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Buddhism: Religious Concepts and Religious Life

The Four Noble Truths

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 1

Overview

Four Noble Truths, second noble truth and three turnings of each truth.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

State the Four Noble Truths.

Key term

What is dukkha-dukkha?

Key term

What is vipariṇāma-dukkha?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    State the Four Noble Truths.

    Model answer

    The four truths are dukkha, the arising of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, and the path to that cessation. The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta sets them out.

  2. 2

    What is dukkha-dukkha?

    Model answer

    Dukkha-dukkha is ordinary painful experience: physical pain, illness, grief and fear. The category covers suffering as it is normally understood.

  3. 3

    What is vipariṇāma-dukkha?

    Model answer

    Vipariṇāma-dukkha is the suffering caused by change, felt when a pleasant state ends. Pleasure is unsatisfactory because it cannot be kept.

  4. 4

    What is saṅkhāra-dukkha?

    Model answer

    Saṅkhāra-dukkha is the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence itself. Anything built from conditions is unstable, so it can never be a secure refuge.

  5. 5

    What is the second noble truth?

    Model answer

    The second truth identifies taṇhā, craving or thirst, as the origin of dukkha. Craving for sense pleasure, for existence and for non-existence are the three kinds named.

  6. 6

    Why is craving, rather than desire in general, identified as the cause?

    Model answer

    Buddhism distinguishes wholesome aspiration, such as the wish to practise, from grasping craving. Craving demands that experience be other than it is, which is what produces suffering.

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