5

We have now examined three of the four Truths, for the Chain of Causation in its positive form gives us the origin of suffering and in its negative form the facts as to the extinction of suffering:  it teaches that as its links are broken suffering disappears.  The fourth truth, or the way which leads to the extinction of suffering, gives practical directions to this effect.  The way is the Noble Eightfold Path consisting of:  right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture.  This formula is comparable not with the Decalogue, to which correspond the precepts for monks and laymen, but rather with the Beatitudes.  It contains no commands or prohibitions but in the simplest language indicates the spirit that leads to emancipation.  It breathes an air of noble freedom.  It says nothing about laws and rites:  it simply states that the way to be happy is to have a good heart and mind, taking shape in good deeds and at last finding expression and fulfilment in the rapture of ecstasy.  We may think the numerical subdivisions of the Path pedantic and find fault with its want of definition, for it does not define the word right (samma) which it uses so often, but in thus ignoring ceremonialism and legalism and making simple goodness in spirit and deed the basis of religion.  Gotama rises above all his contemporaries and above all subsequent teachers except Christ.  In detaching the perfect life from all connection with a deity or outside forces and in teaching man that the worst and best that can happen to him lie within his own power, he holds a unique position.

Indian thought has little sympathy with the question whether morality is utilitarian or intuitionist, whether we do good to benefit ourselves or whether certain acts and states are intrinsically good.  The Buddha is a physician who prescribes a cure for a disease—­the disease of suffering—­and that cure is not a quack medicine which pretends to heal rapidly but a regime and treatment.  If we ask whether the reason for following the regime is that it is good for us or that it is scientifically correct; or why we want to be well or whether health is really good:  both the Buddha and the physician would reply that such questions are tiresome and irrelevant.  With an appearance of profundity, they ask nothing worth answering.  The eightfold path is the way and the only way of salvation.  Its form depends on the fact that the knowledge of the Buddha, which embraces the whole universe, sees that it is a consequence of the nature of things.  In that sense it may be described as an eternal law, but this is not the way in which the Pitakas usually speak of it and it is not represented as a divine revelation dictated by other than human motives.  “Come, disciples,” the Buddha was wont to say, “lead a holy life for the complete extinction of suffering.”  Holiness is simply the way out of misery into happiness.