..续本文上一页d by supreme bliss and complete freedom from suffering and is so utterly different from ordinary existence that no real description of it can be given. The Unconditioned can be indicated — up to a point — only by stating what it is not; for it is beyond words and beyond thought.

　　Hence, in the Buddhist texts, the Unconditioned is often explained as the final elimination from one”s own mind, of greed, hatred and delusion. This, of course, also implies the perfection of the opposite positive qualities of selflessness, loving-kindness, and wisdom.

　　The attainment of the Unconditioned is the ultimate aim of all Buddhist practice, and is the same as complete liberation from dissatisfaction or suffering. This brings us to the last of the Four Basic Statements:

　　The Way of Liberation Is the Noble Eightfold Path

　　The eight factors of the path are these:

　　Right understanding, a knowledge of the true nature of existence.

　　Right thought, thought free from sensuality, ill-will and cruelty.

　　Right speech, speech without falsity, gossip, harshness, and idle babble.

　　Right action, or the avoidance of killing, stealing and adultery.

　　Right livelihood, an occupation that harms no conscious living being.

　　Right effort, or the effort to destroy the defilements of the mind and to cultivate wholesome qualities.

　　Right mindfulness, the perfection of the normal faculty of attention.

　　Right concentration, the cultivation of a collected, focused mind through meditation.

　　Now you will see that in this Noble Eightfold Path there is nothing of an essentially religious nature; it is more a sort of moral psychology.

　　But in the East as well as in the West people as a whole demand external show of some sort, and — on the outside at least — the non-essentials have assumed more importance than the essentials.

　　While some external features in the practice of Buddhism must of necessity vary according to environment, the essential and constant characteristics of that practice are summed up in the following outline of the Noble Eightfold Path, the Middle Way between harmful extremes, as taught by the Buddha.

　　Although it is convenient to speak of the various aspects of the eightfold path as eight steps, they are not to be regarded as separate steps, taken one after another. On the contrary, each one must be practiced along with the others, and it might perhaps be better to think of them as if they were eight parallel lanes within the one road rather than eight successive steps.

　　The first step of this path, right understanding, is primarily a matter of seeing things as they really are — or at least trying to do so without self-deceit or evasion. In another sense, right understanding commences as an intellectual appreciation of the nature of existence, and as such it can be regarded as the beginning of the path; but, when the path has been followed to the end, this merely intellectual appreciation is supplanted by a direct and penetrating discernment of the principles of the teaching first accepted intellectually.

　　While right understanding can be regarded as the complete understanding of the Buddha doctrine, it is based on the recognition of three dominating characteristics of the relative universe, of the universe of time, form and matter. These three characteristics can briefly be set out in this way:

　　Impermanence: All things in the relative universe are unceasingly changing.

　　Dissatisfaction: Some degree of suffering or dissatisfaction is inherent in en-selfed life, or in life within the limitations of the relative universe and personal experience.

　　Egolessness: No being — no human being or any other sort of being — possesses a fixed, unchanging, eternal soul or self. Instead, every being consists of an ever-changing current of forces, an ever-changing flux of material and…

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