Four Noble Truths/Medical Model Spread

Four Noble Truths/Medical Model Spread
Rachel Mann

Background on the Four Noble Truths:

The Four Noble Truths is the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. The goal of Buddhism is simply to put an end to suffering. When the Buddha, after many years (and many lifetimes) of searching, discovered the way to do just that, he taught the cure for suffering in the form of the four point medical report used by the physicians of his culture.

The First Noble Truth describes the symptom (the problem): Suffering exists.

The Second Noble Truth gives the diagnosis (the cause of the problem): Craving causes suffering.

The Third Noble Truth is the prognosis (the possible outcome): The ending of suffering is possible.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the prescription (what is needed to cure the problem): Following the Eightfold Noble Path will end suffering. The eight steps of the Path are right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The eight steps are often grouped into three aspirations: morality, meditation, and wisdom.

The Spread:

Randomly draw four cards and line them up left to right.

1. Symptom: The issue or problem you want to know more about.

2. Diagnosis: The cause of the issue.

3. Prognosis: The likely outcome.

4. Prescription: Advice on how to deal with the issue.

Path: Steps to put the advice into effect.

Draw the number of cards corresponding to the number of the Prescription card. If the number is over 9, add the digits together. (For example, if the Prescription card is Temperance, number 14, draw 5 Path cards.) For Pages, draw 1; for Knights, 6; for Queens, 3; and for Kings, 2.

Like the steps of the Eightfold Noble Path, these steps don’t need to be taken in consecutive order and may be better understood or more useful when organized into groups. So rearrange the Path cards until you have put them into a Path pattern that makes sense to you.

Very interesting, the name "medical model" caught my eye. Looking at it from the healthcare standpoint, I would almost equate the symptoms with how the problem is manifesting and the diagnosis to be the name of the problem. Or even looking at the second as the etiology (origin) of the problem.

Will definitely have to try this out (and I'm not normally a spread's kinda person).

as someone who dabbles in buddhism quite a bit and also works in the heath care system, i don't quite see the connection between the four noble truths and the medical model ... ?

I haven't tried the spread yet, but I have it saved and plan to use it in the future. I see this being useful when some type of behavior modification is desired. I definitely get how the four noble truths relate to the medical model steps listed. I am interested to see how the path portion works, especially if you are drawing multiple cards and need to decide how to organize or group them.

Hi, all. Thanks for the feedback. My medical knowledge is even scantier than my Buddhism knowledge(!), so I hope I got the terminology right.

Yes, Wardi, you've got good words/synomyms there: symptom = manifestation and diagnosis = name or origin.

I had trouble getting a grip on the noble truths for a while. They seemed so random. Like why does the outcome come before the things to do? So when I learned in a class that it was based on a step-by-step method of dealing with disease, it made so much more sense!

You have to know whether you can cure the disease or what you want to accomplish before you make a treatment plan. (So if we can't cure suffering, we need to come up with some other goal before we make a plan to get there.) But we can, so here's the plan for that.

Yes, cSpace, this is a very advice-y spread, with a random number (up to 10) of basically advice cards. Which I like. We all want to know how it will turn out, but I seem to turn to tarot more and more for "what do I do about this?" kind of questions.

Although I usually organize the path cards kind of mechanically (number order, or majors first, etc.), it can really give you a chance to put more thought and creativity into the advice, kind of meeting it halfway. More involvement/investment in the reading, and the advice sticks with you more, I think.

Thanks again folks. Let me know how it works for you if you try it.