Pain and its Ending

These four noble truths are today the most well-known teachings of Buddha. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the teaching in its entirety as it appears within the Tipitaka, which is the canon of Theravada Buddhism. The author begins by identifying the four noble truths and then traces their teaching through the commentaryaries and canon. The four noble truths are found in two different places. They first appear in the Buddha’s stories as a symbol for his enlightenment. Second, they appear in extensive networks of Buddha’s teachings that serve as propositions of doctrine. The book reviews the wealth of scholarship about the four noble truths and argues that they are the central teachings of Buddha. This is because they were interpreted according their symbolic function in Tipitaka. The historical claim that four noble truths were the first teachings of Buddha is not as convincing as the fact that they function as both a symbol and a proposition in the Theravada tradition. To fully understand the variety of meanings that the category of “right views” encompasses, it is necessary to reevaluate the categories of proposition and symbol.