( Retrieved
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel433.html)
1. The Life of the Buddha
First, The Blessed One's awakening to the harsh realities of human
existence — his discovery of our bondage to old age, illness, and
death — teaches us the importance of deep reflection and critical
thinking.
The awakening of the Buddha reflects back to us the somnambulance
in which we usually live, mired in our pleasures and little petty
concerns, as a reminder to break away from our thoughtless
infatuation with our youth, health, and vitality, and to rise
admidst our inevitable encounter with the mires which characterise
life.
The Blessed One's departure from the palace, his "great
renunciation," teaches us a lesson in values. It shows us that from
among the wide range of wholesome values, the quest for
enlightenment and liberation should reign supreme.
Far beyond the pleasure, wealth, and power to which we ordinarily
give priority, we must all order our values according to a scale
which gives the highest place to the most worthy goal, to that
which is also the most real of all realities, Nibbana, and allow
ourselves the strive to thrive our aspiration.
Next, the Blessed One's six years of struggle shows us that the
quest for the highest goal is an undertaking that calls for deep
dedication and unrelenting effort, and those who strive such a goal
must thrive to a difficult and demanding course of training.
The Buddha's enlightenment teaches us that ultimate wisdom and
deliverance from suffering is a real potential inherent in human
beings, one we can realize for ourselves without the aid or grace
of an external savior. His enlightenment also highlights the ideal
of sensible moderation, "the middle way."
The decision the Buddha made after his enlightenment, as he took
upon himself the burden of guiding errant humanity along the path
to liberation, is a tremendous impact on the subsequent development
of Buddhism.
For throughout its long history the spirit of compassion has been
the heartbeat of the Buddha's dispensation, as an inspiration in a
wide variety of ways, even when one can express their compassion
only in humble acts of kindness and tender concern for those less
fortunate than themselves.
Finally, the Buddha's passing away, his attainment of final
Nibbana, teaches us once again that everything conditioned must
perish, that all formations are impermanent, that even the greatest
of spiritual masters is no exception to the very law he so often
proclaimed.
His passing away also teaches us that the highest bliss and peace
comes only by relinquishing all, through the stilling of all
conditioned things. For this is the final entrance way to the
attainment of the unconditioned, the Deathless, Nibbana.
2. The Buddha's Mission
To ask why the Buddha's teaching proved so attractive and gained
such a large following among all sectors of Northeast Indian
society is understood principally in terms of two factors: one, the
aim of the teaching; and the other, its methodological
features.
(i) The Aim of the Teaching
Unlike the so-called revealed religions, which rest upon faith in
unverifiable doctrines, the Buddha formulated his teaching in a way
that directly addresses the critical problem at the heart of human
existence — the problem of suffering — and he promises that those
who follow his teaching to its end will realize here and now the
highest happiness and peace. All other concerns apart from this,
such as theological dogmas, metaphysical subtleties, rituals and
rules of worship, the Buddha waves aside as irrelevant to the task
at hand, the unraveling of the problem of suffering.
This pragmatic thrust of the Dhamma is clearly illustrated by an
incident related in the texts. Once a monk named Malunkyaputta was
pondering the great metaphysical questions — whether the world is
eternal or non-eternal, infinite or finite, etc. — and he felt
unhappy because the Buddha had refused to answer them. So one day
Malunkyaputta went to the Master and told him, "Either you answer
these questions for me or I leave the order."
The Buddha then told Malunkyaputta that the spiritual life did not
depend on any answers to these questions, which were mere
distractions from the real challenge of following the path. He then
compared the metaphysician to a man struck by a poisoned arrow.
When his relatives bring a surgeon, the man tells him, " I won't
let you remove the arrow until you let me know the name of the man
who struck me, the type of bow he used, the material from which the
arrow was made, and the kind of poison he used." That man would
die, the Buddha said, before the arrow was removed, and so too the
metaphysician, struck with the arrow of suffering, will die without
ever finding the path to freedom.
(ii) Characteristic Features of the Teaching
1. Self-reliance. This discussion of the aim of the Buddha's
teaching leads us to the teaching's characteristic features. One of
its most attractive features, closely related to its psychological
orientation, is its emphasis on self-reliance. For the Buddha, the
key to liberation is mental purity and correct understanding, and
for this reason he rejects the notion that we can gain salvation by
leaning on any external authority. He says: "By oneself is evil
done, by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone, by
oneself is one purified. Purity and defilement depend on oneself;
no one can purify another" (Dhp 165).
2. Experiential Emphasis. Since wisdom or insight is the chief
instrument of enlightenment, the Buddha always asked his disciples
to follow him on the basis of their own understanding, not from
obedience or unquestioning trust. He calls his Dhamma ehipassiko,
which means "Come and see for yourself." He invites inquirers to
investigate his teaching, to examine it in the light of their own
reason and intelligence, and to gain confirmation of its truth for
themselves. The Dhamma is said to be paccattam veditabbo viññuhi,
"to be personally understood by the wise," and this requires
intelligence and sustained inquiry.
3. Universality. Because the Buddha's teaching deals with the most
universal of all human problems, the problem of suffering, he made
his teaching a universal message, one which was addressed to all
human beings solely by reason of their humanity.
At the time the Buddha appeared on the Indian scene the higher
religious teachings, recorded in the Vedas, were reserved for the
brahmans, a privileged elite who performed sacrifices and rituals
for others. Ordinary people were told to perform their duties in a
spirit of humility in the hope that they might win a more fortunate
rebirth and thus gain access to the sacred teachings.
But the Buddha placed no restrictions on the people to whom he
taught the Dhamma. He held that what made a person noble was his
personal character and conduct, not his family and caste status.
Thus he opened the doors of liberation to people of all social
classes. Brahmans, kings and princes, merchants, farmers, workers,
even outcasts — all were welcome to hear the Dhamma without
discrimination, and many from the lower classes attained the
highest stage of enlightenment.
4. A Code of Ethics. One aspect of the Buddha's universalism
deserves special mention: this is his conception of a universal
code of ethics. It would be too extreme to say that the Buddha was
the first religious teacher to formulate a moral code, for moral
codes of different kinds had been laid down from the dawn of
civilization. But it might not be farfetched to say that the Buddha
was one of the very first teachers to separate out true moral
principles from the complex fabric of social norms and communal
customs with which they were generally interwoven.
To sum up, the Buddha's mission was to establish a path to
spiritual perfection, to full enlightenment and Nibbana, liberation
from suffering. He did this by propounding a teaching that
acknowledged our capacity for attaining spiritual perfection yet
which also remained fully respectful of the intelligence and
autonomy of human beings. His approach was psychological in
orientation, non-dogmatic, pragmatic, and open to investigation. He
emphasized self-effort, moral rectitude, and personal
responsibility, and he proclaimed his message universally, holding
that the potential for spiritual growth and even for the highest
enlightenment was accessible to anyone who makes the appropriate
effort. It is these factors that give to the ancient teaching of
the Buddha such a distinctly modern flavor, making it so relevant
to us in these times of shifting ideas and changing values.