Today is very auspicious day to pay Homage to lord Buddha Shakyamuni.

🌙🍂H A P P Y N E W M O O N🍂🌙

🍂Today is very auspicious day to pay Homage to lord Buddha Shakyamuni.🍂

🍂On this auspicious day we would like to share the #four_noble_truth and #The_Eightfold_Path which taught by Lord Buddha Shakyamuni.🍂

🍂 Buddha’s basic teaching, encapsulating the entire Buddhist path is.🍂

The four noble truth⬇️

1. Suffering

🍂 No matter how we look happy, no matter how much we possess the wealth, no matter how beautiful or handsome we are,  once we are born from mother's womb, life always involves suffering, in obvious and subtle forms. Even when things seem good, we always feel an undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty inside. 🍂

2. The Cause of Suffering

🍂The cause of suffering is craving and fundamental ignorance. We suffer because of our mistaken belief that we are a separate, independent, solid “I.” The painful and futile struggle to maintain this delusion of ego is known as samsara, or cyclic existence.🍂

3. The End of Suffering

🍂The good news is that our obscurations are temporary. They are like passing clouds that obscure the sun of our enlightened nature, which is always present. Therefore, suffering can end because our obscurations can be purified and awakened mind is always available to us.🍂

4. The Path

🍂By living ethically, practicing meditation, and developing wisdom, we can take exactly the same journey to enlightenment and freedom from suffering that the buddhas do. We also can achieve enlightenment like Buddha andany bodhisattvas did.🍂

🍂The Eightfold Path🍂

 

 🍂The Eightfold Path Buddha Shakyamuni explained the Eightfold Path in the first sermon after his enlightenment.  In this Path, he sets forth a "middle way" between the extremes of asceticism and sensual indulgence.🍂

 The Eightfold Path is:⬇️

 1.🍂 Right speech⬇️

🍂Right speech means abstention.

1.from telling lies,

2. from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, 

3. disharmony among individuals or groups of people,  from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, and abusive language.

4. from idle, useless, and foolish babble and gossip.🍂

 🍂When we abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech we naturally have to speak the truth, have to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful, and useful. We should not speak carelessly. If we cannot say something useful, we should keep “noble silence.”🍂

🍂2.Right Action⬇️

🍂Right action aims at promoting moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct. It admonishes us that we should abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and that we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way.🍂

🍂3.Right Livelihood⬇️

🍂Right livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks or poisons, killing animals, cheating, etc., and should live by a profession which is honorable, blameless, and innocent of harm to others.🍂

🍂These three factors (right speech, right action, and right livelihood) of the eightfold path constitute ethical conduct. It should be realized that the Buddhist ethical and moral conduct aims at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This moral conduct is considered as the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral basis.🍂

🍂4.Right Effort⬇️

🍂Right effort is the energetic will.

 (1. to prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising.

 (2. to get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen within a man,  (3. to produce, to cause to arise, good, and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen, and (4. to develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present in a man.🍂

🍂5.Right Mindfulness⬇️

🍂Right mindfulness is to be diligently aware, mindful, and attentive with regard to 

(1. the activities of the body (kaya),

 (2. sensations or feelings (vedana), 

(3.the activities of the mind (citta) and (

4.ideas, thoughts, conceptions, and things (dhamma).

6.Right Concentration🍂

🍂The third and last factor of mental discipline is right concentration, leading to the four stages of Dhyana, generally called trance or recueillement. In the first stage of Dhyana, passionate desires and certain unwholesome thoughts like sensuous lust, ill-will, languor, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt are discarded, and feelings of joy and happiness are maintained, along with certain mental activities.🍂

 🍂Then, in the second stage, all intellectual activities are suppressed, tranquillity, and “one-pointedness” of mind developed, and the feelings of joy and happiness are still retained. In the third stage, the feeling of joy, which is an active sensation, also disappears, while the disposition of happiness still remains in addition to mindful equanimity. Finally, in the fourth stage of Dhyana, all sensations, even of happiness and unhappiness, of joy and sorrow, disappear, only pure equanimity and awareness remaining. Thus the mind is trained and disciplined and developed through right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.🍂Wisdom

7. Right Thought⬇️

🍂Right thought denotes the thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts of love and thoughts of non-violence, which are extended to all beings. It is very interesting and important to note here that thoughts of selfless detachment, love and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom. This clearly shows that true wisdom is endowed with these noble qualities, and that all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred, and violence are the result of a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life whether individual, social, or political.🍂

8. Right Understanding⬇️

🍂Right understanding is the understanding of things as they are, and it is the four noble truths that explain things as they really are. Right understanding therefore is ultimately reduced to the understanding of the four noble truths. 

This understanding is the highest wisdom which sees the Ultimate Reality. There are two sorts of understanding. What we generally call “understanding” is knowledge, an accumulated memory, an intellectual grasping of a subject according to certain given data.This is called “knowinng.🍂

 accordingly” (anubodha). It is not very deep. Real deep understanding or “penetration” (pativedha) is seeing a thing in its true nature, without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and is fully developed through meditation.🍂

🍂let's not forget that Lord Buddha has gave us such great gift called "Buddhism" to practice and achieved enlightenment.🍂

 May the teachings of the Buddha flourish and spread!

May all sentient beings find happiness and joy!

May they practise Dharma day and night!

And may our own and other's aims be spontaneously accomplished"!

🍂🙏💐💫🧡🌷🌹🙏🌼🌹💐💛🙏💐🌼💛

Source of this article @Oddiyana