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The First Teaching

SN 56.11, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 7 min · 1,206 words

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Before you read

What happens

At the Deer Park near Bārāṇasī, the Buddha speaks to five monks.

Central question

What is dissatisfaction, what causes it, can it end, and what practice leads to its end?

Main point

The Buddha warns against two extremes: chasing sensual pleasure and punishing the body. He teaches a middle path. Each of the four noble truths comes with a task: understand dissatisfaction, give up its cause, directly know its ending, and develop the path.

Reading tip

The text first defines the middle path and the four truths. Then it turns each truth three times: naming it, the task it sets, and the task complete.

This text is not saying

The text does not present the four truths as beliefs to memorize. The repeated section shows something to understand, give up, realize, and develop.

Key words

These definitions are here so you do not need to know Pali or Buddhist vocabulary before reading.

dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.
ignorant wanting
Wanting something you can't have right now. This project's rendering of "taṇhā", often translated "craving". We call it ignorant because it comes from not seeing clearly; ordinary, sensible wanting is something else.
quenching
An extinguishing image for dissatisfaction and its causes going out. Different Pali words use this image on different pages, so the exact scope comes from the sentence.
noble truth
One of four core observations this teaching rests on. It is true not because you must take it on faith, but because you can check it against direct experience.
noble eightfold path
The eight-part practice these texts teach: right view, right attitude, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right remembering, and right unification of mind.

Translation

The Setting

So I heard.

At one time the Buddha was staying near Bārāṇasī, at Isipatana, in the Deer Park.

There the Buddha addressed the group of five bhikkhus: "Bhikkhus."

"Bhante," they replied.

The Buddha said this:

The Two Extremes

"Bhikkhus, someone who has gone forth should not go near these two extremes. Which two?

Devotion to the pleasure of sensuality: low, vulgar, ordinary, ignoble, and unbeneficial.

Devotion to self-mortification: painful, ignoble, and unbeneficial.

Without going near either extreme, the Tathāgata has awakened to the middle path of practice, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, higher knowing, awakening, and nibbāna.

And what is that middle path of practice awakened to by the Tathāgata, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, higher knowing, awakening, and nibbāna?

It is just this noble eightfold path:

  • right view
  • right attitude
  • right speech
  • right action
  • right livelihood
  • right effort
  • right remembering
  • right unification of mind

This is the middle path of practice awakened to by the Tathāgata, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, higher knowing, awakening, and nibbāna.

The Noble Truth of Dissatisfaction

"Bhikkhus, this is the noble truth of dissatisfaction:

birth is dissatisfaction; ageing is dissatisfaction; illness is dissatisfaction; death is dissatisfaction; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are dissatisfaction; association with what is disliked is dissatisfaction; separation from what is liked is dissatisfaction; wanting something and not getting it is dissatisfaction; in brief, the five clung-to heaps are dissatisfaction.

The Noble Truth of the Origin of Dissatisfaction

"Bhikkhus, this is the noble truth of the origin of dissatisfaction:

that ignorant wanting that leads to renewed becoming, accompanied by relishing and passion, delighting here and there. That is:

  • ignorant wanting for sensuality
  • ignorant wanting for becoming
  • ignorant wanting for non-becoming

The Noble Truth of the Quenching of Dissatisfaction

"Bhikkhus, this is the noble truth of the quenching of dissatisfaction:

the complete fading and quenching of that very ignorant wanting: giving it up, relinquishing it, freedom, non-attachment.

The Noble Truth of How to Quench It Again

"Bhikkhus, this is the noble truth of how to quench dissatisfaction again:

it is just this noble eightfold path:

  • right view
  • right attitude
  • right speech
  • right action
  • right livelihood
  • right effort
  • right remembering
  • right unification of mind

The Three Turnings

"'This is the noble truth of dissatisfaction.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of dissatisfaction should be fully understood.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of dissatisfaction has been fully understood.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This is the noble truth of the origin of dissatisfaction.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of the origin of dissatisfaction should be abandoned.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of the origin of dissatisfaction has been abandoned.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This is the noble truth of the quenching of dissatisfaction.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of the quenching of dissatisfaction should be directly known.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of the quenching of dissatisfaction has been directly known.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This is the noble truth of how to quench dissatisfaction again.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of how to quench dissatisfaction again should be developed.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

"'This noble truth of how to quench dissatisfaction again has been developed.'

Vision arose in me, knowledge arose in me, discernment arose in me, clear knowledge arose in me, and light arose in me regarding things not heard before.

The Buddha's Declaration

"As long as this three-round, twelve-aspect knowledge and seeing regarding these four noble truths as they really are was not fully purified, I did not claim unsurpassed full awakening in the world with its devas, Māras, and Brahmās, in this generation with its samaṇas and brahmins, its rulers and its people.

But when this three-round, twelve-aspect knowledge and seeing regarding these four noble truths as they really are was fully purified, then I did claim unsurpassed full awakening in the world with its devas, Māras, and Brahmās, in this generation with its samaṇas and brahmins, its rulers and its people.

Knowledge and seeing arose in me:

'My release is unshakeable. This is the last birth. Now there is no more renewed becoming.'"

Kondañña's Dhamma Eye

That is what the Buddha said. The group of five bhikkhus were glad and welcomed what the Buddha had said.

While this explanation was being given, the dustless, stainless Dhamma-eye arose in Venerable Kondañña:

"Whatever is subject to origin is all subject to quenching."

The Wheel Rolls

When the Buddha had set the wheel of Dhamma rolling, the earth devas cried out:

"Near Bārāṇasī, at Isipatana in the Deer Park, the Buddha has set rolling the unsurpassed wheel of Dhamma that cannot be rolled back by any samaṇa or brahmin or deva or Māra or Brahmā or anyone in the world."

On hearing the cry of the earth devas, the devas of the Four Great Kings took up the cry; then the devas of the Thirty-three, the Yāma devas, the Contented devas, the devas delighting in creation, the devas wielding power over others' creations, and the Brahmā-company devas took up the same cry:

"Near Bārāṇasī, at Isipatana in the Deer Park, the Buddha has set rolling the unsurpassed wheel of Dhamma that cannot be rolled back by any samaṇa or brahmin or deva or Māra or Brahmā or anyone in the world."

At that moment the cry rose all the way to the Brahmā worlds. This ten-thousand world system shook, trembled, and quivered, and a vast immeasurable radiance appeared in the world, surpassing the glory of the devas.

Then the Buddha exclaimed:

"Kondañña really knows. Kondañña really knows."

That is how Venerable Kondañña came to be known as Aññā-Kondañña.

Words used in this translation (27)
awakening
Coming fully awake to how things are. Sometimes translated "enlightenment," a word this project avoids as needlessly mystical.
becoming
This project's rendering of "bhava" -- the settling of experience into a way of being that feels like somebody being something. Often translated "existence."
Bhante
A respectful way of addressing a senior monastic, roughly "venerable sir." Left untranslated because English has no natural equivalent.
bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
birth
This project's rendering of "jāti": birth, coming into being. In the dependent-arising sequence, ageing and dying depend on it. In MN 141 the word appears once in its everyday sense instead, in a simile about a mother.
brahmin
Originally a member of ancient India's hereditary priestly class. These texts sometimes reuse the title for an ideal practitioner who has completed the path. Context shows whether caste or conduct is the point.
clung-to heaps
The five categories experience gets sorted into and then grasped as "me" or "mine" -- body, feeling, recognition, mental activity, and awareness. Not clinging to the categories themselves, but to the sense of ownership placed on top of them.
Dhamma
The Buddha's teaching taken as a whole -- both what he taught and the way things actually are, which the teaching describes.
dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.
fading
The fading away of attraction and investment in experience, as passion cools.
higher knowing
Direct, personally realized understanding -- knowing something for yourself rather than taking it on faith. In some texts it also names the extraordinary knowings that arise from deep concentration.
ignorant wanting
Wanting something you can't have right now. This project's rendering of "taṇhā", often translated "craving". We call it ignorant because it comes from not seeing clearly; ordinary, sensible wanting is something else.
nibbāna
The end of greed, hatred, and confusion -- the traditional goal of Buddhist practice. Left untranslated because no single English word covers it; "quenching" is the closest one-word gloss.
noble eightfold path
The eight-part practice these texts teach: right view, right attitude, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right remembering, and right unification of mind.
noble truth
One of four core observations this teaching rests on. It is true not because you must take it on faith, but because you can check it against direct experience.
path of practice
A way of practising -- something done here and now, again and again, not a journey to somewhere else.
quenching
An extinguishing image for dissatisfaction and its causes going out. Different Pali words use this image on different pages, so the exact scope comes from the sentence.
right action
Acting without harming -- a factor of the eightfold path.
right attitude
This project's rendering of the path factor usually translated "right intention" -- the underlying motivation a person brings to their actions.
right effort
Effort that is well aimed: heading off what is unhelpful and building up what helps -- a factor of the eightfold path.
right livelihood
Making a living in a way that does not depend on harming or deceiving anyone -- a factor of the eightfold path.
right remembering
This project's rendering of the path factor usually translated "right mindfulness" -- keeping what actually matters in view, moment to moment, rather than losing track of it.
right speech
Speech that is truthful, kind, timely, and worth saying -- a factor of the eightfold path.
right unification of mind
The path factor in which the mind gathers together and becomes unified, supported and directed by the rest of the noble path. The thinking mind and the heart work as one whole; nobody forces them into a trance.
right view
Seeing how experience and practice actually work -- the first factor of the eightfold path. "Right" here means well-aimed and accurate, not morally righteous.
Tathāgata
A title for the Buddha, traditionally left untranslated. It means roughly "the one who has arrived at things as they truly are."
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
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