Overview of Buddhism as the Basis of the Six Perfections

The Two Truths and the Four Noble Truths 

Indian religions vary among those that (1) do or do not rely on cause and effect over previous lives, (2) do or do not aim at liberation and (3) do or do not rely on internal or external means to achieve it. There is also a nihilist and eternalist division possible regarding the self. In Buddhism, we posit, instead, a self that is an imputation phenomenon on the basis of the aggregates and that aims for liberation.

There are two types of distorted views (log-lta) about the self and about all phenomena that need to be refuted: the repudiation that denies what exists and the interpolation that adds what does not exist to what does exist. To refute the first, Buddha taught conventional, superficial truth. To refute the second, Buddha taught deepest truth, the void nature of conventional truth. We need these two truths – the conventional and the deepest truths – and both require the backing of valid cognition. 

There are the four noble truths, taught during the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, which first establish the actual situation of what exists, namely the state of true suffering in which limited beings find themselves. We see that the true cause of this suffering is our holding these two types of distorted views. To attain their true cessation (true stopping), we need the true pathway mind (true path) of valid cognition of the two truths on the basis of all phenomena. Thus, the second turning of the wheel, where the Buddha propounded the third and fourth noble truths, supplements the first where he taught the first and second. In this second turning, Buddha also taught about the two truths in relation to the basis, path and its result.

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