The Four Noble Truths

by Lobsang Gyatso, Sherab Gyatso (Translator)

After his enlightenment, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths—the foundation and essence of all forms of Buddhism. The first truth diagnoses the nature of our existential illnesses and neuroses. The second explores their causes and conditions for arising. The third shows that the causes of our problems can be removed and that we can be free of suffering. The fourth includes the many paths Buddhism offers to realize that goal. The Buddha has shown that the spiritual path is pragmatic and works directly with everyday experience in order to fundamentally transform the practitioner. This presentation is a succinct and a very clear introduction to the Buddha's core teaching.

Genres: Buddhism, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Religion

97 pages, Paperback

First published July 25, 1994

Reviews

[Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As another reviewer stated, this reads more like a text book than a guide. On the Fourth Noble Truth, rather than give details about the 8 Fold Path, there is detail about what to meditate on and the different levels of attainment towards Buddhahood. I didn't find this text particularly helpful.

[Ben Krege · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extraordinarily succinct formulation of the core of Buddhism. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a lot lost in translation.

[Patrick Moody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the concise introduction/refresher that i was imagining it woud be.
It reads more like someone's lecture notes than an actual book, the sort you might look back on later and wonder, "what did i mean by that?"
Useful perhaps as a list of things to read up on later but unless one is already familiar with the concepts and terms i can imagine this being totally unintelligible to some.

[Devon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well... Not really sure what to say about this book that I did not already say within my progress updates.

I feel like this is a very complicated religion once you get into all the the different aspects of things. But maybe it isn't that complicated-maybe it sounded so complicated because with the way this book was written, it was very repetitive and drawn out and did not explain it very well. Perhaps it would have sounded better pre-translation.

Reading this book was not as painful as the last book we had to read for this history class so that was nice. It was short and organized in a way where I could read it in 5 nice little chunks. It made it go quick.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes found that it didn't flow as easily as I would have liked (more text book then flowing), but it is a complicated study, so that could be why. I found that along with the Buddhism course I was taking it helped.

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

È un libro dalle argomentazioni chiarissime. Impossibile mal interpretarlo. Si può essere o no d'accordo, ma questo è un fatto soggettivo. È necessario studiarlo, perché è impossibile memorizzarne i concetti con solo due o tre letture. È quello che intendo fare.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not translated well, glosses entirely over the Third Noble Truth... Thinking that cessation was what the author was attempting to do at that point.