The essentials of the pure life do not consist in the profits of gain, honour and good name; nor yet in the profits of knowledge and insight but the pure heart’s release; brethren; that is the meaning, that is the essence, that is the goal of living the pure life.
The goal of a Buddhist’s life should be the Noble Eight Fold path, which is Nibbana. The Buddha expounded: “Nibbana is the highest happiness”. Hence the highest aim of the Buddhists is the attainment of it. Nibbana is something that has to be realized within oneself, rather than described, explained, or talk about as it is not within the scope of logic: being a supra-mundane state.
Nibbana the goal in Buddhism, corresponds to salvation except that the former is not attained through the agency of another or outside being but solely though one’s own efforts. If it is attained during one’s lifetime, it is termed ‘Nibbana with aggregate’ ‘Sopadhisesa Nibbana’: if in a death, then Nibbana without aggregate ‘Anupadhisesa Nibbana’.
One must realise on his own accord. The sermon at Benares, Dhammacakkappavattana sutta, is a very practical sermon. In fact, it was Buddha’s first sermon given at Saranath near Benares.
moreHe declared that those who wish to lead a pure-life should avoid the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture. Self-indulgence is low, coarse, vulgar, ignoble, and self-mortification is painful, ignoble, both are profitless. There is the middle-way which leads to insight and wisdom.
Its fruit is serenity, knowledge, Enlightenment, Nibbana. It is summed up in four great truths; fact of suffering, a further fact, that this suffering has its cause, in the craving for personal satisfaction, the third fact, that this suffering will cease when such craving, is stilled, and fourthly that result can be achieved by treading the middle way, otherwise defined as the noble eight fold path:
1. Right view: Seeing life as it is, in accord with three characteristics of anicca, dukkha, anatta and appreciating the four noble truths.
2. Right Thought: being motivated by friendly thoughts, without prejudice, towards one’s fellow beings of human kind and towards all other forms of sentient life.
3. Right speech: speaking kindly and truthfully and narrating incidents accurately.
4. Right action: acting skillfully and sympathetically, while avoiding vain or violent efforts.
5. Right livelihood: practising a means of living that does not cause harm to oneself nor others to infringe lawful morality.
6. Right endeavour: self-perfection by avoiding and rejecting ignoble qualities while acquiring and fostering noble qualities.
7. Right mindfulness: regarding life as awareness, the cultivation and practice of self-awareness and comparison resulting in self-reliance and equanimity.
8. Right concentration: contemplating culminating in intellectual intuition, wisdom. This is the middle way the Buddhist awareness of life by which one lives and progresses in accord with the principles of moderation and detachments. Once deliverance is thus obtained from suffering and the freedom appreciated; it cannot be lost by those who have once won it.
The first principle of all Reality is that whatever has a beginning must have an end. The Buddha said: "whatever is subjected to arise must also be subjected to cease. Therefore the suffering is no exception.
The first sermon contains all the essentials of the Buddhist ideal. He declares that each man and woman must bear the consequences of their actions until realisation into an unrestricted awareness.
The first requisite of his teaching is frank recognition of facts in life, a just estimate or their values. The first essential is realization that ego-centredness or the unchecked 'I' conceit is the cause of suffering.
When we have a physical pain or ache limit it to the body without giving it to the mind. The body undergoes various changes without giving any unpleasant or pleasant feelings to the mind. Almost every aspect of life is engineered at the molecular level and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself. Life is awareness. Man goes through several stages in his life in which one can learn the graceful art of ageing and passing away with the understanding to the cosmic order or Nibbana. What we think we become. Flying thought of the moment is only living; passing the understanding of truth with comfort in mind. It he fears death that is because he is ego-centric. Seek knowledge and understanding until you overcome it.
In Rohitassa sutta of Anguttara Nikaya the Buddha states clearly that the world, the beginning of the world, and the end of the world are all in this fathom long body itself with its perception and conceptions. The world will be ever new. A perfected uninterrupted moment is the beginning and end of man and the world.
Quality of thought produces the quality of life. The wise man's self sufficiency elevates him to the ranks of a deity. Our physical body is only an instrument of the mind, and the mind is only a flow of thought that indicates everything is mental and ethereal.
The greatest thing to learn from Buddha - Dhamma is not to think of himself. When he gives up 'I' conceited views he become altruistic or unselfish then all the fears vanishes away he become a deity in higher plane of thought. We should not take anything into consideration that is beyond man's comprehension. May there be blissful joy globally.
