Philip Sparke

The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are the most basic expression of the teaching of Buddha and therefore still form the guidelines for Buddhists to this day. The four truths are Dukkha, which describes times of major stress in our lives - birth, aging, desire and death; Samudaya which describes those parts of our life that induce stress, feeling, craving, desire; Nirodha which tells us how to eliminate those aspects of our lives which induce stress and Magga which describes the eight didciplines which can help us eliminate the origins of stress from our lives. It can be seen from these over-simplified definitions, that the Four Noble Truths fall into two pairs, the first two describingthe origins of stress and the second two describing how we can reduce stress. To reflect this, the four movements of this work are also combined into two pairs - two quick movements and two slow movements. A fascinating work from this great English composer.