THE BUDDHA AS TEACHER 37master concentration. As one's mastery grows, one gains a clearer perception
of causal patterns underlying these events. This gives an understanding of how
unskillful mental qualities may be undercut, and how skillful ones may be fos-
tered. Acting on this understanding leads the mind to fuller mastery of the
four dhyanas, which constitute right concentration. Right concentration in
turn leads to a higher level of right view-insight in terms of the Four Noble
Truths-and thus the Path spirals to a higher level, leading ultimately to Awak-
ening and release from satp.sara. This is why the Buddha termed the four truths
and the eightfold path noble, for he saw that they lead to a truly worthy goal
(see M.26), which is not subject to change and involves no oppression of oth-
ers, and that the goal transforms the mind of the person attaining it to a noble
level as well.
But why did the Buddha consider knowledge in terms of the four truths.
to be so effective in freeing the mind from its cravings and attachments? To
answer this question, it is necessary to look at the truths one by one.
The formula for dependent co-arising states that craving leads to attach-
ment and from there to suffering. If, however, the mind can be liberated from
its ignorance that the objects of its craving are unworthy of attachment, the
cycle can be broken. These objects are precisely where the First Noble Truth
is aimed: the five skandhas (aggregates), which cover the whole of describable
and attachable reality. As the brief formula for the first truth states, attachment
to any of these five aggregates constitutes the essence of dul).kha. Dul).kha is a
term with no one equivalent in the English language. Suffering, stress, pain,
dis-ease, distress, and unsatisfactoriness come close, but whatever the equiva-
lent chosen, the import~nt point is that the skandhas are unworthy of attach-
ment because they provide no unalloyed happiness.
Buddhism has frequently been charged with being pessimistic because of
its emphasis on suffering, but this charge misses the fact that the first truth is
part of a strategy of diagnosis and therapy that focuses on the unsatisfactory
side of life so as to provide freedom from that suffering. In this sense, the Bud-
dha was similar to a doctor, focusing on the disease he wanted to cure. He did
not deny that life has a certain measure of happiness. A Pali text (Khp.S) glow-
ingly praises the blessings of the good householder's life--the company of the
wise, honoring the honorable, living in a congenial country, erudition and
skill, good manners and speech, providing for one's family, having a peaceful
profession, giving alms, doing good deeds, practicing the religion, and be-
coming immune to worldly sorrow and defilement. The delights oflife among
the gods are also praised. However, the happiness of the human and heavenly
worlds is yoked to suffering in that it is inconstant and impermanent. Because
it. is yoked to suffering, it does not lie completely under one's control, and
thus does not deserve to be regarded as one's identity-one's self-or as one's
possession (Strong EB, sees. 3.2.1-3, 3.2.6).
These three characteristics-impermanence, suffering, and "not-self-
ness"-are common to all conditioned things and lie at the heart of the diag-
nosis provided by the First Noble Truth. Like the teaching on suffering, the