THE MIDDLE PATHWAY
Samyutta Nikâya
The First Sermon
Thus have I heard.
On one occasion the Blessed One* was staying at Isipatana, near Benares, in the Deer-Park. There the Blessed One spoke to the group of the five mendicants*, and said:
There are two extremes which should not be followed by a person who has gone forth* as a wanderer:
devotion to sensual pleasures,
which is a low, pagan, practice,
unworthy, unprofitable,
the way of the worldly-minded,
and devotion to self-mortification,
which is painful,
unworthy, unprofitable.
By avoiding these two extremes the Tathâgata has discovered the Middle Path, which gives insight, bestows knowledge, and leads to serenity, wisdom, enlightenment, and nibbâna*.
And what is the Middle Path, which gives insight, bestows knowledge, and leads to serenity, wisdom, enlightenment, and nibbana?
It is this noble eightfold path, namely:
*bhagavat
*bhikkhu
*pabbajito
*nirvâna
(knowledge, wisdom)
(morality)
(meditation)
right outlook
right intention
right speaking
right action
right livelihood
right effort
right mindfulness
right concentration
NOTES
This is one version of the first sermon delivered by the Buddha, after his enlightenment. It is addressed to five ascetics who had earlier withdrawn from him, because he seemed to be deserting the way of asceticism. It is found in the Samyutta Nikâya (5.421) in the Sutta Pitaka. This sermon is called ‘turning the wheel of dharma’, and it expounds the noble eightfold path. It goes on to expound the Four Noble Truths, the last of which is in fact the eightfold path.
See the next extract. And reference may also be made to the Buddhacharita,15:14-58.
THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
Mahâsatipatthâna Sutta, Dîgha Nikâya
The Four Truths
The Four Trances
NOTES
This, in abridged form, is the Buddha’s exposition of the four noble (Ariyan) truths, as found in Dîgha Nikâya 2:305-312, part of Sutta 22, Mahâsatipatthâna Sutta, The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness. For a full translation of this sutta see Maurice Walshe, Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses of the Buddha (1978), 335-350. The four truths are also found in the sermon on the middle path, delivered to the five mendicants in the Deer Park, after the Buddha’s enlightenment.