The Buddha’s World of Learning

The Four Noble Truths

and the Eightfold Path

  Young Prince Siddhartha “abandoned all things hard to abandon, his treasures, wife and child, his country and his palace, to give all, his head, eyes, and brain to people as alms.” This didn’t happen overnight. In the beginning, his overall purpose to end human suffering, he totally abandoned a normal life, wandering in forests seeking the way to enlightenment with five ascetics, Ajñata Kaundinya, Ashvajit, Vashpa, Mahanaman, and Bhadrika. (No need to remember their names, I never have—let’s just call them, the seeking Siddhartha’s five buddies who sought enlightenment through various means of self-torture.)

  How did Siddhartha escape? Significantly because one day he overheard a man instructing his pupil on how to tune his harp, and more significantly, Siddhartha’s mind was open to embracing its lesson.

  “If the strings are stretched tuned too tight, or if  the  strings are stretched too loose, it will not play.”

  Hearing this, Siddhartha accepted a bowl of rice from a village girl, forsaking his ascetic vows, and his buddies were shocked. He called out to them, “The path to enlightenment is in the middle way, beyond extremes.”

  Siddhartha becomes in that moment, “Bodhisattva Siddhartha” in search of Perfect Enlightenment.

  (Here I’m accepting the time-sequence presented in Bertolucci’s film, “Little Buddha.”)

  Reaching at last the “training place of Perfect Enlightenment”–the Bodhi tree–there  attaining Perfect Enlightenment, and (in the Lotus Sutra) seeing “creatures in the six states of existence, poor and without happiness and wisdom, in the dangerous path of mortality, in continuous unending misery, firmly fettered by the five desires like the yak caring for its tail, smothered by greed and infatuation, blinded and seeing nothing; seeking not the Law to end sufferings, but deeply falling into heresies, and seeking by suffering to be rid of suffering—for the sake of all these creatures, my heart is stirred with great pity.

  “When I first sat on the wisdom throne, looking at that tree and walking about it during thrice seven days, I pondered such matters as these—the wisdom which I have obtained is wonderful and supreme, but all creatures are dull in their capacities, pleasure-attached and blind with ignorance. Such classes of beings as these I saw, how can they be saved?

  “Having finished pondering this matter, I instantly went to Varañasi [Benares], [to teach] the nirvana-nature of all existence, which is inexpressible.”

  And there the Buddha found (in Deer Park) his old buddies, the five bhikshus, and by tactful ability preached to them. This is called the first teaching of the Law.

The Four Noble Truths:

  A long way getting around to these first teachings of the Buddha, but I believe important to view them in the context of when it was taught, and how derived from something the Buddha with open mind open accepted, not adverse to learning something new, and a “truth” awakened to before his enlightenment – the teaching of the middle way, as in the following Eightfold Path.

  What are the Four Noble Truths? Here we describe them from the perspective of “greater vehicle” (Mahayana) teachings:

1 – All existence entails suffering. 2 – Suffering is caused by ignorance which gives rise to craving and illusion. 3 – There is an end to suffering, and this state of no suffering is called nirvana. 4 – Nirvana is attained through the practice of the Eightfold Path.

  None of these “four truths” should be considered separately – they are fluid in their practice, and must extend to the fourth – practice of the Eightfold Path. Without following the Eightfold Path, suffering’s end cannot be achieved.

The Eightfold Path: - We return first to the parable of the harp – finding the middle way between extremes. This is important because the Eightfold Paths are stated as “right” paths suggesting “wrong” paths, but there is no dualistic “right and wrong” in the teachings of the Buddha. (How long I’ve waited to get that off my chest!) So it’s vital to view and hopefully to accept this basic teaching as “following the middle course” always. And certainly one may apply different meanings in considering them, as one should, resonating from one’s own individual experience and circumstance.

The middle way of the Eightfold Path:

Right view/ Right thinking / Right speech / Right action /Right living / Right endeavor / Right memory / Right meditation.

  At the time of this first teaching, it was some forty years, before the Buddha decided the time had come to teach the “One Vehicle” of the Lotus Sutra, which is prompted by those who are seeking it:

When I saw the Buddha-sons-and-daughters
bent on seeking the buddha-way,
in countless thousands and countless myriads,
all with reverent hearts,
draw near to the Buddha;
they had already heard from the enlightened ones
the Law which they tactfully explained.
Then I conceived this thought:
The reason why the Tathagata appears
is for preaching the Buddha-wisdom;
now is the very time.

Indeed, now in today’s world, now is the very time.