The Dharma
After the Buddha's death his followers correlated all of his major teachings. In time these set to verse, committed to memory and passed down from generation to generation.
When finally committed to writing, as it began to be around about the first century BCE, the Dharma - the teachings of the Buddha-eventually came to occupy what in modern terms would be a small library.
This was then developed and expanded upon. New material was brought in, and vast canonical literature comprising records of the Buddha's discourses and discussions, stories, parables, poems, and analyses gradually grew up.
Of all this vast mass of teachings, perhaps the most popular formulation are those of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, that formed a large part of the Buddha's first ever discourse on the Dharma.
The First Noble Truth identifies the problem. "There is Dukkha"- unsatisfactoriness.
Because we are never satisfied, we chase after experience. Constantly seeking satisfaction from the intrinsically unsatisfying, like hamsters in a wheel, we chase round and round, getting nowhere. Gain turns to loss, happiness gives way to sadness. We always seem to think that the final, complete satisfaction is just round the corner. "If only I can do this or get that, then everything will be fine and I'll be happy ever after."But in reality it's never like that. The wheel just keeps on turning.
The Second Noble Truth asserts that the cause of dukkha is craving. We are never satisfied because we have a fundamental disposition towards craving.
No matter what we get, no matter how much or how good, we always want more, or we want something else, or we want it to stop. Between them, craving and its counterpart, aversion, set the shape and boundaries of our personality- "I am the person who drives such and such a car; shops in such and such a place, lives in such and such a neighborhood; wears such and such clothes..." Thus we create our fragile identities. But the structure is unstable.
Things always change. life flows on and we find ourselves caught up in remorseless process of continually having to reconstruct ourselves- "I like this, I want that; I don't like this; I don't' want that" over and over , needlessly.
Such is the un-enlightened human predicament-endless unsatisfactory, driven by craving.
The Third Noble Truth asserts that with the cessation of craving unsatisfactory also ceases.
This is waht Buddha saw on the night of his Enlightenment. Having seen so clearly that the whole of existence, the emdless round of birth and death, is driven bysatiable craving, he could no longer live as if craving would ever produce the final satisfaction with which it constantly enticed. The bond of cravings dropped away, and with it all that had limited and constricted him - he was free!
The Fourth Noble Truth assets that there is a path which leads to the cessation of craving: the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Noble Eightfold Path
Translator usually render the Pali word Samma, which is prefixed to all of the eight limbs or aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path, as "right" but this can give wrong impression, as if there were simple "right" way of doing things as opposed to the "wrong" way, and that one could easily get the path "right" and have done with it. But the Buddhist path isn't quite so simply divided into "right" and "wrong". It is more developmental than that, for its a path of practice, where there is always room for improvement. Rather than "right" we use the word "perfect'"
The Noble Eightfold Path therefore consist of:
Right Understanding - To understand and except the Four Noble Truths.
Right Thoughts - To cultivate thoughts of generosity, loving-kindness and compassion
Right Speech - To refrain from lying, slander, harsh words and gossip. To cultivate truthful peaceful, kind and meaningful speech
Right Action - To abstain from killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. To cultivate harmlessness, honesty and faithfulness.
Right Livelihood - To avoid occupation involving killings (of both humans and animals), the sales of animal flesh, the trading of humans, weapons, poisons and intoxicants. Occupation which are unethical, immoral and illegal should be avoided
Right Effort - To apply mental discipline to prevent unwholesome thoughts arising, and to dispel unwholesome thoughts from that have arisen.
Right Mindfulness - To be aware of the body, and bodily postures and sensations. To be aware of the mind and its thoughts emotions and feelings.
Right Concentration - to practice mediation to train the mind to be focused and disciplines in order to cultivate and acquire wisdom.
The Path isn't traverse in simple consecutive steps. We don't start with vision, move on to emotion, then speech, action, livelihood etc. Rather, one works in different ways on different aspect all the time.
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