Teachings (giảng bài)
No one can save us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We must walk the path alone.
The Four Noble Truths
(1) The Noble Truth of Suffering (2) The Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering (3) The Noble Truth of Cessation of Suffering (4) The Noble Truth of the Way leading to the Cessation of Suffering: The Noble Eightfold Path.
Buddhism begins with the fact of suffering. However, before we can do anything about it, we must know its cause, which is the deeply-rooted sense of ‘I’ that we all have. Because of this we are always struggling to get things that are pleasurable and avoid things that are painful to find ease and security, and generally to manipulate people and situations to be the way ‘I’ want them. And because the rest of the world does not necessarily fit in with what I want, we often find ourselves cutting against the general flow of things, and getting hurt and disappointed in the process. Suffering may be therefore brought to an end by transcending this strong sense of ‘I’ so that we come into greater harmony with things in general. The means of doing this is The Noble Eightfold Path.
The Noble Eightfold Path
(1) Right View. (2) Right Thought. (3) Right Speech. (4) Right Action. (5) Right Livelihood. (6) Right Effort (7) Right Mindfulness. (8) Right Concentration.
The Wheel is the symbol of the Dharma and is shown with eight spokes which represent the Noble Eightfold Path. Right View is important at the start because if we cannot see the truth of the Four Noble Truths then we can’t make any sort of beginning. Right Thought follows naturally from this. ‘Right’ here means in accordance with the facts: with the way things are – which may be different from how I would like them to be. Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood involve moral restraint refraining from lying, stealing, committing violent acts, and earning one’s living in a way harmful to others. Moral restraint not only helps bring about general social harmony but also helps us control and diminish the sense of ‘I’. Like a greedy child, ‘I’ grows big and unruly the more we let it have its own way. Next, Right Effort is important because ‘I’ thrives on idleness and wrong effort; some of the greatest criminals are the most energetic people, so effort must be appropriate to the diminution of I, and in any case if we are not prepared to exert ourselves we cannot hope to achieve anything at all in either the spiritual sense nor in life. The last two steps of the Path, Right Mindfulness or awareness and Right Concentration or absorption, represent the first stage toward liberation from suffering. To be aware and at one with what we are doing is fundamental to proper living, this practice takes many forms but in the West the formal practice is called meditation. In the most basic form of Buddhist meditation, a person sits cross-legged on a cushion on the floor or upright in a chair. He/she quietly watches the rise and fall of the breath. If thoughts, emotions or impulses arise, he/she just observes them come up and go like clouds in a blue sky, without rejecting them on the one hand or being carried away into daydreaming or restlessness on the other. It should be learned under the guidance of a teacher just as the Buddha too learned meditation.
