on the truths

sacca samyutta

Saṃyutta Nikāya 56 of 56

Translated by: Bhikkhu Sujato
Read by: Roland Kitchen

Description

The “Linked Discourses on the Truths” contains 131 discourses on the four noble truths: suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path. These formed the main subject of the Buddha’s first discourse, which is included here as SN 56.11. The Buddha said that all of his teaching was comprised within the four noble truths. Indeed, the overall structure of the main doctrinal Saṁyuttas can be seen as an expanded example of this: The sections on the Aggregates and the Sense Fields deal with the first noble truth; Dependent Origination deals with the second and third; and the chapters on the Path deal with the final truth. This chapter thus provides an overall perspective on the other teachings, and the chapter occurs at the end just as the realization of the four noble truths emerges from the path.