The Bodhisatta, having put Māra to flight, gave himself up to
meditation. All the miseries of the world, the evils produced by
evil deeds and the sufferings arising therefrom, passed before
his mental eye, and he thought: 1
"Surely if living creatures saw the results of all their evil
deeds, they would turn away from them in disgust. But selfhood
blinds them, and they cling to their obnoxious desires. 2
"They crave pleasure for themselves and they cause pain to
others; when death destroys their individuality, they find no
peace; their thirst for existence abides and their selfhood
reappears in new births. 3
"Thus they continue to move in the coil and can find no escape
from the hell of their own making. And how empty are their
pleasures, how vain are their endeavors! Hollow like the
plantain-tree and without contents like the bubble. 4
"The world is full of evil and sorrow, because it is full of
lust. Men go astray because they think that delusion is better
than truth. Rather than truth they follow error, which is
pleasant to look at in the beginning but in the end causes
anxiety, tribulation, and misery." 5
And the Bodhisatta began to expound the Dharma. The Dharma is the
truth. The Dharma is the sacred law. The Dharma is religion. The
Dharma alone can deliver us from error, from wrong and from
sorrow. 6
Pondering on the origin of birth and death, the Enlightened One
recognized that ignorance was the root of all evil; and these are
the links in the development of life, called the twelve nidānas: 7
In the beginning there is existence blind and without knowledge;
and in this sea of ignorance there are stirrings formative and
organizing. From stirrings, formative and organizing, rises
awareness or feelings. Feelings beget organisms that live as
individual beings. These organisms develop the six fields, that
is, the five senses and the mind. The six fields come in contact
with things. Contact begets sensation. Sensation creates the
thirst of individualized being. The thirst of being creates a
cleaving to things. The cleaving produces the growth and
continuation of selfhood. Selfhood continues in renewed births.
The renewed births of selfhood are the cause of suffering, old
age, sickness, and death. They produce lamentation, anxiety, and
despair. 8
The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning; it is hidden
in the ignorance from which life grows. Remove ignorance and you
will destroy the wrong appetences that rise from ignorance;
destroy these appetences and you will wipe out the wrong
perception that rises from them. Destroy wrong perception and
there is an end of errors in individualized beings. Destroy the
errors in individualized beings and the illusions of the six
fields will disappear. Destroy illusions and the contact with
things will cease to beget misconception. Destroy misconception
and you do away with thirst. Destroy thirst and you will be free
of ail morbid cleaving. Remove the cleaving and you destroy the
selfishness of selfhood. If the selfishness of selfhood is
destroyed you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death,
and you will escape all suffering. 9
The Enlightened One saw the four noble truths which point out the
path that leads to Nirvāna or the extinction of self: 10