We do analytical meditation to understand the various unsatisfactory conditions or sufferings of cyclic existence. When we gain an experience of them, we then place our mind firmly on that experience using stabilising meditation. The more we meditate on suffering, the more we are motivated to rid ourselves of it. We will want to find out its causes and cease creating them. Thus, after contemplating true suffering, we contemplate true origin. Investigating this, we will see that suffering arises from karma, which is produced in dependence on the disturbing attitudes. These in turn are rooted in self-grasping ignorance. We will want to eliminate this ignorance, and will see that because it is a faulty attitude or misconception, it can be eliminated. Thus we will be certain that we can attain the true cessation of suffering and its origin. Through further contemplating the four noble truths, we will recognise that the way to abandon self-grasping ignorance is to meditate on the true path, since this path is principally the wisdom realising the non-existence of the self that is adhered to by ignorance. This is the order in which the four noble truths unfold in meditation and thus is the order in which to practice them. So, although the actual order in which the four occur is first the causes and then the effects, when the Buddha taught for the purpose of practice, he explained the results first.

-- Khensur Jampa Tegchok