## Knowing Each One Three Ways

For each of these four truths, my understanding deepened in three steps. Take suffering:

First, I saw clearly: this is suffering.

Then I understood: this is something to be fully grasped.

Then I knew: I have fully grasped it.

The same three steps applied to all four.

Suffering — recognize it; understand it; know it.

Its cause — recognize it; let it go; be free of it.

Its ending — recognize it; experience it; see it.

The path — recognize it; develop it; live it.

As long as my understanding of these four truths — in all three steps, across all twelve points — wasn't completely clear, I didn't claim to be fully awakened. But once it was completely clear, then I knew I had woken up fully, with nothing left to do. And the certainty settled in me: my freedom can't be shaken. This is the final birth.