Sixteen Aspects of the Four Noble Truths

Buddha turning the Wheel of Dharma for the first time

Sixteen Aspects of the Four Noble Truths (Wyl. bdag med rnam pa bcu drug or bden chung bcu drug)

Suffering
1. Suffering (Tib. སྡུག་བསྔལ་བ་, Skt. duḥkha)
2. Impermanence (Tib. མི་རྟག་པ་, Skt. anitya)
3. Emptiness (Tib. སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་, Skt. śūnyatā)
4. Selflessness (Tib. བདག་མེད་པ་, Skt. anātmaka)

Origination
5. Cause (Tib. རྒྱུ་, Skt. hetu)
6. Origination (Tib. ཀུན་འབྱུང་, Skt.samudaya)
7. Intense Arising (Tib. རབ་སྐྱེས་, Skt. prabhava)
8. Condition (Tib. རྐྱེན་, Skt. pratyaya)

Cessation
9. Peace (Tib. ཞི་བ་, Skt. śānta)
10. Cessation (Tib. འགོག་པ་, Skt. nirodha)
11. Perfection (Tib. གྱ་ནོམ་པ་, Skt. praṇīta)
12. True Deliverance (Tib. ངེས་འབྱུང་, Skt. niḥsaraṇa; Tib. nges 'byung)

Path
13. Path (Tib. ལམ་, Skt. mārga)
14. Appropriate (Tib. རིགས་པ་, Skt. nyāya)
15. Effective (Tib. སྒྲུབས་པ་, Skt. pratipatti)
16. Truly Delivering (Tib. ངེས་འབྱིན་པ་, Skt. nairyāṇika)

The Sixteen Aspects as Remedies for Wrong Views

In his General Topics commentary on the Abhisamayalankara, Patrul Rinpoche explains:
You may wonder why there are sixteen aspects. The first four are the remedies for engaging in the views of permanence, bliss, mine, and self respectively. The second four are the remedies for the views of there being no cause, a single cause, transformation, and premeditation. The third four are the remedies for the views of thinking that there is no liberation, that suffering is liberation, that the bliss of the dhyānas is perfection, and that liberation is not absolutely irreversible. The fourth four are the remedies for the views of thinking that there is no path, that this path is bad, that there are other paths, and that this path is also reversible. Therefore, because of these sixteen wrong views, there are sixteen aspects.

Further Reading

• Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness pages 292-304 (Wisdom Publications) ISBN 0-86171-110-6

External Links

• A Brief Overview of the Three Turnings by Khenpo Pema Vajra