[This note accompanies the description of Shakyamuni’s lecture summarizing the 37 truths he had taught. At the end of the lecture he revealed he would die in three months time.]

Since they are a compendium of basic Buddhist teachings, it will be helpful to expand slightly on the truths that Shakyamuni listed for his followers on this important occasion.

1. The Four Insights. The insights that the world is transient, the body is impure, perception leads to suffering, and the mind is impermanent.
2. The Four Kinds of Right Effort. These are the effort to prevent evil from arising, to abandon evil when arisen, to produce good, and to increase good when produced.
3. The Four Bases of Supernatural Power. These are will, exertion, thought, and investigation. All of these must be accompanied by insight and right effort.
4. The Five Moral Powers. These are belief, endeavor, memory, meditation, and wisdom.
5. The Five Organs of Good Conduct. These are the organs that lead man to good conduct: the sense of belief, the sense of endeavor, the sense of memory, the sense of meditation, and the sense of wisdom.
6. The Seven Qualities of Wisdom. These are the requisites for attaining enlightenment: investigation of the Law, endeavor, the joy of practicing the true teachings, tranquility, the cessation of clinging, contemplation, and mindfulness.
7. The Eightfold Noble Path. right view, right thinking, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right memory, and right meditation.

(Page 182)
The Beginnings of Buddhism