佛陀教导了什么？什么是四圣谛？

A Dharma Wheel engraved on the hand of a Buddha sculpture. | Source: The Art Institute of Chicago, via Unsplash
佛像手上刻有法轮。 |资料来源：芝加哥艺术学院，来自 Unsplash

The Buddha had a lot to say about how to understand life. After his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, he gave his first sermons to his disciples, teaching about the nature of suffering and the path to ending suffering.
关于如何理解生命，佛陀有很多说法。在菩提树下成道后，他第一次为弟子说法，教导苦的本质和灭苦之道。

Over this lifetime, the Buddha offered a detailed and wide-ranging set of teachings that would ultimately be codified in what we now call Buddhism. Collectively, these teachings are known as the dharma or buddha - dharma. As his teachings spread, they picked up parts of local religious traditions and cultures and naturally adapted to reflect that.
在这一生中，佛陀提供了一套详细而广泛的教义，这些教义最终被编入我们现在所说的佛教中。总的来说，这些教义被称为佛法或佛法。随着他的教义的传播，他们吸收了当地宗教传统和文化的一部分，并自然地进行了调整以反映这一点。

The Buddha’s teachings span the nature of mind and emotions, the nature of suffering and the path to ending suffering, guidelines for living ethically, cosmology and the nature of reality, the possibility of achieving nirvana, and instructions for mind-training practices like meditation.
佛陀的教义涵盖心灵和情感的本质、痛苦的本质和结束痛苦的道路、道德生活的指导方针、宇宙论和现实的本质、实现涅槃的可能性，以及冥想等心灵训练实践的指导。

At the heart of the Buddhist teachings are the eightfold path and the four noble truths, which is where this deck begins. From the four noble truths to the Middle Way to the law of karma, here are some of the Buddha’s most central teachings.
佛教教义的核心是八正道和四圣谛，这也是本套牌的开始。从四圣谛到中道再到业力法则，以下是佛陀的一些最核心的教义。

The four noble truths: Discover the Buddha’s foundational teachings on the nature of suffering—and the path to its cessation.
四圣谛：探索佛陀关于苦的本质及其止息之道的基本教义。

What are the four noble truths?

什么是四圣谛？

In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths ( Sanskrit: चतुरार्यसत्यानि, romanized: caturāryasatyāni ; Pali: caturāriyasaccāni; "The Four Arya Satya") are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones". The truths are:

在佛教中，四圣谛（梵文：चतुरार्यसत्यानि，罗马字：caturāryasatyāni；巴利文：caturāriyasaccāni；「四圣谛」）是「圣者的真理」，「精神上值得的人」的真理或现实。事实是：

The four truths appear in many grammatical forms in the ancient Buddhist texts, and are traditionally identified as the first teaching given by the Buddha. While often called one of the most important teachings in Buddhism, they have both a symbolic and a propositional function. Symbolically, they represent the awakening and liberation of the Buddha, and of the potential for his followers to reach the same liberation and freedom as him. As propositions, the Four Truths are a conceptual framework that appear in the Pali canon and early Hybrid Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures, as a part of the broader "network of teachings" (the " dhamma matrix"), which have to be taken together. They provide a conceptual framework for introducing and explaining Buddhist thought, which has to be personally understood or "experienced".

四谛以多种语法形式出现在古代佛教经典中，传统上被认为是佛陀所传授的第一教义。 虽然通常被称为佛教中最重要的教义之一， 既具有象征性功能，又具有命题性功能。 从象征意义上讲，它们代表了佛陀的觉醒和解脱，以及佛陀追随者获得与佛陀同样的解脱和自由的潜力。 作为命题，四谛是巴利经典和早期混合梵文佛教经典中出现的概念框架， 作为更广泛的「教义网络」 （「佛法矩阵」）的一部分， 必须将它们放在一起. 它们提供了一个介绍和解释佛教思想的概念框架，必须亲自理解或「体验」。

As a proposition, the four truths defy an exact definition, but refer to and express the basic orientation of Buddhism: unguarded sensory contact gives rise to craving and clinging to impermanent states and things, which are dukkha , "unsatisfactory," "incapable of satisfying" and painful. This craving keeps us caught in saṃsāra ,"wandering", usually interpreted as the endless cycle of repeated rebirth, and the continued dukkha that comes with it, but also referring to the endless cycle of attraction and rejection that perpetuates the ego-mind.

here is a way to end this cycle, namely by attaining nirvana , cessation of craving, whereafter rebirth and the accompanying dukkha will no longer arise again. This can be accomplished by following the eightfold path, confining our automatic responses to sensory contact by restraining oneself, cultivating discipline and wholesome states, and practicing mindfulness and dhyana (meditation).

作为一个命题，四谛没有一个确切的定义，但它指的是并表达了佛教的基本方向： 不受保护的感官接触引起对无常状态和事物的贪爱和执着， 这是苦，「不满意」， 「无法满足」 并且痛苦。 这种渴望让我们陷入轮回， 「徘徊」，通常被解释为重复重生的无休止循环， 以及随之而来的持续的苦， 但也指使自我心智永存的吸引和拒绝的无休止循环。 有一种方法可以结束这个循环, 即证得涅槃、灭尽贪爱，此后重生和随之而来的苦将不再生起。这可以通过遵循八正道来实现， 限制我们的自动通过克制自己、培养戒律和善的状态、练习正念和禅定来对感官接触做出反应。

The function of the four truths, and their importance, developed over time and the Buddhist tradition slowly recognized them as the Buddha's first teaching. This tradition was established when prajna , or "liberating insight", came to be regarded as liberating in itself, instead of or in addition to the practice of dhyana . [39] This "liberating insight" gained a prominent place in the sutras, and the four truths came to represent this liberating insight, as a part of the enlightenment story of the Buddha.

四圣谛的功能及其重要性随着时间的推移而发展，佛教传统慢慢地承认它们是佛陀的第一个教义。当般若（或「解脱洞察力」）被认为是解脱的时候，这个传统就建立了。 代替或补充禅定的修行。这种「解脱观」在佛经中占据了显着的位置，而四谛则代表了这种解脱观，作为佛法的一部分。佛陀的成道故事。

The four truths grew to be of central importance in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism by about the 5th-century CE, which holds that the insight into the four truths is liberating in itself. They are less prominent in the Mahayana tradition, which sees the higher aims of insight into sunyata , emptiness, and following the Bodhisattva path as central elements in their teachings and practice.

he Mahayana tradition reinterpreted the four truths to explain how a liberated being can still be "pervasively operative in this world". [47] Beginning with the exploration of Buddhism by Western colonialists in the 19th century and the development of Buddhist modernism, they came to be often presented in the west as the central teaching of Buddhism, sometimes with novel modernistic reinterpretations very different from the historic Buddhist traditions in Asia.

到公元五世纪左右，四圣谛在佛教的上座部传统中变得至关重要， 认为对四圣谛的洞察本身就是解脱。它们不太突出在大乘传统中，将洞察空性、空性和追随菩萨道的更高目标视为其教义和修行的核心要素。 大乘传统重新诠释了四圣谛，以解释解脱的众生如何仍能获得解脱。 「普遍作用于这个世界」。从19世纪西方殖民者对佛教的探索和佛教现代主义的发展开始，它们经常作为佛教的中心教义出现在西方， 有时会进行新颖的现代主义重新诠释，与亚洲历史悠久的佛教传统截然不同。