All World
Gayatri Pariwar

Let’s Follow the Eight-fold Path
to Attain Enlightenment

Buddha Purnima is celebrated on the full-moon day in the month of Vaishakha. This year, it falls on May 10, 2017. This day is especially known for three things – birth of Gautama Buddha, the day he attained enlightenment and also the day he attained Nirvana (left his physical body). All these three steps have great significance in the life of every human being.

Life begins at birth, aims to attain its goal and ends with death. This cycle of birth and death acquires meaning only when one realizes the goal of his life. That is why we take the example of The Buddha whose personality and life are the epitome of a truly successful and noble life. Gautama was born on full-moon day. It was on the same day that he attained self-realization and it was on that very day that he renounced his life in entirety. But the knowledge that he disseminated is enlightening and guiding the lives of millions of people even today.
According to Lord Buddha, there are four noble truths about life –
1.Truth of suffering
2.Truth of cause of suffering
3.Truth of end of suffering
4.Truth of the path that leads to end of suffering

Lord Buddha expounded a noble eight-fold path for being free from suffering and to attain enlightenment. These eight practices are given below. Right View: You have to see things as they are. The perspective should not be colored by any of your own aspects. Your desire, understanding or knowledge should not distort the view. Right Resolve: Many a time people mistakenly assume stubbornness to be Sankalpa or resolve. They label a stubborn man to be a man of resolve. In reality, obstinacy or stubbornness is a form of ego. When you take a resolve, there is no ego associated with it. This is the only difference between obstinacy and resolve. Lord Buddha says that right resolve is when there is something worth doing, you should do it. Right Speech: Whatever is in your mind, express it as it is! Do not have something in mind and tell something else externally. If your thought and action are not synchronized, you cannot go in the quest of your inner self. If you do not like something, let it be known. Do not try to project yourself as someone else from the outside. With passage of time, this external layer becomes so strong that the person loses connection with what he really is from the inside. Right speech symbolizes that you should let your innermost self to reflect in your views, resolutions and speech. Right Conduct: Conduct yourselves as your inner soul asks you to. Do not do something because someone said so. Perform only those actions which you think are worth performing. Do this with single-minded approach.

Right Livelihood: Buddha warned that anything and everything should not be made into a livelihood. If someone is earning his livelihood as a butcher, is it right? If he just has to earn for his survival, he could do it by thousand other means. Why should he be a butcher? Everyone has to earn their livelihood, but only when the right method for livelihood is chosen can he attain peace in life.

Right Effort: Always focus on exerting the right effort. Buddha said that some people are very lazy while some others overwork. Both these categories of people stand to lose. A lazy person does not even get up, so how can he even reach his goal? An overzealous person runs past his goal without being able to stop there. He cannot stop because he is not habituated to stopping. Bow string needs to be pulled to launch an arrow. If it is pulled less, then the arrow does not reach its destination. If it is pulled too much, then the arrow goes past the target. Hence Buddha emphasized on avoiding both extremes.

Right Memory: This signifies that one should forget what is unwanted and remember only that is useful. Man tends to do just the opposite of this. He forgets what is required and remembers the useless things. He forgets what is precious in this life. Consciousness is the most important part of life which he forgets while he is totally oriented towards the outside world.

Right Samadhi: Lord Buddha says that even during Samadhi, one should be mindful of doing the right thing. When a person is lying unconscious or in deep sleep, it is not considered as right Samadhi by Buddha. Because, the person has gone beyond mind but he has not risen above it. In fact he has gone below the mind. Mind is closed but this closing of mind or the stillness of mind is of no use to him. He should be aware of this stillness of mind and cessation of thought for right Samadhi.

There are three states of mind – Wakefulness, dream and sleep. Be it right Samadhi or not, there are neither dreams nor thoughts in that state. In Jada Samadhi, a person becomes deeply unconscious and is totally unaware of the world. But when he wakes up from this Samadhi, he definitely feels refreshed since he would have got sufficient rest. So, this in a way feels like sleep state. Real Samadhi is when he goes into sleep-state and comes out of it while being in total awareness. If he experiences this Samadhi, he will not only be refreshed but also be blissful and wise.

Lord Buddha always said that whenever you go inside, you should do it with complete awareness. Take a flaming torch of understanding with you so that all the paths inside are illuminated and you can learn about it all. When you have to go down the path another time, you will not have to depend on anyone else; also it will be easier. So the real thing is to attain bliss while being conscious. This is what is explained as Right Samadhi.

Thus, the noble eight-fold path given by Lord Buddha teaches us the art of living. It makes the life of a person filled with awareness and makes him live in the present so that he may be bestowed with everything that life has to offer. ‘Right’ means that which is correct, that which is harmonious, and that which is noble.
Let’s assimilate these eight right aspects to our lives, and achieve the state of The Buddha (The Enlightened).

With Prayer-filled Wishes on Buddha Purnima and Gayatri Jayanti
(Pranav Pandya)