1st Truth
The etymology of "dukkha" — "du" meaning bad or ill-fitting, "kkha" meaning empty or space — gives rise to this image
What is "An Ox Cart Wheel"?
The Pali word tanha literally means this — pointing to a bottomless, unquenchable longing that can never be fully satisfied.
What is insatiable thirst?
Nibbana cools the fires of reactivity — and these are the three fires it extinguishes, known as the three poisons or roots of all unwholesome karma.
What are greed, hatred, and delusion?
Smith and Novak describe the Buddha not as a metaphysician but more like this type of professional — someone who diagnoses a problem and prescribes a cure.
What is a doctor (or physician, psychologist)?
The Buddha delivered his first teaching to five companions at this location — the Pali name for the place, or its English equivalent, will be accepted.
What is Isipatana, the Deer Park, or Baranasi?
Birth, aging, sickness, and death — the Buddha named these in his first teaching as unavoidable examples of this flavor of dukkha: the built-in, universal pain of being human.
What is dukkha dukkha?
This flavor of tanha is a craving for sense-input — a craving for pleasant sights, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes, and thoughts.
What is kamma tanha?
She let it go, let it go — and so did the Buddha. The Four Noble Truths aren't just facts to understand but four tasks to practice, captured by this acronym shared with a famous Disney queen. Extra points if you can name all 4.
What is E.L.S.A. (Embrace, Let go, See the freedom, Act)?
This ancient Indian king, who ruled between 268 and 232 BCE, converted to Buddhism and became its greatest royal champion — spreading the faith across Asia.
Who is Ashoka?
There are beings with this in their eyes — the Buddha was told by a divine voice that persuaded him to teach.
What is "little dust" (little dust in their eyes)?
the flavor of viparinama dukkha arises not from pain itself but from the nature of this?
What is the impermanence of pleasant experiences?
The teaching on the Worldly Winds lists eight experiences that both the trained practitioner and untaught worldling encounter. Name four of the eight.
What is pleasure, pain, gain, loss, praise, blame, status, disgrace (any four)?
The word nibbana was originally a cooking term that described this everyday action — used to evoke the cooling down of the fires of reactivity.
What is pulling a boiling pot off a fire?
At 16,000 pages, the Pali Canon — also known by this name, meaning "Three Baskets" — is 13 times larger than the Christian Bible.
What is the Tipitaka (or Tripitaka)?
The Middle Path avoids two dead ends. Name both.
What is addiction to pleasure through indulging in sensuality, and addiction to self-punishment?
This flavor of dukkha is the mind-made layer of suffering — the worry, rumination, and narrative the mind constructs on top of experience. Its name literally means "that which comes together.
What is sankhara dukkha?
This flavor of tanha is a craving to not exist as you currently are — a longing to escape your present sense of self entirely.
What is vibhava tanha?
The Eightfold Path is organized into three groups — Wisdom, Ethics, and Concentration. Name all three in Pali.
What is Panna, Sila, and Samadhi?
Mahayana traditions coined the term "Hinayana" to describe Theravada Buddhism. Translated into English, Hinayana means this — which is why most scholars have dropped the term as derogatory.
What is "lesser vehicle" (lower vehicle also accepted)?
After hearing the Buddha's first teaching, Kondanna was the first to attain the dhamma eye — making him the first person to reach this stage of awakening in the Buddha's dispensation.
What is stream entry (sotapanna)?
Bhikkhu Bodhi says the search for a genuine spiritual path begins not with lights and ecstasy, but when suffering triggers this — a perception that pierces through our usual complacency to glimpse the insecurity perpetually gaping underfoot.
Unlike tanha, this Pali word describes a wholesome type of desire — a sincere wish or aspiration that arises from wisdom rather than craving, and is fundamental to progress on the Eightfold Path.
What is chanda?
According to the Theravada teaching on awakening, a stream enterer has cut away the first three of the ten fetters - doubt, self-centeredness, and this type of clinging?
what is "clinging to rites and rituals"?
Theravada, Mahayana, and this third major tradition — sometimes called the Diamond Vehicle — represents the third great branch of Buddhism
What is Vajrayana?
The Buddha's first teaching is recorded in this sutta — whose name translates to 'Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma.
What is the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta?