The Buddha not only makes suffering and release from suffering the focus of his teaching, but he deals with the problem of suffering in a way that reveals mindfulness. He traces suffering to its roots within our minds, first to our craving and clinging, and then a step further back to ignorance, a primitive unawareness of the true nature of things. Since suffering arises from our own minds, the cure must be achieved within our minds, by dispelling our corruption and delusions with insight into reality. It is said that the beginning point of Buddah's teaching is the unenlightened mind, in the grip of its afflictions, cares, and sorrows and the end point is the enlightened mind, blissful, radiant, and free. To eliminate this gap between the beginning and end points of his teaching, the Buddha formed a clear, precise, practical path made up of eight factors.
The Eightfold Path is a noble path used as an instruction for how to live. These are those eight factors:.
1. Right view of the basic truths of existence.
2. Right intention to undertake the training.
3. Ethical factor of right speech.
4. Ethical factor of right action: do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not be unchaste, and do not drink intoxicants.
5. Ethical factor of right livelihood. ("All we are is the result of what we have thought.").
The following pertain to meditation and mental development:.
6. Right effort .
7. Right mindfulness.
8. Right concentration.
When all eight factors of the path are brought to maturity, perfect wisdom and unshakeable liberation of the mind will shine through in the instant of enlightenment, or nirvana, and all will become clear.
All of this is to end suffering caused by want. This does not necessarily mean greed or excess of any kind. This can simply mean an attachment. The Buddha believed that a person must give up all wants, desires, and attachments in order to reach nirvana, .
but Buddha, himself, was guilty of want until the day he died.
