What this chapter covers: This chapter has two parts. The first explains the twenty-two faculties (indriya) — the controlling powers that govern physical life, feeling, spiritual progress, and liberation. The second provides a detailed analysis of the Four Noble Truths, including vivid descriptions of the suffering inherent in birth, ageing, death, sorrow, and the rest, followed by the origin of suffering (craving), the cessation of suffering (nibbana), and the path leading to that cessation.
Part A: The Twenty-Two Faculties
The twenty-two faculties (indriya) are:
- Eye faculty
- Ear faculty
- Nose faculty
- Tongue faculty
- Body faculty
- Mind faculty
- Femininity faculty
- Masculinity faculty
- Life faculty
- Bodily pleasure faculty
- Bodily pain faculty
- Mental joy faculty
- Mental grief faculty
- Equanimity faculty
- Faith faculty
- Energy faculty
- Mindfulness faculty
- Concentration faculty
- Understanding faculty
- The “I-shall-come-to-know-the-unknown” faculty
- Final-knowledge faculty
- Final-knower faculty
What “Faculty” Means
The word “faculty” means rulership or dominance. It carries five related senses:
- The mark of a ruler — the faculties are the mark of kamma, which rules like a king. Kamma creates them, so they bear its stamp.
- Taught by a ruler — the Buddha, the supreme ruler, correctly disclosed them all.
- Seen by a ruler — the Buddha perceived them directly.
- Prepared by a ruler — kamma produces and prepares them.
- Fostered by a ruler — the Buddha cultivated some in his training and developed others.
Furthermore, the faculties exercise dominance in a practical sense. The eye faculty dominates the arising of eye-consciousness. When the eye is sharp, eye-consciousness is sharp. When the eye is dull, eye-consciousness is dull. The same applies for each faculty in its own domain.
The Last Three Faculties
These are the faculties of the noble path:
- The “I-shall-come-to-know-the-unknown” faculty arises at the initial moment of stream-entry — when a person first enters the path thinking, “I shall come to know what I have not yet known.” It carries the meaning of rulership over that breakthrough.
- The final-knowledge faculty is the fruit of that breakthrough. It arises in the process of finally knowing the Four Noble Truths.
- The final-knower faculty arises in one whose task is finished — the Arahant, who has destroyed all defilements and has nothing more to do.
The Order of Teaching
The eye faculty and the other sense faculties are taught first because the noble path is attained through fully understanding internal experience.
Next come the femininity and masculinity faculties, to show what makes a person called “woman” or “man.” Then the life faculty, to show that this gendered existence depends on the life force. Then the pleasure, pain, joy, grief, and equanimity faculties, to show that feelings never let up as long as life continues — and that all feeling is ultimately suffering.
Next, the faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding faculties show the way to make that suffering cease. Then the last three faculties show the results: first breakthrough, then developed knowledge, then the supreme reward of one who has nothing more to do.
Divided and Undivided
Only the life faculty is divided: into the material life faculty and the immaterial life faculty. None of the others are divided.
What Each Faculty Does
- Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body faculties — their function is to cause their corresponding consciousness to match their own quality. When the eye faculty is keen, eye-consciousness is keen.
- Mind faculty — makes all mental states that arise with it subject to its mastery.
- Life faculty — maintains the states that arise with it.
- Femininity and masculinity faculties — determine the marks, signs, occupations, and manners of women and men.
- Pleasure, pain, joy, and grief faculties — govern the states that arise with them, imparting their own particular quality of coarseness.
- Equanimity faculty — imparts a quality of quiet, superiority, and neutrality.
- Faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding faculties — overcome their opposites and impart the quality of confidence, effort, presence, stillness, and wisdom to associated states.
- The “I-shall-come-to-know-the-unknown” faculty — abandons three fetters and confronts associated states with that abandonment.
- Final-knowledge faculty — weakens and abandons lust, ill-will, and more, while subjecting associated states to its mastery.
- Final-knower faculty — abandons all further striving and conditions associated states by confronting them with the Deathless.
Which Realm Each Faculty Belongs To
- Sense-sphere only: Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, femininity, masculinity, pleasure, pain, and grief faculties.
- All four planes: Mind, life, equanimity, faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding faculties.
- Three planes (sense-sphere, fine-material, and supramundane): The joy faculty.
- Supramundane only: The last three faculties.
The monk who knows the urgent need To keep the faculties restrained By fully understanding them Will make an end of suffering.
Part B: The Four Noble Truths
The Four Noble Truths (ariya-sacca) are:
- The noble truth of suffering
- The noble truth of the origin of suffering
- The noble truth of the cessation of suffering
- The noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering
What Makes Them “Truths”
Each truth has four verified aspects that are “real, not unreal, not otherwise”:
- Suffering: oppressing, being conditioned, burning, changing
- Origin: accumulating, sourcing, binding, impeding
- Cessation: escape, seclusion, being unconditioned, deathlessness
- Path: outlet, cause, seeing, predominance
What Makes Them “Noble”
They are called Noble Truths for three reasons:
- The Noble Ones — the Buddhas and their awakened disciples — penetrate them.
- They belong to the Noble One — the Buddha, who is the Noble One in the world of gods and humans.
- Their discovery is itself noble — it is because of correctly discovering these four truths that the Buddha is called “fully enlightened.”
They are also noble because they are real — not deceptive, not misleading. As the Buddha said: “These Four Noble Truths are real, not unreal, not otherwise.”
Breaking Down the Words
Suffering (dukkha): The prefix “du” means bad or vile. The suffix “kha” means empty or hollow. The first truth is vile because it harbours many dangers. It is empty because it lacks the permanence, beauty, pleasure, and self that rash people imagine.
Origin (samudaya): “Sam” means together, “u” means rising, and “aya” means reason. This truth is the reason for suffering’s arising when combined with other conditions.
Cessation (nirodha): “Ni” means absence, and “rodha” means prison. In cessation there is no prison of the cycle of rebirth to confine suffering any longer. It is the opposite of that prison.
The Way Leading to Cessation (nirodhagamini patipada): The fourth truth leads to the cessation of suffering because it takes that cessation as its object.
The Characteristics of Each Truth
- Suffering has the characteristic of afflicting. Its function is to burn. It shows up as the course of an existence.
- Origin has the characteristic of producing. Its function is to prevent interruption of the cycle. It shows up as an obstacle.
- Cessation has the characteristic of peace. Its function is deathlessness. It shows up as the signless — beyond all signs of conditioned things.
- Path has the characteristic of being an outlet. Its function is to abandon defilements. It shows up as emergence from suffering.
Why Exactly Four — No More, No Less
The Buddha announced the process of existence together with its cause, and the end of that process together with its means. So there are four at most: the process and its cause, the end and its means.
They also correspond to four tasks: suffering is to be fully understood, origin is to be abandoned, cessation is to be realised, and the path is to be developed.
The Order of Teaching
Suffering comes first because it is obvious and common to all beings. Origin comes next to reveal its cause. Cessation follows to show that when the cause ends, the result ends. The path comes last to show the means to achieve that.
Or: suffering is taught first to instil urgency in those enjoying the pleasures of existence. Origin is taught next to show that suffering does not arise by itself or from an Almighty Creator, but from this specific cause. Cessation is taught to offer comfort and hope to those overwhelmed by suffering. The path is taught last to enable beings to reach that cessation.
The Truth of Suffering
Birth
The word “birth” (jati) has many meanings in the texts — a lifetime, a monastic order, the characteristic of conditioned things, rebirth-linking, the act of being born, a clan, or the virtue of a Noble One.
Here, in the direct sense, birth means the first appearance of the aggregates wherever a being comes into existence. Its characteristic is initial genesis in any realm. Its function is to consign a being to a particular existence. It shows up as emerging here from a past existence — or as the diversity of suffering.
Why is birth suffering? Because it is the basis for many kinds of suffering.
Background Note: There are several classifications of suffering. “Intrinsic suffering” is painful bodily and mental feeling — suffering by its very nature. “Suffering in change” is pleasant feeling that turns painful when it changes. “Suffering due to formations” is neutral feeling and all remaining conditioned states, which are oppressed by constant rising and falling.
The Suffering Rooted in Birth
When a being is born in a mother’s womb, it is not born inside a lotus blossom. Like a worm in rotting food, it is born in the belly — below the stomach, above the rectum, between the belly-lining and the backbone. This space is cramped, pitch dark, and pervaded by fetid smells. For ten months the being is cooked by the heat of the mother’s body, like a pudding steamed in a bag, unable to bend or stretch.
When the mother stumbles, moves, sits down, gets up, or turns around, the being is dragged back and forth and jolted. It suffers like a kid seized by a drunkard, or a young snake in the hands of a snake-charmer. When the mother drinks cold water, the being feels the chill of an icy hell. When she swallows hot food, it is as though deluged by a rain of embers.
When labour begins, the being is turned upside down by the forces of kamma-born winds and flung through that most fearful passage from the womb — squeezed through the narrow opening like an elephant through a keyhole.
After birth, the body is as tender as an open wound. Being handled, bathed, washed, and rubbed with cloths feels like being pricked with needle-points and gashed with razor blades.
Later in life, there is the suffering of those who harm themselves through ascetic practices, anger, or despair. And there is the suffering of those harmed by others — flogging, imprisonment, and worse.
Birth is the basis for all of this.
Now, were no being born in hell again, The pain unbearable of scorching fires And all the rest would then no footing gain; Therefore the Sage pronounced that birth is pain.
But why elaborate? At any time or anywhere, Can there exist a painful state if birth does not precede? Indeed this Sage so great, when he expounded pain, took care First to declare rebirth as pain, the condition needed there.
Ageing
Ageing has the characteristic of the ripening of the aggregates. Its function is to lead on toward death. It shows up as the vanishing of youth.
Ageing is the basis for many kinds of suffering: heaviness in all the limbs, decline of the senses, loss of youth, draining of strength, fading of memory and intelligence, contempt from others, and more.
With leadenness in every limb, With every faculty declining, With vanishing of youthfulness, With memory and wit grown dim, With strength now drained by undermining, With growing unattractiveness — What pain alike of body and of mind A mortal must expect to find! Since ageing all of this will bring, Ageing is well named suffering.
Death
Death has the characteristic of falling away. Its function is to sever connection. It shows up as absence from the realm where one was reborn.
Death is suffering because it is a basis for suffering — the mental anguish of wicked people who see their foul deeds or signs of a bad rebirth, and of good people who cannot bear to part from all they hold dear. And then comes the bodily pain that severs sinews and joints as the vital force gives out.
Without distinction as they die, Pain grips their minds impartially When wicked men their foul deeds see Or sign of new rebirth, may be. Also when good men cannot bear To part from all that they hold dear.
Sorrow
Sorrow is a burning in the mind of one struck by loss of relatives or other misfortune. Its characteristic is inner consuming. Its function is to completely consume the mind. It shows up as continual grieving.
Sorrow is a poisoned dart That penetrates a being’s heart; Setting up a burning there Like burning with a red-hot spear.
Lamentation
Lamentation is crying out. Its characteristic is verbal clamour. Its function is proclaiming virtues and faults of the lost one. It shows up as tumult.
When a man is struck by sorrow’s dart and he laments, The pain he is already undergoing he augments With pain born of dry throat and lips and palate, hard to bear. And so lamenting too is pain, the Buddha did declare.
Pain
Bodily pain has the characteristic of oppressing the body. Its function is to cause grief in the foolish. It shows up as bodily affliction. It is suffering by its very nature, and it brings mental suffering in its wake.
Grief
Mental pain has the characteristic of oppressing the mind. Its function is to distress the mind. It shows up as mental affliction. It is suffering by its very nature, and it brings bodily suffering — for those gripped by mental pain tear their hair, weep, thump their breasts, throw themselves down, use the knife, swallow poison, hang themselves, or walk into fires.
Despair
Despair is the state produced by excessive mental suffering. Its characteristic is burning of the mind. Its function is to bemoan. It shows up as dejection.
To illustrate these three: sorrow is like oil cooking slowly in a pot over a low flame. Lamentation is like it boiling over when the heat is high. Despair is like what remains in the pot after it has boiled over and can do so no more — going on cooking until it dries up.
Association with the Unloved
Meeting with disagreeable people and things. Its function is to distress the mind. It shows up as a harmful state.
The mere sight of an unloved thing Brings firstly mental suffering. And suffering of body too Through touching it can then ensue.
Separation from the Loved
Being parted from agreeable people and things. Its function is to arouse sorrow. It shows up as loss.
The dart of sorrow wounds the heart Of fools who from their wealth must part or kin.
Not Getting What One Wants
The wanting itself of something unobtainable — expressed in wishes like “Oh, that we were not subject to birth!” Its function is to seek what cannot be found. It shows up as disappointment.
When beings here expect to gain Something they build their hopes upon Which fails them, they are woebegone With disappointment’s numbing pain. “Not to get what one wants is pain,” The Conqueror has therefore said.
In Short: The Five Aggregates of Clinging
Now, birth and ageing and each thing Told in describing suffering, And those not mentioned, could not be Were there no aggregates for clinging. Wherefore these aggregates for clinging Are taken in totality As pain by Him, the Dhamma’s King, Who taught the end of suffering.
Birth, ageing, death, and the rest oppress the five aggregates as fire does fuel, as gadflies torment a cow, as reapers cut a field, as raiders plunder a village.
The aggregates of clinging have birth as their initial suffering, ageing as their middle suffering, and death as their final suffering. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are the burning, the crying out, the bodily affliction, the mental oppression, and the brooding that arise along the way. It is impossible to tell all of it. So the Buddha said, “In short, the five aggregates of clinging are suffering” — just as the taste of the whole ocean can be found in a single drop.
The Truth of the Origin of Suffering
The origin of suffering is craving (tanha) — that craving which produces further becoming, is accompanied by delight and greed, and takes pleasure in this and that. It is threefold:
- Craving for sense pleasures — the thirst for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects
- Craving for existence — the thirst for continued being
- Craving for non-existence — the thirst for annihilation
Although craving is threefold, it should be understood as one noble truth in the sense that it generates the truth of suffering.
The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
In the description of cessation, it is the cessation of craving’s origin that is stated. Why? Because suffering ceases only when its cause ceases.
Just as a tree cut down grows up again While yet its root remains unharmed and sound, So with the tendency to crave intact, This suffering is ever reproduced.
The Buddhas behave like lions — when they attack suffering, they go for the cause, not the symptom. The sectarians behave like dogs — when struck with a clod, they snarl and bite the clod instead of confronting whoever threw it. By teaching self-mortification and the like, they deal with the fruit instead of the cause.
In the ultimate sense, it is nibbana (nibbana) that is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. All the terms used — “fading away,” “cessation,” “giving up,” “relinquishing,” “letting go,” “not relying” — are synonyms for nibbana.
Nibbana has peace as its characteristic. Its function is deathlessness. It shows up as the signless — beyond all signs of conditioned existence.
Is Nibbana Real?
Question: Is nibbana non-existent because it can’t be perceived — like a rabbit’s horn?
Answer: No. It can be perceived by the right means — through the path of virtue, concentration, and wisdom. Just because an ordinary person can’t perceive it doesn’t mean it’s imperceptible.
Question: If nibbana didn’t exist, wouldn’t the path be pointless?
Answer: Exactly. If nibbana were non-existent, the entire practice of virtue, concentration, and wisdom would be futile. But it is not futile — it does reach nibbana.
Question: Isn’t nibbana just destruction — since it’s called “the destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion”?
Answer: No. If it were mere destruction, it would be temporary, conditioned, and obtainable without effort. Being conditioned, it would be included in the formed. Being formed, it would burn with the fires of greed. Being burning, it would itself be suffering. That contradicts its nature entirely.
Background Note: “Destruction” is used as a metaphor for nibbana because the cessation that is nibbana serves as the decisive support for the path that destroys defilements. Nibbana itself is not a process of destroying. Its extreme subtlety is shown by the fact that even the Buddha initially hesitated to teach it, and only a Noble One’s eye can see it.
Question: Is nibbana the same kind of permanence claimed for the atom by other philosophers?
Answer: No. Those claims have never been established as fact. Nibbana is permanent precisely because it is uncreated — it has no cause that brings about its arising, and therefore it has no ageing and no death.
Nibbana is immaterial. It transcends the nature of matter. The Buddhas’ goal is one, without plurality. But this single goal is spoken of in two ways:
- With remainder — when an Arahant is still alive, nibbana is spoken of together with the remaining aggregates from past clinging.
- Without remainder — after the Arahant’s last moment of consciousness, no further aggregates arise. The remaining result of past clinging is gone.
Because it can be arrived at through wisdom perfected by tireless effort, and because it is the word of the Omniscient One, nibbana is not non-existent. As the Buddha said: “There is an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unformed.”
The Truth of the Way
The way leading to the cessation of suffering has eight factors. Here is how they work together in a single moment of the noble path:
Right View
When a meditator progresses toward penetrating the four truths, understanding with nibbana as its object eliminates the tendency to ignorance. This is right view. Its characteristic is correct seeing. Its function is to reveal the elements of reality. It shows up as the end of the darkness of ignorance.
Right Thinking
The directing of the mind onto nibbana, associated with right view, abolishes wrong thinking. Its characteristic is correct directing of the mind. Its function is to bring about the path consciousness’s absorption in nibbana. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong thinking.
Right Speech
Abstinence from wrong speech, associated with right view, cuts off harmful verbal conduct. Its characteristic is embracing. Its function is to abstain. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong speech.
Right Action
Abstinence from killing and other bodily misconduct, associated with right view, cuts off wrong action. Its characteristic is originating wholesome conduct. Its function is to abstain. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong action.
Right Livelihood
Abstinence from wrong livelihood, associated with right view, cuts off scheming and the rest. Its characteristic is cleansing. Its function is to bring about a proper livelihood. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong livelihood.
Right Effort
Energy in conformity with right view cuts off laziness. Its characteristic is exerting. Its function is the non-arousing of unwholesome states and the rest. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong effort.
Right Mindfulness
Non-forgetfulness associated with right view shakes off wrong mindfulness. Its characteristic is establishing. Its function is not to forget. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong mindfulness.
Right Concentration
Unification of mind associated with right view abolishes wrong concentration. Its characteristic is non-distraction. Its function is to unify. It shows up as the abandoning of wrong concentration.
How Knowledge Works with the Truths
Knowledge of the truths is twofold:
- Knowledge as idea — mundane understanding gained through hearing and reflection about cessation and the path.
- Knowledge as penetration — supramundane understanding that directly penetrates all four truths by making cessation its object. Whoever sees suffering also sees its origin, its cessation, and the way to that cessation.
When this knowledge is mundane, it overcomes wrong views:
- Knowledge of suffering forestalls the view of a permanent self in the aggregates
- Knowledge of origin forestalls wrong theories of cause — such as “The world exists because of an Almighty Creator, a First Principle, Time, or Nature”
- Knowledge of cessation forestalls wrong theories of liberation — such as taking the formless realms to be final release
- Knowledge of the path forestalls wrong theories of practice — such as taking indulgence in pleasure or self-mortification to be the way to purification
As long as a man is vague about the world, About its origin, about its ceasing, About the means that lead to its cessation, So long he cannot recognise the truths.
How the Path Factors Map to the Three Trainings
The Noble Eightfold Path is included in the three aggregates of training:
- Virtue aggregate: Right speech, right action, right livelihood
- Concentration aggregate: Right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration
- Understanding aggregate: Right view, right thinking
Here is a simile. Three friends entered a park to celebrate a festival. One saw a champak tree in full blossom but couldn’t reach the flowers by raising his hand. The second bent down for the first to climb on his back. But standing on his back, the first was still too unsteady to pick the flowers. So the third offered his shoulder as support. Standing on one friend’s back and steadying himself on the other’s shoulder, the first picked as many flowers as he wanted and went off to enjoy the festival.
It is the same with the path. Concentration cannot achieve absorption by itself. But when energy accomplishes its function of exerting, and mindfulness accomplishes its function of preventing wobbling, concentration can bring about absorption. In the concentration aggregate, only concentration is included as being of the same kind. Energy and mindfulness are included because of their assisting action.
Similarly, understanding cannot define an object as impermanent, painful, and not-self by itself. But with applied thought repeatedly hitting and turning over the object — like a money-changer turning a coin with his fingers to examine every side — understanding can take anything and define it. In the understanding aggregate, only right view is of the same kind. Right thinking is included because of its assisting action.
Similes for the Four Truths
The truths can be understood through many images:
- Suffering is a burden; origin is taking it up; cessation is putting it down; the path is the means to put it down.
- Suffering is a disease; origin is the cause of the disease; cessation is the cure; the path is the medicine.
- Suffering is a famine; origin is a drought; cessation is plenty; the path is timely rain.
- Suffering is a poison tree; origin is the tree’s root; cessation is cutting the root; the path is the means to cut it.
- Suffering is the near shore; origin is the great flood; cessation is the far shore; the path is the effort to reach it.
The Truths Are Void
In the ultimate sense, all four truths are void:
For there is suffering, but none who suffers; Doing exists although there is no doer. Extinction is but no extinguished person; Although there is a path, there is no goer.
The first two truths are void of permanence, beauty, pleasure, and self. Cessation is void of self. The path is void of permanence, pleasure, and self.
Furthermore, the cause is void of the result — suffering is not found inside the origin, and cessation is not found inside the path. The cause is not pregnant with its fruit. And the result is void of the cause — the origin does not inhere in suffering, and the path does not inhere in cessation.
Similar and Dissimilar
All four truths are similar in being real, void of self, and difficult to penetrate. As the Buddha told Ananda:
“Which is more difficult — to shoot an arrow through a small keyhole from a distance, time after time without missing? Or to penetrate the tip of a hair split a hundred times with the tip of a similar hair?”
“The hair-tip, venerable sir.”
“They penetrate something more difficult than that, Ananda, who correctly penetrate: ‘This is suffering… This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.’”
The first two truths are similar in being mundane. The last two are similar in being supramundane. The first and third are similar in being results. The second and fourth are similar in being causes. The first and fourth are similar in being conditioned. The second and third are similar in being neither-training-nor-non-training.
Yet each truth is dissimilar from the others when defined by its own individual characteristic.
A man of vision can apply By suchlike means his talent so That he among the truths may know The similar and contrary.
This is the sixteenth chapter, “The Description of the Faculties and Truths,” in the section on the Development of Understanding in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.