Ariyas, having attained sanctification because many Ariyas understand the nature of life very well. They realize suffering and extinction of suffering.
3. It is the truth which can make person be Ariya. Even if person is ordinary when he realizes The Four Noble Truth clearly he certainly can become Ariya who is superb and far from passion.
The Four Noble Truth is divided in four virtues. They are Dukkha, Smudaya or, Nirodha and Magaga.
1. Dukkha or the suffering, it is the first virtue the Buddha taught. It is the condition every one has to experience in this busy world. It is the large problem of all kinds of beings. In Dhammacakkappavattanasutta, the first sermon, the Buddha had delivered suffering in 11 parts. They are the birth, the old, the death, sadness, lamentation, suffering of body, suffering of heart, anger, earning unpleasing things, being separated from pleasing things and not earning desiring things.
To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.
2. Smudaya or the cause of suffering, it actually has many points, e.g. carelessness, sickness, and stupidity but they are just end of cause. The actual cause of suffering is Tanha or passion. Tanha includes Kama Tanha or the need of five sensual desires, Bhava Tanha or the need of being what oneself never be and Vibhava Tanha or the unneed of being what oneself was and don’t satisfy it.
The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.
3. Nirodha or the end of suffering, it is the extinction of suffering and passion. It is like Nippana, real happiness. It is the happiness occurring from calmness. It is extreme target of Ariya.
The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.
