What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism?
The Four Noble Truths are Buddhism's summary of life: that existence is marked by suffering, that craving is its cause, that suffering can end, and that a disciplined path leads there. The writers in this collection do not analyse them point by point, but they do address Buddhism directly, and they answer the same four questions — why we suffer, what drives it, how it ends, and what road leads out.
Buddhism as the writers describe it
Where these commentators mention Buddhism by name, they treat it as a serious and sober reading of the human condition that stops short of a remedy.
J. N. DarbyOther religions have been compared with it… Buddhism, the most interesting phenomenon in the world, had no god, it was despair at the state of human nature without a remedy, and its founder obtained Nirvana — practical annihilation.
One writer, answering a critic who praised Buddhism above Christianity, put his objection in terms of what the path actually delivers to those who walk it.
William KellyThe Buddhism that he praised so highly occupies beginners and grey-haired men alike in a hopeless struggle against suffering.
The first truth: suffering is real, but not accidental
Scripture agrees that the world is full of misery. It disagrees about where the misery comes from — not from the mere fact of existing, and not from bad management, but from a break with God.
J T MawsonWe are quite prepared to admit the muddling; but it is not muddle that causes the misery, IT IS SIN, and sin is lawlessness, the refusal on the part of men to be subject to God. This is the terrible root of all the trouble.
The second truth: craving, and where it comes from
Craving is not denied here. It is explained as the hunger of a creature that has lost the only thing that can fill it.
James BoydHow can it be otherwise with a creature wandering from his Creator, and trying to fill his unsatisfied heart with the husks that the pigs eat? All the unrest of this miserable world comes from a search after happiness, a thing the whole world could not give. If the whole universe were given to one man, what good would it do him?
The objects of that craving are themselves running out, which is why chasing them can never end well.
Leslie M. GrantLet the energetic, strong child of God take warning: "the world passes away, and the desire of it." It is only a temporary, shining bubble, ready to burst. How empty the delusion of seeking satisfaction in any measure from what is of the world.
Why a path of discipline cannot do it
A road of rules, fasting and hard treatment of the body is exactly what the New Testament examines and rejects — not because it looks unimpressive, but because of what it secretly feeds.
F. B. HoleAll these elaborate rules may look like homage offered freely in great humility. The self-denial attached to them looks very lowly. The dress, the rope belt, the poor food, the fasting and the neglect of the body may appear very holy and very wonderful, but in fact it is all built on merely human teaching, and it all serves to satisfy the flesh. In true Christianity the flesh is disowned and refused.
Rest given, not achieved
Where Buddhism sets out a path to walk, the gospel sets out a Person to come to. The commentators are blunt that religious effort of any kind leaves the soul where it was.
H H SnellThere are many anxious souls who have not rest. Why is it? Because they do not seek it by faith… They may be diligent in keeping religious rules, and lack rest. They may be much taken up with their moods, feelings and experiences, and still lack rest. It must be Christ and His finished work that gives rest — Christ Himself, Christ only… As long as the eye is turned inward on self — good self, bad self, or religious self, self in any form — they must lack rest.
The end of suffering: not extinction but a wiped face
The Bible's fourth answer is a promise about a coming world, and the writers stress two things about it — who removes the sorrow, and that it never comes back.
J. N. DarbyThere is more in this than that tears are wiped away: God shall do it. There is the compassion that has caused the removal of the sorrow, and this is more than that the sorrow is gone… "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." Not only has He taken away the evil, but it is never to be any more.
Summary
- Root. The misery of the world is traced not to existence itself but to sin — people refusing to be subject to God.
- Craving. The restless hunger everyone feels is a creature away from its Creator, trying to fill its heart with what the whole universe could not satisfy.
- Bubble. What the craving reaches for is passing away, so satisfaction from it is a delusion by definition.
- Path. Fasting, rules and harsh treatment of the body look humble, but they feed the very self they claim to starve.
- Rest. Rest is given by Christ, not earned by practice — and the sorrow ends not in extinction but in God Himself wiping the tears away, never to return.