The Four Noble Truths is the Buddha’s first discourse on how to actualize the path of awakening. In this study we explore the transforming power of acknowledging and clarifying the experience of unsatisfactoriness, the lawful dynamic of how stress comes to be in the mind, the experience of release or the cessation of suffering, and the proper understanding of the path. These teachings are designed to support the arising of insights and more skill and freedom as we live our lives. Understanding directly in our experience how suffering arises and how it ceases is our most important task.
Audio
Study Resources
- Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
- Ajahn Sumedho, “The Four Noble Truths”
- The Dawn of the Dhamma: Illuminations from the Buddha’s First Discourse by Ajahn Sucitto
- Talk 36. Four Noble Truths – The Truth of Dukkha, Notes from Joseph Goldstein’s series of talks on the Satipatthana Sutta taken by Mark Young
- Talk 37. Four Noble Truths – The Origin of Dukkha, Notes from Joseph Goldstein’s series of talks on the Satipatthana Sutta taken by Mark Young
- Talk 38. Four Noble Truths – The Cessation of Dukkha, Notes from Joseph Goldstein’s series of talks on the Satipatthana Sutta taken by Mark Young
- A Secular Buddhism by Stephen Batchelor
- The Four Noble Truths A Study Guide by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
- The Weight of Mountains by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
- Suffering Should Be Welcomed by Ajahn Sumedho (From his book Intuitive Awareness)
- The Far Shore: Want to free yourself from suffering? Make sure to put the four noble truths first. By Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Tricycle
