A Sketch of the Buddha's Life
Readings from the Pali Canon
13,055 words
This modest selection of excerpts from the Pali Canon provides a rough sketch of the life of the Buddha. I hope you will find enough in this rather sparse selection to gain at least an inkling both of the range of the Buddhas teachings and of the sweeping trajectory of his extraordinary life....
The Four Noble Truths
"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are stressful; association with the un beloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five aggregates of clinging/sustenance are stressful.
"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of stress: the craving that makes for further becoming -- accompanied by passion and delight, relishing now here and now there -- i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non becoming.
"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress: the remainder less fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very craving.
"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: precisely this Noble Eightfold Path -- right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.