Which Path Is The Way To The Truth - The Simple Path Or The 8 Fold Path?
What is truth is the question that Pontius Pilate is said to have asked Jesus of Nazareth before handing him over to be crucified.
Pontius Pilate may have heard of Buddha's eight-fold path to the truth. This is kind of like a maze which people must work their way through to discover the truth about themselves and therein attain enlightenment.
The eight-fold path talks about getting things right. There is: Right Understanding, Right Thoughts, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.
This suggests there must also be a wrong understanding, wrong thoughts, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, 123Dwrong effort, wrong mindfulness, and wrong concentration, which will not lead you down the eight-fold path to finding the truth of enlightenment.
This provides a difficulty, because many people believe that what they decide is right, irrespective of what Buddha might believe is right. So who is right? Is Buddha right? Or can anyone and everyone be right?
When talking about truth, Buddha actually talks about four noble truths as being a part of having right understanding. For Buddha a right understanding of life has to do with suffering. The noble truths of Buddha are basically an understanding of what suffering is for people on earth. Buddha believed people are born to suffer, and in understanding this, you and I will realize the nature of suffering, what causes suffering, how suffering can be stopped and, then, what has to be done to bring about the end of suffering within oneself, or within one's life. The result is a life of bliss, happiness and oneness with the surrounding universe.
Not too many people, if any, appear to have found the way to enlightenment. Even the most renowned Buddhist alive today, the Tibetan Dalai Lama, does not appear to have all the answers. Reports of his displeasure and lack of happiness tend to surface from time to time. Sadly, he has not been able to find peace with China and return to his homeland of Tibet and lives as a refugee touring the world.
The Dalai Lama is supposedly the 14th reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas. Yet, surprisingly, since he supposedly possesses centuries of innate knowledge and wisdom, he still had to go to school to learn basic knowledge and does not seem to know how to resolve his people's struggle. Maybe the suffering of this struggle is the road that leads to truth for him. Meanwhile his people suffer in their struggle to regain their homeland.
While Buddha taught that the truth was to be found by escaping the sufferings of this world through attaining a state of blissful existence known as nirvana, this does not appear to be the Tibetan Buddhists' lot. This can raise some doubts about the validity of whether what Buddha called right actions will lead to truth; and by truth, we are talking about having the power to sustain oneness with one's universe.
Now the funny thing about Jesus of Nazareth is he claimed that he himself was the truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." It certainly didn't look like he was going the right way about things when Pontius Pilate handed him over to be crucified. Jesus wasn't doing too much to avoid suffering at all. But then after being whipped and scourged and raised to what must have been an agonizing death on the cross, the suffering would certainly have ended.
The one thing about Jesus that has always struck me in enduring what he did, there is no record of him crying out in pain or trying to escape. Furthermore, he would have required superhuman strength to endure such punishment and remain so calm. I often wonder, was Jesus demonstrating to his onlookers that he possessed the oneness with his universe (that Buddha sought) and felt no pain, even though to the onlookers he must have endured unbelievable agony.
Anyhow, his Jewish convert, Saul of Tarsus, is said to have claimed Jesus endured the agony of the cross because of the joy he possessed in knowing what he was to receive by being raised from the dead. Since Jesus is the only person in history of whom it is attested that he rose from the dead, maybe he has shown us the truth after all; and it is not of this world.
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Helen Keller