The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11) is the Buddha’s first discourse, given to his five former companions at the Deer Park in Isipatana, near Bārāṇasī. Its title means “setting in motion the wheel of the Dhamma”. In a few short pages it contains the core of everything the Buddha would teach for the next forty-five years. Theravāda Buddhists remember it on Esala Poya, the full moon of July.
The setting
After his awakening at Bodh Gayā, the Buddha considered who could understand what he had found. His two former teachers had died, so he thought of the five ascetics — Koṇḍañña, Vappa, Bhaddiya, Mahānāma and Assaji — who had served him during his years of austerity, and walked to find them. According to the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta (MN 26), when they saw him coming they agreed not to greet him, since he had “given up the struggle”. But as he approached, they could not keep their resolve. They prepared a seat and listened.
The Middle Way
The Buddha begins with two extremes that a person who has gone forth should not follow:
Dve me, bhikkhave, antā pabbajitena na sevitabbā.
Monks, these two extremes should not be followed by one who has gone forth. — SN 56.11
The first is indulgence in sense pleasures, which he calls low, common, worldly, ignoble and unprofitable. The second is self-torment, which is painful, ignoble and equally unprofitable. Both extremes were familiar to his listeners: the Buddha had lived the first as a prince and the second as an ascetic. Avoiding both, he discovered a Middle Way that gives vision and knowledge, and leads to peace, direct knowing, awakening and Nibbāna. That Middle Way is the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
The Four Noble Truths
He then explains the Four Noble Truths:
- Suffering (dukkha). Birth, ageing, sickness and death are suffering; so are sorrow, grief and despair, being joined with what is disliked, being parted from what is loved, and not getting what one wants. In brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.
- The origin of suffering. It is craving, which leads to renewed existence, bound up with delight and lust, finding pleasure here and there: craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence and craving for non-existence.
- The cessation of suffering. It is the complete fading away and ending of that same craving — letting it go, releasing it, being free of it.
- The path leading to the cessation of suffering. It is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Twelve aspects of knowledge
Next comes a part of the sutta that is easy to overlook. For each truth the Buddha describes three stages of knowledge: knowing the truth itself; knowing what must be done about it; and knowing that this has been done. Suffering is to be fully understood; its origin, craving, is to be abandoned; its cessation is to be realised; and the path is to be developed. Four truths, each with three stages, make twelve aspects. The Buddha says that only when his knowledge of all twelve was completely purified did he claim to have reached unsurpassed awakening.
This shows that the Four Noble Truths are not just beliefs to accept. Each one calls for a particular task, and practice means doing those tasks.
The first disciple
As the Buddha spoke, the monk Koṇḍañña gained the “eye of Dhamma”, the first direct seeing of the truth, which made him a stream-enterer. He understood:
Yaṃ kiñci samudayadhammaṃ, sabbaṃ taṃ nirodhadhammaṃ.
Whatever is subject to arising is subject to cessation. — SN 56.11
The sutta tells how the earth-dwelling devas cried out that the wheel of Dhamma had been set in motion and could not be stopped by anyone in the world, and the cry passed up through the heavens to the Brahmā world. The Buddha exclaimed, “Koṇḍañña has indeed understood!” — and so the monk became known as Aññā Koṇḍañña, “Koṇḍañña who understood”. The other four reached the same insight in the following days, and soon afterwards, on hearing the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, all five became arahants.
A common misunderstanding
People sometimes summarise this sutta as “life is suffering” and conclude that Buddhism is pessimistic. But the first truth is only the diagnosis. The third truth declares that suffering can end, and the fourth gives a practical way to end it. Like a good doctor, the Buddha names the illness honestly so that it can be cured. The whole teaching is, in the end, a message of hope.
Reflection: the next time you feel discontent, try applying the four tasks. Can you understand this suffering, rather than run from it? Can you see the craving behind it and let it go, even a little? Notice the moment of relief that follows — a small taste of the third truth.
