The Four Noble Truths and the Three Seals | Setting in Motion the Dharma Wheel

The three Dharma seals affirm that all conditioned things are impermanent, all suffering is caused by fundamental ignorance, and all dharmas are without self .Let’s relate these ideas to understanding suffering, severing the causes of suffering, attaining cessation, and cultivating the path. Realizing the first noble truth of suffering and the second noble of the origin of suffering depends on realizing impermanence and selflessness. The realization consists in separating from suffering, and cutting off its origins. The third and fourth noble truths tell us that to reach extinction-quiescence we must engage the path. To engage in the path is to govern oneself on the principles of impermanence and selflessness. With these principles in mind we can separate from suffering; we can sever its very origins. When we truly understand that suffering is impermanent and does not truly exist, when we truly realize that suffering is fundamentally empty, we are headed in the direction of cessation.

This concludes our presentation of the Four Noble Truths. Thank you for coming.(Applause)

The path of the arhat and the path of the bodhisattva are often distinguished, the former being the path of individual liberation, the latter being the path of deferring enlightenment until all sentient beings are delivered.

Four fruition levels of arhat: (1) ‘stream-enterer,’ one who has eradicated wrong views, but is not entirely free of the defilements of desire, hatred, and delusion, (2) ‘once-returner,’ one in whom the defilements are only slightly present, and who will return only once more; (3) ‘non-returner,’ who is free from the five fetters of ego, doubt, ritual, sensuality and envy and will not be reborn, (4) ‘arhat,’ one who has attained the state of no more learning, has extinguished all defilements, and is free from the fetters of existence.

Anguttara-nikaya (Graduated Collection), from the sutra section of the tripitika.

Samadhi: state of deep meditative absorption in which the individual experiences extreme single-mindedness, and suspension of the sense of time. Buddhism describes many types and levels of samadhi.

See Chapter One, endnote 11.

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