ABSTRACT
THE most primitive formulation of Buddhism is probably found in the four Noble Truths. 1 These involve a certain conception of the nature of the world and of man. The first three insist on pain as a fact of existence, on a theory of its cause, and on a method of its suppression. This method is stated in the fourth truth, the Noble Eightfold Path. It is this way of escape from pain with the attaining of a permanent state of repose which, as a course of moral and spiritual training to be followed by the individual, constitutes Buddhism as a religion.
