The Wheel of Dharma

The Buddha's return [from meditative seclusion] is a pivotal moment, one of those rare events when the divine penetrates history and transfigures it. Like Moses returning from Mt. Sinai, like Jesus appearing in the crowd at the river Jordan to be baptized by John, a man who has left the world returns to serve it, no longer merely human but charged with transcendent power. As the scriptures record of Moses and Jesus, we can imagine how the Buddha must have shone that bright spring morning in the Himalayan foothills. Dazzled by the radiance of his personality, it is said, people gathered about him and asked, "Are you a god?"

"No."

"Are you an angel?"

"No."

"What are you then?"

The Buddha smiled and answered simply, "I am awake" - the literal meaning of the word buddha, from the Sanskrit root budh, to wake up.

His five former disciples caught sight of him from a distance and resolved neither to shun him nor to give him special attention. But as he drew closer, his face shining with what he had seen and understood, they found themselves preparing a place for him and sitting at his feet.

...the Blessed One replied, "I have done what is to be done. I have seen the builder of this house" - indicating his body, but signifying his old self - "and I have shattered its ridgepole and its rafters; that house shall not be built again. I have found the deathless, the unconditioned; I have seen life as it is. I have entered nirvana, beyond the reach of sorrow."

"Teach us what you have found."

Thus to these five, his first students, the Buddha began his work of teaching the dharma, the path that leads to the end of sorrow. The place was the Deer Park near the holy city of Varanasi on the Ganges, and the event is revered as the moment when the Compassionate One "set in motion the wheel of the dharma," which will never cease revolving so long as there are men and women who follow his path.

In this talk we see the Buddha as physician to the world, the relentless clear-seeing healer whose love embraces all creatures. In the Four Noble Truths, he gives his clinical observation on the human condition, then his diagnosis, then the prognosis, and finally the cure.

"The First Truth, brothers, is the fact of suffering. All desire happiness, sukha: what is good, pleasant, right, permanent, joyful, harmonious, satisfying, at ease. Yet all find that life brings duhkha, just the opposite: frustration, dissatisfaction, incompleteness, suffering, sorrow. Life is change, and change can never satisfy desire. Therefore everything that changes brings suffering.

"The Second Truth is the cause of suffering. It is not life that brings sorrow, but the demands we make on life. The cause of duhkha is selfish desire: trishna, the thirst to have what one wants and to get one's own way. Thinking life can make them happy by bringing what they want, people run after the satisfaction of their desires.But they get only unhappiness, because selfishness can only bring sorrow.

"There is no fire like selfish desire, brothers. Not a hundred years of experience can extinguish it, for the more you feed it, the more it burns. It demands what experience cannot give: permanent pleasure unmixed with anything unpleasant. But there is no end to such desires; that is the nature of mind. Suffering because life cannot satisfy selfish desire is like suffering because a banana tree will not bear mangoes.

"The Third Truth, brothers. Any ailment that can be understood can be cured, and suffering that has a cause has also an end. When the fires of selfishness have been extinguished, when the mind is free of selfish desire, what remains is the state of wakefulness, of peace, of joy, of perfect health, called nirvana.

"The Fourth Truth, brothers, is that selfishness can be extinguished by following an eightfold path: right understanding, right purpose, right speech, right conduct, right occupation, right effort, right attention, and right meditation. If dharma is a wheel, these eight are its spokes.

"Right understanding is seeing life as it is. In the midst of change, where is there a place to stand firm? Where is there anything to have and hold? To know that happiness cannot come from anything outside, and that all things that come into being have to pass away: this is right understanding, the beginning of wisdom.

"Right purpose follows from right understanding. It means willing, desiring, and thinking that is in line with life as it is. As a flood sweeps away a slumbering village, death sweeps away those who are unprepared. Remembering this, order your life around learning to live: this is right purpose.

"Right speech, right action, and right occupation follow right purpose. They mean living in harmony with the unity of life: speaking kindly, acting kindly, living not just for oneself but for the welfare of all. Do not earn your livelihood at the expense of life or connive at or support those who do harm to other creatures, such as butchers, soldiers, and makers of poison and weapons. All creatures love life; all creatures fear pain. Therefore treat all creatures as yourself, for the dharma of a human being is not to harm but to help.

"The last steps, brothers, deal with the mind. Everything depends on mind. Our life is shaped by our minds; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

"Right effort is the constant endeavor to train oneself in thought, word, and action. As a gymnast trains  the body, those who desire nirvana must train the mind. Hard is it to attain nirvana.... Only through ceaseless effort can you reach the goal. Earnest among the indolent, vigilant among those who slumber, advance like a race horse, breaking free from those who follow the way of the world.

"Right attention follows right effort. It means keeping the mind where it should be. The wise train the mind to give complete attention to one thing at a time, here and now. Those who follow me must be always mindful, their thoughts focused on the dharma day and night. Whatever is positive, what benefits others, what conduces to kindness or peace of mind, those states of mind lead to progress; give them full attention. Whatever is negative, whatever is self-centered, what feeds malicious thoughts or stirs up the mind, those states of mind draw one downward; turn your attention away.

"Hard it is to train the mind, which goes where it likes and does what it wants. An unruly mind suffers and causes suffering whatever it does. But a well-trained mind brings health and happiness.

"Right meditation is the means of training the mind. As rain seeps through an ill-thatched hut, selfish passion will seep through an untrained mind. Train your mind through meditation. Selfish passions will not enter, and your mind will grow calm and kind.

"This, brothers, is the path that I myself have followed. No other path so purifies the mind. Follow this path and conquer Mara; its end is the end of sorrow. But all the effort must be made by you. Buddhas only show the way."

---Eknath Easwaran, in his introduction to his translation of The Dhammapada---