← Chiastic Structures
The Four Noble Truths
BuddhismDhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11)
The Buddha's first discourse presents the Four Noble Truths as a chiastic medical framework: diagnosis of suffering and its cause mirrors the prescription of cessation and the path.
AThis is suffering (dukkha): birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, griefA'
BThis is the origin of suffering: craving that leads to renewed existenceB'
XTHE MIDDLE WAY — NEITHER INDULGENCE NOR ASCETICISM — LEADS TO NIBBANA
B'This is the cessation of suffering: the remainderless fading of cravingB
A'This is the path to cessation: the Noble Eightfold PathA