The study of Buddhism begins with the study of the Four Noble Truths. You might think of the Four Truths as a basic outline of all the Buddha’s teaching.

The First Noble Truth is about dukkha, a word that means stressful, painful, and unable to satisfy. Life is dukkha, the Buddha said. The Second Noble Truth explains craving, the origin of dukkha.

The Third Noble Truth tells us that we don’t have to remain stuck in this unsatisfactory state. The Buddha said, “And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha: the remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very craving.”

The Path of Liberation

A superficial, but common, interpretation of the Four Noble Truths is that life is awful, it is awful because we have desires, and if we can get rid of our desires we will be enlightened and happy and go to Buddha Heaven. If you have studied the first and second Truths you already know there’s more to it than that.

The first point to understand about the Third Noble Truth is that craving cannot be tossed away by force of will. You cannot just tell yourself, “Okay, from now on I won’t crave anything.” This won’t work, because the conditions that give rise to craving will still be present.

The next point is that merely believing in the Four Noble Truths won’t help you, either. You must thoroughly investigate the Truths for yourself. Contemplate them and observe them in your everyday life. Be willing to learn through experience and not just intellect. Be open to insights that might surprise you.

Renunciation

The English word renunciation means to reject or cast away something. Buddhist texts in English use the word renunciation often, for lack of a better word, but in the context of Buddhism it means something else.

Renunciation in Buddhism happens when, because of insight, the things that bind us to dukkha naturally fall away. That’s why contemplation, investigation, and insight are so important.

The Second Noble Truth tells us that we cling to things we believe will make us happy or keep us safe, but by clinging we bind ourselves to dukkha. It is only when we see this for ourselves that we can begin to let go. But when we see it, the letting go is easy. It is an act of liberation rather than penance. The craving will seem to disappear of its own accord.

The Buddha said, “If, by forsaking a limited ease, he would see an abundance of ease, the enlightened man would forsake the limited ease for the sake of the abundant.” (Dhammapada, verse 290, Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

Nirvana

The Buddha said that “the extinction of thirst [craving] is Nirvana.” (Or, in Pali, Nibbana.) Many newcomers to Sanskrit imagine Nirvana to be something like heaven. But the word actually means “to extinguish,” as in extinguishing a fire.

That may sound unappealing. To appreciate the meaning of the word nirvana, it’s important to understand how fire was understood in the Buddha’s time and culture. Fire was considered to be an element that was always present, but it only became visible as flames when it was attached to fuel. When not attached to fuel, fire still existed but in a transformed state.

In the same way, the Buddha taught that when attachment to craving ends, the fire of dukkha is extinguished. The state of the former sufferer is transformed. This transformed state is so different from common human experience that it cannot be imagined, the Buddha said.

Walking the Way

To review, the first three Truths tell us that life is incapable of satisfying us for very long. It is stressful, even painful, and impermanent. We feel this stress because we are attached to craving, and this attachment is the result of a delusional, self-centered perspective. If we gain insight into the nature of life and realize for ourselves how our own mental habits are causing our problems, the craving falls away.

That’s grand, you might think, but how is this transformation accomplished? The “how” is addressed in the Fourth Noble Truth.

[This is an article I wrote for the Buddhism section of About.com. However, since About.com has removed it from their servers, all rights revert to me.]