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SOURCE: Setting the Motion the Wheel of the Law
AUTHOR: Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha
DATE: Around 4th-3rd Century B.C., Sanskirt reconstructions of orally-transmitted remembrances of Siddhartha’s teachings
BACKGROUND: As a reaction to the dominance of the Brahmins in Indian society, several teachers from the Kshatriya class offered alternatives to caste. One of the most significant was from Siddhartha Gautama, a Nepalese prince who was sheltered in court life until the age of twenty-nine. When he finally viewed evidence of human aging, suffering and death, he fled his comfortable life to become an ascetic, or someone who denies pleasures of the body to liberate the soul. However, asceticism did not offer an escape from suffering. According to tradition, Siddhartha relentlessly meditated under a sacred pipal tree until he reached an enlightened conclusion.
And the Blessed One thus addressed the five [ascetics].
“There are two extremes…which he who has given up the world ought to avoid. What are these two extremes? A life given to pleasures, devoted to pleasures and lusts: this is degrading, sensual, vulgar, ignoble, and profitless; and a life given to mortifications: this is painful, ignoble, and profitless. By avoiding these two extremes…[the Buddha] has gained the knowledge of the Middle Path which leads to insight, which leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to [total Enlightenment], to Nirvana (the state of being and nonbeing).
“Which…is this Middle Path? … It is the Holy Eightfold Path, namely Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Memory, Right Meditation. …
“This…is the Noble Truth of Suffering: Birth is suffering; death is suffering; decay is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering. Presence of objects we hate, is suffering; Separation from objects we love, is suffering; not to obtain what we desire, is suffering. Briefly, … clinging to existence is suffering.
“This…is the Noble Truth of the Cause of suffering: [Desire], that leads to rebirth, accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding its delight here and there. This thirst is threefold, namely thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity.
“This…is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of suffering: it ceases with the complete cessation of this thirst, -- a cessation which consists in the absence of every passion—with the abandoning of this thirst, with the doing away with it, with the deliverance from it, with the destruction of desire.
“This…is the Noble Truth of the Path which leads to the cessation of suffering: that Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Memory, Right Meditation. …
“As long…as I did not possess with perfect purity this true knowledge and insight into these four Noble Truths…I knew that I had not yet obtained the highest, absolute [Enlightenment] in the world of men and gods…but since I possessed…with perfect purity this true knowledge and insight into these four Noble Truths…then I knew…that I had obtained the highest, universal [Enlightenment].
“And this knowledge and insight arose in my mind: The emancipation of my mind cannot be lost; this is my last birth; hence I shall not be born again!”
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
What are the two “extremes” that Siddhartha sought to avoid?
What is the Middle Path? According to the Buddha, why is it the proper path to Enlightenment?
What are the Four Noble Truths, and how does one’s total comprehension and acceptance of them lead to total escape from the cycle of suffering?
Buddhists call the Law taught by the Buddha “Dharma”. How might the dharma change as Buddhism is transmitted from civilization to civilization?
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: According to this belief system, what is the meaning of life?
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