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The Four Noble Truths - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 04, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

The Four Noble Truths

I will begin this new year with a story to set up the topic. Many years ago, I met a woman who told me about her teenage years growing up in Menlo Park, close to here. In the mid-sixties, Menlo Park was one of the epicenters for the LSD, psychedelic, and rock and roll movement. The Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey with his Magic Bus got started there. It was a historically significant place.

This woman and two friends had heard there was a Zen master in San Francisco who could teach you how to get high without drugs. So, they found their way up to see Shunryu Suzuki Roshi¹, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. He was at a little Japanese temple in Japantown.

When they arrived, he answered the door, and they told him why they were there: to get high without drugs. He was delighted to see them. He took them to the meditation hall, sat them down, and gave them a talk on the Four Noble Truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the way to the end of suffering.

[Laughter]

This is not what they came for. But Suzuki Roshi was so happy telling them about suffering. They had never encountered someone like this. Because of that encounter, she became a lifetime Zen student.

Better Questions

As we start this new year, my resolution is to remember how little I know and to see if I can ask better questions as I go through the year. Maybe that can be the theme of the year: better questions rather than better answers.

The custom here at the Insight Meditation Center is for the first talk of the year to be on the Four Noble Truths. I probably won't be as happy as Suzuki Roshi, but happiness is the context for the whole discussion of these truths and of suffering.

I have given this talk for about 25 years now. I find myself curious about what I am going to say this year because my understanding has changed, my life has changed, and the world has changed. This basic, simple formula of the Four Noble Truths gets applied, understood, and questioned in new ways as we go along. It is a wonderful reference point for a Buddhist life: to have deeper reflections about suffering, the arising and cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way to the cessation of suffering.

See these as questions to ask yourself and keep coming back to. I want to present this as a journey. The more I study the ancient teachings of the Buddha, the more they seem very journey-focused. The equivalent word for religion in Buddhism would be the word magga² in Pali (or marga in Sanskrit), meaning "path." It is a journey we are on.

The First Noble Truth: Suffering

The journey begins with an honest assessment of suffering. The question to be asked is: "How am I suffering today? What is my suffering here?"

The word "suffering" in English is a big word. Some people are troubled by using it because they feel only catastrophic events qualify as suffering. One English translator prefers to translate the Pali word, which is dukkha³, as "stress," because stress is applicable everywhere. I have been told that one of the most stressful things that can happen in a person's life is marriage—or at least the marriage ceremony. You wouldn't necessarily call it suffering, but you might be willing to say, "Oh yeah, that was stressful."

Another teacher I practiced with wanted to translate dukkha as "anguish." I protested, but it is interesting that he wanted to do that. So, what is suffering? How are you suffering? Are you stressed? Are you uncomfortable? Are you uneasy?

The bumper sticker for Buddhists would be: "I Brake for Suffering." I said that once, and the next time I came to the center, someone had made a pile of bumper stickers for me. But we stop for suffering not to suffer better, but to know suffering better—to recognize it, to question it, to put a question mark next to it.

This means we have to stop long enough to consider, "Am I stressed out here? Am I uneasy about something?" It is easy to override it. It is easy to have priorities, purposes, and challenges that seem so big that we don't pay attention to the impact on us personally. To live a Buddhist life is to live a contemplative, reflective, mindful life where you take time to recognize how you are at any given time.

You are the instrument. You want to get finely tuned. If you don't tune your instrument, you go through the world making very bad music.

We ask the question: "Am I suffering? What is my relationship to how uneasy I feel?" Often, we don't want to feel it. We want to do anything but feel our suffering. We distract ourselves, we find someone to blame—anything that takes us away from feeling what we are feeling. The question is, is that useful? What is a helpful way to be with suffering?

Turning Off the Radio

There was a common story from friends of mine who used to teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). They would teach in hospitals, usually for people with intense pain. One of the things patients were told is that when you have a lot of pain, you want to stop and really feel it—be with it. People would get furious. "I'm here not to suffer, not to feel more pain!" Some people would leave and never come back because the idea of stopping and looking at the distress goes completely against the grain of what people think a good life is.

There was a lovely Peanuts cartoon many years ago where Charlie Brown and Linus are talking. Charlie says, "So you don't think my father knows how to fix cars?" Linus replies, "Oh, he knows what to do. We were traveling recently and there was a loud banging sound coming out of the engine." Charlie asks, "Don't tell me he stopped and fixed it?" Linus says, "No, he turned up the radio."

[Laughter]

The Buddhist way is to turn the radio off. To stop. One way to do that is to have contemplative time. I use that as a richer, wider word than meditation. Maybe you go for a walk, have tea, or observe a Sabbath. But stop to learn how to be present for what is uncomfortable. Don't run away.

The more you are able to stop, recognize, and find a healthier way to be with your stress, the more you cultivate the very kind of attention you need to be present for your happiness and well-being. That also needs to be felt and known in a deep way. You can't deny one and expect to have the other. You can't avoid your stress and expect to truly feel happiness. The only way to do that is "distracted happiness"—keeping yourself so busy and stimulated that you don't notice how you are. That is happiness from being disassociated, which is only good as long as you stay distracted.

A Lesson in Compassion

Years ago, during the early years of my Zen practice, my meditation was very difficult. I had a lot of physical pain. I would ask myself: "What if the difficulty I am experiencing now is forever?"

Asking it that way shifted my whole orientation. If it is forever, I won't fight it. I won't get lost looking for the cause or trying to engineer my way out of it. If it is forever, maybe I will just make more space for it. Maybe I will open to feel it more. Maybe I will allow it. Slowly, I learned to be with my suffering much better than I had growing up.

The unexpected consequence was that this accepting, open non-resistance started to change me. It imperceptibly touched something in my heart, and my capacity for compassion grew. I didn't get "enlightened" through Zen practice, but I became compassionate. That was one of the great transformations for me. I don't know if my suffering was solved, but I received this great gift from being present for it.

The Second Noble Truth: The Cause of Suffering

The Second Noble Truth is that there are conditions and causes for the arising of suffering. If you don't go quickly looking for the cause—which is why you spend time with the First Noble Truth—at some point, it begins opening up. You ask, "What are the conditions present here for me?"

Some people answer that quickly by blaming others: my parents, my partner, the world. Sometimes, in a certain way, they are responsible. We don't want to let everyone off the hook. But that is not the Buddhist question. The Buddhist question is: "What am I contributing to my suffering?"

Even if 99% of it is caused by others, that 1% is your contribution. That is where you have agency. That is where you have the capacity to look, question, shift, and let go. Chances are, your contribution is more than 1%. It is a really good investment to stop and take a good look.

The answer the Buddha gives for this personal anguish is something called taṇhā⁴, often translated as craving. Literally, it means "thirst." It is a psychological thirst, a drive, a compulsion, or an attachment.

What is my attachment here? What am I thirsting for? What compulsion is operating?

For me, I had a strong compulsion to not have suffering—to get away from it. I would pull away, go into fantasy, and distract myself. That was how I was contributing to it: avoiding it at all costs. Once I saw that, I could stop and look deeper. I had to look at my anger, my fear, my desires.

Meditators get a front-row seat to see this because we sit quietly enough to observe the repetitive nature of the mind. We see what we keep looping back to: desires, aversions, resentments, fantasies. "I want this, this has to happen, this shouldn't happen." seeing this repetitiveness finally gets our attention. "Wait a minute, it is only 7:00 in the morning and I have had this desire 64 times."

[Laughter]

Once we start looking at the conditions inside of us, we find multiple layers. As we go deeper, we learn to let go. We learn not to believe some of these strong impulses. I have learned that I am capable of having a lot of desires. I describe myself as having desires that are "a dime a dozen"—probably even more now with inflation. But I have learned to let them pass through. I don't pick them up. I don't invest in them. "Easy come, easy go." Before, they would grab me by the throat and wouldn't let go.

The Third Noble Truth: The Cessation of Suffering

The Third Noble Truth is the cessation of suffering—the end of it. This is the Buddhist good news: it is possible to bring suffering to an end. Why should we end it? Because then we can be happy and peaceful. The absence of suffering is not neutrality; it is a profound form of happiness.

You could turn the Four Noble Truths around:

1. The Truth of Happiness: What questions can you ask that are useful regarding happiness?
2. The Cause of Happiness: What are the conditions for happiness? How would you change your life to support it?
3. The Growth of Happiness: Not the cessation, but the spread of happiness.

But regarding the cessation of suffering, the image I would like to offer is that the mind is sometimes like a raging storm on the water. Many years ago, I was sailing across a big sea. There was a raging storm with twenty-foot waves. It was intense. That was a time when "being attached" was necessary—I had to have a good grip on the boat to stay on!

[Laughter]

Slowly, the storm stopped. The wind died down, and at some point, the ocean was completely placid. Imagine the surface of a mountain lake at dawn—completely still, reflecting the mountains, phenomenally peaceful.

When the lake is that calm, if a little fish jumps or a turtle sticks its head out, you see it clearly. You see the ripples. You cannot see those details in a raging storm. When the storms of the mind quiet down, we see the subtle things: the small thoughts, desires, impulses, and joys. Those small things are not inconsequential; they are some of the most profound aspects of our life. That is where we begin finding an alternative way to "get high"—to discover what supports happiness.

Ideally, you can see meditation time as an alternative time. You aren't just bringing your life as it is, with all its confusion and stories, into the practice. You see meditation as a time to recognize whatever degree of safety and peace is present here and now. Right now, my little toe is not challenged by anything. It is completely safe. Maybe my ankle, my calves, or my back ribcage feel at ease. Where do you find some modicum of ease?

This isn't to ignore the suffering out there, but to find a way to quiet the surface of the lake so you can see more clearly. If the lake is calm, you can begin the journey of the Four Noble Truths again. "Where is my unease now? Oh, I am a little uneasy in the back corner of my mind. I didn't know that."

The Fourth Noble Truth: The Path

The Fourth Noble Truth is the way to the cessation of suffering: the Eightfold Path. There are two ways of understanding it. The first is that these are the practices to do to end suffering. The second, which I want to emphasize, is that these are the practices that express the peace and wisdom you have already found.

Once you have found some modicum of peace, the question is: "How do I want to live now? How do I come out of this in a way that I can live differently?"

We have to shift something.

• Right View: This is the first step. It means remembering this journey of the Four Noble Truths. Keep coming back to these questions rather than focusing on how to win the lottery or which stock to invest in.
• Right Intention: You start discovering that the orientation of the inner life, in its quietness, is more towards kindness than meanness. It is more towards compassion than cruelty. It is towards letting go of craving. Stay close to that.
• Right Speech: How do you speak if you want to speak in harmony with your inner peace? You speak from a place of safety, not fear. A common question I get is about workplace gossip. People say, "I don't want to gossip anymore, but that is the medium of conversation. How do I manage?" I love that question.
• Right Action: Behavioral change. You realize it doesn't feel good to kill people. "What are we going to do Saturday? Not that." [Laughter] We are not going to steal, and we are not going to cause harm through our sexual life. These are huge areas of suffering in the world. There is an internal reference point now that says, "No thank you."
• Right Livelihood: Is the way I am supported ethical?
• Mental Discipline: The last three factors (Effort, Mindfulness, Concentration) have to do with giving care to what we are doing with our mind. Watching thoughts and impulses to understand what is healthy.

This is a spiral or iterative process. We start again at the beginning: "Where is my suffering?" Each time we go around, it takes us deeper, finding our way to greater freedom.

May you remember these Four Noble Truths and think of them as a recipe for happiness. Find ways to engage with them by asking good questions. May just having good questions create more peace, space, and well-being for you as you go through this year.