Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Did the Buddha teach how one can fully know that he or she has a clear understanding of the 4nt?
Is there a Sutta about this? how can one be sure one has a perfect clear understanding of the 4 noble truths?
Namaste
Namaste
0
Comments
If you did, you wouldn't need the Sutta.
The 4NT are the simplest, yet most profound of his Teachings. You can 'get them' immediately, but also, you could take a lifetime.
Your choice.
It is said that when you become a sotapanna, or stream winner, where you have at minimum 7 lives left before liberation, you know it.. so I'm fairly sure you'd know when you are enlightened as well.
The Buddha said that he did not claim to be enlightened until he knew the four noble truths.. and knowing is not an intellectual mind knowledge, but an experiential knowing... wisdom(or panna in the pali). We can say " yeah I understand the four noble truths" but that does not mean that you KNOW the four noble truths. When you do, you have destroyed greed, hatred, and delusion(ignorance which in buddhist terms is defined as not knowing the 4NT).. and you have reached the deathless.
A hint that you have not realized is if you get upset by change. And there is a recollection of a student who told her teacher he/she was enlightened. The master sent a one word reply: 'fart'. The student in a rage went to her teacher and demanded he/she answer. He calmly replied that such an outburst from one word indicated the lack of maturity.
As the heart sutra says 'no attainment'.. the bodhisattva abides by prajnaparamitra the reliable mantra for there is no deception.
Or as the diamond sutra says a stream winner does not say they are a stream winner for otherwise they would be caught in the ideas of a being, a life, and a lifespan.
In psychology, they say that learning means a change in behavior.
In other words, if the lab animal shows no change in behavior, they haven't learned anything.
It's the same with Buddhism. You know you are beginning to understand when you notice that your behaviors are automatically starting to change.
If we fully, truly grasped the 4nt's, we would no longer be pushed by our attachment or aversion, because we would so clearly SEE how those things are what cause our suffering.
As for myself, I just ate a pfeffernusse ... i craved it, I got up and walked in the kitchen and took one out of the bag, I ate it with relish, and now I am satisfied.
So much for fully, truly grasping the 4nt's!
The four noble Truths are as much a work in progress, as all of us.
And...
To know there is no real "one", is to have a good understanding of the 4 NT!