1) Self-salvation is for any male the instant job. If a guy lay injured by a poisoned arrow he would not postpone extraction by demanding information of the guy who shot it or the length and make of the arrow. There will be time for ever-increasing understanding of the Mentor throughout the treading of the Way. Meanwhile, start now by dealing with life as it is, finding out constantly by direct and individual experience.2) The very first Truth of presence is the law of change or impermanence. All that exists, from a mole to a mountain, from a thought to an empire, goes through the very same cycle of presence– i.e. birth, development, decay and death. Life alone is continuous, ever seeking self-expression in new forms. ‘Life is a bridge; therefore construct no home on it.’ Life is a process of circulation, and he who clings to any type, however magnificent, will suffer by resisting the flow.3) The law of change uses similarly to the ‘soul’. There is no principle in an individual which is immortal and unvarying. Only the ‘Namelessness’, the ultimate Truth, is beyond change; and all types of life, consisting of guy, are symptoms of this Truth. Nobody owns the life which flows in him any more than the electrical light bulb owns the current which offers it light.
4)The universe is the expression of law. All impacts have causes, and male’s awareness or character is the sum total of his previous thoughts and acts. Karma, implying action-reaction, governs all presence, and man is the sole developer of his situations and his response to them, his future condition, and his final destiny. By right idea and action he can gradually purify his frame of mind, and so by self-realization achieve in time liberation from renewal. The procedure covers fantastic amount of times, involving life after life in the world, but ultimately every kind of life will reach Enlightenment.5) Life is one and indivisible: though its ever-changing forms are numerous and disposable. There is, in reality, no death, though every type should die. From an understanding of life’s unity emerges compassion, a sense of identity with the life in other forms. Empathy is referred to as ‘the Law of laws– everlasting consistency’, and he who breaks this harmony of life will suffer appropriately and delay his own Enlightenment.6) Life being One, the interests of the part must be those of the entire. In his lack of knowledge man believes he can successfully pursue his own interests, and this wrongly-directed energy of selfishness produces suffering. He gains from his suffering to reduce and lastly remove its cause.
The Buddha taught four Noble Truths:
(a) The omnipresence of suffering;
(b) its cause, mistakenly directed desire;
(c) its treatment, the removal of the cause; and
(d) the Noble Eightfold Path of self-development which leads to the end of suffering.
7) The Eightfold Path consists in Right (or ideal)Views or preliminary understanding.
Right Goals or Intention,
Right Speech,
Right Acts,
Right Income,
Right Effort,
Right Concentration or mind-development, and lastly,
Right Samadhi, causing complete Knowledge.
As Buddhism is a lifestyle, not merely a theory of life, the treading of this Path is vital to self-deliverance. ‘Cease to do evil, learn to do great, clean your own heart; this is the Mentor of the Buddhas.’
8) Reality is inexpressible, and a God with attributes is not the last Truth. But the Buddha, a person, became the All-Enlightened One, and the purpose of life is the achievement of Knowledge. This state of Awareness, Nirvana, the extinction of the constraints of self-hood, is obtainable in the world. All men and all other types of life consist of the potentiality of Enlightenment; and the procedure for that reason consists in becoming what you are. ‘Look within: thou art Buddha.’
9) From possible to actual Enlightenment there lies the Middle Method, the Eightfold Course ‘from desire to peace’, a process of self-development in between the ‘revers’, preventing all extremes. The Buddha trod in this manner to the end, and the only faith needed in Buddhism is the reasonable belief that where a Guide has trodden it is worth our while to tread. The Method should be trodden by the whole man; not merely the best of him, and heart and mind must be established similarly. The Buddha was the All-Compassionate in addition to the All-Enlightened One.10) Buddhism lays great tension on the requirement of inward concentration and meditation, which leads in time to the advancement of the inner spiritual faculties. The subjective life is as crucial as the day-to-day round, and durations of quietude for inner activity are necessary for a balanced life. The Buddhist must at all times be ‘mindful and self-possessed’, refraining from mental and psychological attachment to ‘the passing show’. This increasingly watchful attitude to situations, which he understands to be his own development. assists him to keep his response to it constantly under control.11) The Buddha said: ‘Exercise your own salvation with diligence’. Buddhism understands no authority for truth save the intuition of the individual, which is authority for himself alone. Each male suffers the effects of his own acts, and finds out thereby, while helping his fellow males to the same deliverance; nor will prayer to the Buddha or to any God avoid an effect from following its cause. Buddhist monks are instructors and exemplars, and in no sense intermediates in between Truth and the individual. The utmost tolerance is practiced towards all other faiths and approaches, for no guy deserves to interfere in his neighbors journey to the Goal.12) Buddhism is neither downhearted nor ‘escapist’, nor does it deny the existence of God or soul, though it puts its own significance on these terms. It is, on the contrary, a system of thought, a faith, a spiritual science and a way of life which is affordable, useful and expansive. For over two thousand years it has actually pleased the spiritual requirements of nearly one-third of humanity. It interest the West since it has no dogmas, satisfies the reason and the heart alike, demands self-reliance paired with tolerance for other viewpoints, accepts science, faith, philosophy, psychology, principles and art, and indicate man alone as the developer of his present life and sole designer of his fate.