Looking at the symbols of awakening representing selflessness, showing the importance of love in our spiritual lives, and exploring compassionate activities.
Rather than four propositions to believe, the four enobling truths are to be seen as injunctions on which to act: Fully know suffering, Let go of craving, Experience cessation, and Creatre a path. Awakening is not, therefore, a 'state', but an ongoing process.
Although initially reluctant to teach, the Buddha goes to Benares and explains to five of his former companions what he has realized. This first sermon, Turning the Wheel of Dhamma (Dhammacakkapavatana Sutta), expands the principle of conditioned arising into the practice of 'four enobling truths'.
Who was Siddhattha Gotama and what did he awaken to? A reflection on his own account of the awakening as found in his discourse The Noble Quest (Ariyapariyesana Sutta), which identifies 'conditioned arising' as the foundational insight for an awakened life.
As the force of identification with our body, mind and feelings gets weaker, the sense of 'me-ness' weakens. Then, the 'I' is not so demanding and we small the perfume of selflessness.
