A. THE EXCELLENT EIGHTFOLD PATH IN GENERAL hat most men live their lives as carelessly as they do, Th has its ground in this, that they do not rightly know the condition in which they find themselves. Either they persuade themselves that they have emerged out of absolute nothingness into this world, and at their death, will again disappear, equally without leaving a trace; or they regard themselves as productions of a creator who will take them after their death into his heavenly kingdom, having no doubt about it that the hell which of course exists along with it, is destined only for others. Hence the result that for unbeliever as well as for believer it seems the highest wisdom to make themselves as comfortable as possible on this earth; for the former, because it were the height of foolishness not to make the utmost possible use of this so fleeting existence; for the latter, however, because his stay in this world is a gift from his god, not to enjoy which thankfully were the height of ingratitude. If only they would look into their real position and thereby recognize with sufficient clearness, that since beginningless time, aimlessly and without plan, they wander through the world in all its heights and depths, now as gods, then as men, now as beasts, then as devils, and that this wandering without end or aim, under perpetual self-delusion, will go on to all eternity; if, further, they would recognize the possibility of escaping forever from this circle of suffering, and of withdrawing to a place wholly devoid of suffering, to "a hiding-place, an island," then they would surely seize the proffered hand that will lead them to that place devoid of suffering, with the same eagerness that a drowning man seizes the hand that is ready to pull him to the shore. In such a situation, however, we are at present, if we have at all understood what has been said in our past pages, on which account the last of the four excellent truths, that which deals with the path leading to the removal of suffering, must appear to us as the most sublime revelation ever given to this world, and particularly as the highest of the four excellent truths themselves. For the three others with which we are now acquainted, despite their sublimity, without this fourth would be a gift of the Danaides of the worst kind, since, enlightened precisely through them as to the whole horror of the situation in which we find ourselves, they would only make us all the more unhappy. The last of the four excellent truths thus constitutes the cap-stone and crown of the mighty structure of the Buddha's teaching. He himself takes this point of view, when he designates a possible dissension as to the content of the path as the gravest misfortune that could happen to his disciples. "It would matter little, Ananda, if there were dissension as to the necessities of life, or about the rules of the Order; but as to the Path, Ananda, as to the Way, if dissension should arise among the monks in regard to this, then such dissension would cause misfortune and loss to many, ruin to many, misfortune, and suffering to gods and men." 275 And his monks have expressed their feeling of the decisive importance of the last of the four excellent truths by praising the master especially as "the discoverer of the undiscovered path, the creator of the uncreated path, the explainer of the unexplained path, the knower of the path, the acquainted with the path, the expert in the path."" 276 |