The "The Book of the Fours" contains 13 discourses. Here, teachings are presented in groups of fours, covering various sets of four principles or qualities, such as the Four Noble Truths or the four Brahmavihāras (divine abidings: loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity).
Catukkanipāta - The Book of the Fours
The Buddha shares the importance of giving, sharing, assisting and making an offering of the Dhamma.
Being content with what is trifling, easily obtained, and blameless when it comes to robes, alms food, lodging, and medicine is a key factor of the spiritual life.
When one knows and sees the four noble truths, there is the wearing away of the taints.
The Buddha describes the true ascetic and brahmin as one who understands the four noble truths.
The Buddha describes the benefits of associating with bhikkhus who are accomplished in virtue, collectedness, wisdom, liberation, and the knowledge and vision of liberation.
The Buddha describes the four uprisings of craving that can arise in a bhikkhu - 1) for a robe, 2) alms food, 3) lodging, and 4) for this or that state of existence.
Where children honor their mother and father, those families are said to dwell with Brahmā.
The Buddha describes how the spiritual life is lived in mutual dependence between monastics and householders for the sake of crossing over the flood and for the complete ending of suffering.
The Buddha describes the qualities of true disciples, and those who do not grow in the Dhamma.
The Buddha uses the simile of a person being carried down by a lovely and alluring river current to illustrate the painful results of craving and indulgence in the internal sense bases.
The Buddha describes two types of bhikkhus based on how they deal with thoughts of sensuality, ill will, and harming while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, and which one is capable of reaching the highest awakening.
The Buddha describes the subsequent training guideline to virtuous conduct - to practice being free of the unwholesome states craving, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and worry, and doubt while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down.
The Buddha explains why he is called the Tathāgata, the one who has perfectly understood the world, its arising, cessation, and the way of practice leading to its cessation.