Buddha - Part 3
His first teaching took place at the Deer Park in Benares. It was there that he expounded his "Four Nobel Truths," which are the foundation of all Buddhist belief:
- All human life is suffering (dhukka ).
- All suffering is caused by human desire, particularly the desire that impermanent things be permanent.
- Human suffering can be ended by ending human desire.
- Desire can be ended through eight ways, the "Eightfold Noble Path": right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood right effort right mindfulness and right concentration.
From a metaphysical standpoint, these Noble Truths make up and derive from a single fundamental Truth (in Sanskrit, Dharma, and in Pali, Dhamma). The Buddhist Dharma is based on the idea that everything in the universe is causally linked. All things are composite things, that is, they are compose of several elements. Because all things are composite, they are all transitory, for the elements come together and then fall apart. It is this transience that causes human beings to sorrow and to suffer. We live in a body, which is a composite thing, but that body decays, sickens, and eventually dies though wish it to do otherwise. Since everything is transient, that means that there can be no eternal soul either in the self or in the universe. This, then, is the eternal truth of the world: everything is transitory, sorrowful, and soulless - three-fold character of the world.
