Four Noble Truths and I'll briefly introduce The Noble Eightfold Path. These are considered to be

the very core of the Buddha's teachings and fundamental to all the different schools of Buddhism.

After the Buddha gained Enlightenment in Bodhgaya in India, he walked to Sarnath in Varanasi

where he met with the five meditators he had previously practiced with. It was these five

men who had the very good fortune to receive the first sermon the Buddha ever gave. And the

first teachings the Buddha spoke on was the Four Noble Truths.

Now the First Noble Truth is The Truth of Dukkha. Dukkha is a Pali word that can be

translated as suffering or dissatisfaction. In this First Noble Truth the Buddha said:

"Suffering, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness

is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering;

association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering,

not to get what one wants is suffering - in short, suffering is the five categories of

clinging objects."

So what the Buddha was saying is that to live, means to also experience suffering or dissatisfaction at some

point our lives. He wasn't saying that our lives are thoroughly depressing and all we

experience is suffering so therefore we should just pray for an early death! Instead, in

the First Noble Truth the Buddha is simply highlighting a fundamental truth about

our existence and one we might have overlooked, or one we might have been in some denial of.

I mean we're all seekers of happiness, so it's sometimes difficult to accept that life

is really a mixture of pleasure and pain. The Buddha is just waking us up to this fact

and telling us not to be so surprised when we do experience suffering or unease - it really shouldn't

come as such a shock. And if we are suffering, we shouldn't take it personally and think

that we've made the wrong move. You know, we shouldn't blame ourselves and think we

choose the wrong partner, the wrong career or something like that. Suffering or dissatisfaction is just a natural

part of our human existence. And knowing this should actually bring some relief because

it means we can relax even in times of great difficulty, because with time, suffering or dissatisfaction will

pass and change into happiness again.

And fortunately the Buddha didn't stop at the First Noble Truth and say, 'Yep, you are

all going to have to experience suffering. That's it! See you later guys!' Instead he also taught

the Second, Third and Fourth Noble Truth, which were to diagnose why we suffer and explain

how we can become free of all sufferings completely, forever, and the steps we need to take to get there.

Now I want to look at the First Noble Truth in a bit of detail before we move onto the

others. The Buddha was a lot like a doctor; he carefully looked at our situation and examined

all our problems first. In the First Noble Truth the Buddha really dissects our suffering

and reveals that everyone, no matter who they are, will experience these particular types

of suffering, and we can look at these one by one and investigate the truth for ourselves:

So the first one is that birth is suffering. Well we only have to see that at birth both

the mother and child are usually in a lot of discomfort (to say the least!). The baby

being squeezed out of this very narrow opening that's probably very unpleasant, and coming out of

its nice liquidy placenta the baby is subjected to many experiences that would probably seem

very harsh and painful at first. Now of course, there is great joy that accompanies the birth of a baby, right?

Well, the Buddha never denied that there was also happiness in our life,

he was just pointing to the truth that suffering exists as well in these events in particular.

The next one is Aging is suffering. So most of us are going to experience this suffering

first when our parents or grandparents start to age. On a personal note, in June this year,

my mother, who leads a life busier than most 20 year olds I know, had a series of strokes,

which left her in hospital for six weeks while she tried to learn to walk again. And I can

tell you that no one in my family was having much fun during those six weeks, it was terrible

suffering for all of us. But fortunately she's back home and she's doing well now.

But not only are we going to experience the suffering of old age as our loved ones

start to age, we're also going to experience the suffering of aging firsthand as we lose our

youth, our beauty, our energy and our abilities. I mean in terms of beauty, the cosmetic industry

is never going to go broke because of all of us women who are desperately trying to stay young and

look beautiful. And you can't say that this desperation is not some form of suffering.

The next one: Sickness is suffering - Now unless you have a job that you hate, or a school

that you don't want to go to, I don't recall anyone ever saying that they enjoy being sick. Everyone

hates being sick. Whether it's a small cold, or something serious like cancer, sickness

is suffering and nobody wants it.

Death is suffering. Death may sometimes be a relief from certain suffering, for instance

if the person is in a lot of pain. But then there's still the grief and suffering of those who are left behind.

"Sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering..." Well, I think that's pretty self-explanatory.

"association with the loathed is suffering..." For instance, when we're having to spend time

with people we don't get along with, or be in a place or environment that we don't like

- these are forms of suffering because we want to be elsewhere or with different people.

"dissociation from the loved is suffering..." For example, if we have to be separated from

our loved ones, by death or by distance because one of us is travelling, we miss them and

we suffer because of this.

"not to get what one wants is suffering..." Surely we can all understand this one, not getting

what we want usually makes us frustrated, angry and depressed, even. It doesn't even have to

be something so important that we want. It could be as simple as going to our local grocery

store and not being able to buy the type of milk that we want. Or we wear something nice in

the hope of getting attention and praise, but nobody notices and compliments us, so

we suffer. Or we move to another city for a new start but we still don't find the happiness

we were hoping for and again we suffer. These are just some examples of this type of suffering.

Now, these examples of old age, sickness and death, you could say that the Buddha used

to highlight that suffering is a part of our life. But he wasn't saying that suffering is restricted

to only these experiences. It may be hard for us to fathom at first, but feeling dissatisfied

is a common bond that we all share, no matter who we are. Whether we're rich, poor, famous,

ordinary, beautiful or ugly - no one is completely satisfied with their present experience: we

are constantly looking for something more, or something different.

Even if we aren't suffering from the main forms of suffering (like sickness, old age,

and death), we still suffer from our dissatisfaction with the present moment. For instance, there's

the suffering of relationships. You know, we might suffer because we want one but don't have one, or even

when we're in a relationship we're also not satisfied. Then there's the suffering of employment

You know, we suffer when we don't have a job, and even when we have a job we are dissatisfied with

our work or our colleagues. Then there is even the suffering of wanting the weather to be different!

Everything we experience seems to be tinged with this underlying suffering or dissatisfaction.

And our dissatisfaction then manifests in us trying to accumulate more, or improve on

what we have, for instance: we're not happy so we go shopping for more clothes, or we try to exercise to get

a better figure, or organise a trip away with our partner - all these activities are motivated

by the wish to find some everlasting satisfaction and happiness. And we live our lives plagued

with a constant feeling that true lasting happiness always seems to be one step ahead

of us. We seem to believe things like, 'Oh, once I get married then I'll be happy, or once I pay off my mortgage

then I'll be happy, or once I retire then I'll be happy!' And we all have these or similar beliefs.

So we keep striving towards this goal of happiness somewhere in the future. Meanwhile we're never satisfied

with what we have in the present moment. So because of this dissatisfaction - we suffer!

And you'll notice that, if you take a look around, that everyone is doing this. Everyone has this

belief that happiness is out there and attainable, but if you look around you will

see that no one is really 100% happy.

So the Buddha then went on to explain the reason why everything we experience is tinged

with dissatisfaction. He taught the Second Noble Truth which was the Noble Truth of the

Origin of Dukkha (the origin of suffering or dissatisfaction).

The Buddha explained to us that dissatisfaction or suffering arises not because there is

something wrong with the things out there, it's because of our own mental state that we suffer.

Our unsatisfactory experiences come from three main causes: our mental craving, aversion and ignorance

but primarily he says here that it's because of our craving.

He said: "The origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is the craving that produces

renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust, and enjoying this and that; in other

words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being."

Craving here means our desire, greed or wanting. In Pali, the word used is 'tanha', which means thirst.

So thirst, craving for what we want, craving to get rid of what we don't want, craving

to be someone or somebody, for instance trying to live up to our own concepts of who we are

or what we want others to think of us. All this craving leads to dissatisfaction and suffering.

Each and everyone of us is caught up in this game, and we're so involved in it that we can't see it.

We are always trying to arrange our lives in a way that is pleasant and happy to us.

But no matter what, we're never 100% happy.

Because we're constantly crave for more, materially, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and because

of this we experience pain. We might want to be more attractive, have more money,

more friends, have a better job, have better relations with our in-laws, or we want we want more

excitement in our lives. We expend so much energy on trying to acquiring these things,

but we never seem to reach the point where we can sit back and say 'That's it, this is happiness,

I don't need anything more.' In fact, the craving is endless, so much so,

that people are still craving for something else when they breathe their last breath.

So it's this endless craving and desire which is the primary reason for our dissatisfaction.

Also our craving, we have the craving of wanting permanency or stability, and that's only going to lead to disappointment as well,

because there is nothing, no object, no person, no phenomena that can ever remain permanent,

so unless we come to understand that everything is impermanent and unreliable,

we suffer because our desire doesn't match reality.

One way we can identify what our cravings are is to also take a look at our expectations.

Craving usually manifests as expectations. For instance, we might expect our partner

to act a certain way in a certain situation. So we're craving for this, and if we don't get it, we're angry and upset

and ultimately we suffer.

Now fortunately the Buddha didn't stop at the 2nd Noble Truth. He went on to explain

the Third Noble Truth which is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Dukkha.

So there is an alternative! We can completely rid ourselves of this dissatisfaction. Suffering

can be extinguished if we remove its cause. The Buddha said: "Cessation of suffering,

as a noble truth, is this: It is remainderless fading and ceasing, giving up, relinquishing,

letting go and rejecting, of that same craving." So if we can let go of craving, then we can extinguish

our suffering. This is fantastic news, it's not all morbid, it is not all doom and gloom!

There is an end to suffering. There is a way to end dukkha, to end this fire of craving

and the rolling ocean of emotions that usually accompanies it. What a relief! And the secret

is to let go of our craving. If there was ever a Buddhist motto, it would be

two words, 'Let go.' The analogy used often used is that the cessation of dukkha

is like a fire being put out - that the burning has ceased. And this burning is really a mental

burning - this burning of the mind that continues to crave and not find satisfaction in the

present moment. But to extinguish this craving that causes so much suffering in our minds,

we need to train our minds in a different way. So it was in the Fourth Noble Truth that

the Buddha taught The Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Dukkha which explains

exactly how we start on the path of releasing us from our craving and dissatisfaction.

The Buddha said: "The way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It

is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right

speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration."