Buddha's Teaching
Lord Buddha preached: "We will have to
find out the cause of sorrow and the way to escape from
it. The desire for sensual enjoyment and clinging to earthly
life is the cause of sorrow. If we can eradicate desire,
all sorrows and pains will come to an end. We will enjoy
Nirvana or eternal peace. Those who follow the Noble Eightfold
Path strictly, viz., right opinion, right resolve, right
speech, right conduct, right employment, right exertion,
right thought and right self-concentration will be free
from sorrow. This indeed, O mendicants, is that middle
course which the Tathagata has thoroughly comprehended,
which produces insight, which produces knowledge, which
leads to calmness or serenity, to supernatural knowledge,
to perfect Buddhahood, to Nirvana.
"This again, indeed, O mendicants, is the noble
truth of suffering. Birth is painful, old age is painful,
sickness is painful, association with unloved objects
is painful, separation from loved objects is painful,
the desire which one does not obtain, this is too painful
- in short, the five elements of attachment to existence
are painful. The five elements of attachment to earthly
existence are form, sensation, perception, components
and consciousness.
"This again, indeed, O mendicants, is the truth
of the cause of suffering. It is that thirst which leads
to renewed existence, connected with joy and passion,
finding joy here and there, namely, thirst for sensual
pleasure, and the instinctive thirst for existence.
This again, indeed, O mendicants, is the noble truth
of cessation of suffering, which is the cessation and
total absence of desire for that very thirst, its abandonment,
surrender, release from it and non-attachment to it.
This again, indeed, O mendicants, is the noble truth
of the course which leads to the cessation of suffering.
This is verily the Noble Eightfold Path, viz., right
opinion, etc."
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