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What the Buddha discovered on the night of his awakening --
and what it means for your life, today.
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DATE
Saturday, April 25, 2026 |
TIME
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM |
FORMAT
In-Person & Online |
All Are Welcome
THE FIRST TEACHING
You already know
this is true.
After his awakening, the Buddha wondered: Who could possibly understand what I have realized? The truth was deep, subtle, beyond argument. He considered simply keeping it to himself. It was the god Brahma who implored him: "Teach, Lord. There are beings with only a little dust in their eyes. They will understand."
And so he rose and walked — for several days through the heat of northern India — to the Deer Park at Sarnath, to find five men who had abandoned him. To those five, in a grove of deer and dappled light, he gave his very first teaching.
He taught the Four Noble Truths. Not as philosophy. Not as belief. As a diagnosis and a cure. Twenty-six centuries later, they remain the most practical, most immediately useful thing a human being can learn. You do not need years of study. You need one clear day.
And so he rose and walked — for several days through the heat of northern India — to the Deer Park at Sarnath, to find five men who had abandoned him. To those five, in a grove of deer and dappled light, he gave his very first teaching.
He taught the Four Noble Truths. Not as philosophy. Not as belief. As a diagnosis and a cure. Twenty-six centuries later, they remain the most practical, most immediately useful thing a human being can learn. You do not need years of study. You need one clear day.
THE TEACHING ITSELF
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THE FIRST TRUTH Dukkha SUFFERING - TO BE UNDERSTOOD There is suffering. This is not pessimism — it is the first act of honesty. Life brings pain, loss, uncertainty, the knowledge that everything changes and nothing can be held. To be human is to know this. The first courageous act is simply to turn toward it rather than away. One stops looking away. → ACKNOWLEDGE THE THIRD TRUTH
Nibbāna THE QUENCHING - TO BE REALIZED There is an end to this suffering. The Pali word is nibbāna — quenching. The fires of desire, aversion, and becoming can be quenched. Not in some other life, not in a monastery, not in a distant future self. You have already tasted this — in moments when the grip released, when you rested in what is, when something in you simply cooled. It is not a destination. It is what remains when the fire goes out. → RECOGNIZE |
THE SECOND TRUTH Samudāya THE CAUSE - TO BE RELEASED Suffering has a cause: desire, aversion, and becoming — wanting more pleasure, wanting less pain, and the deep clinging to an imagined future self for whom everything will finally be different and devoid of suffering. All three are forms of one thing: the demand that reality be other than it is. → INVESTIGATE THE FOURTH TRUTH Magga THE PATH - TO BE CULTIVATED Have you ever been lost in the woods? It's a particular kind of dread — disoriented, no sense of which way leads home. And then you find a path. The relief is immediate and total. Not because the path walks itself, but because suddenly you know where you are. You are oriented. You can choose. The Eightfold Path is like that. Eight facets of a life lived with wisdom and care — not commandments, not rules, but guidance. A map to help orient you to human life itself. One that helps you avoid the side trips and pitfalls that lead back into suffering. When you find it, something in you relaxes. You know which way to go. → EMBODY |
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YOUR TEACHER
Robert Beatty
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COME PRACTICE WITH US
You are
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