The °Fourth Truth" points out the path that leads to the cessation of suffering, the °Middle Way," removed both from the life of sensual pleasure and from that of self-torture. It is the °Noble Eightfold Path"; namely, Right View (recognition of the truths about suffer ing), Right Intention (to renounce evil), Right Speech (abstaining from lying, slandering, re viling, and idle talk), Right Action (abstain ing from taking life, from taking what is not given, and from carnal intercourse), Right Live lihood (not following a forbidden occupation), Right Effort (to avoid and put away evil states of mind, and to seek and cherish good states of mind), Right Mindfulness (self-possession that does away with longing and despondency), and Right Concentration (the four stages of ecstasy).
The goal of the Path is Nirvana (Pali nibbana), a term which means literally "extinc tion" or °quiescence° and which denotes a state of perfect calmness and purity, in which the four great °taints" or ((weaknesses," sensual desire, longing for existence, vain theorizing and ignorance, have been destroyed. This blessed condition during life is, however, only the earnest of the "complete Nirvana" (Pali parinibbatio) into which the perfected disciple will pass at death. For such a one, who has abandoned all craving, there is necessarily no rebirth, no continuance in the world of phe nomena; but concerning what lies beyond this world — whether nothingness or some incon ceivable felicity — Buddhism, at least in its earlier stages, forbids us to inquire. The Teacher has revealed the way of emancipation from suffering; what he has not revealed, as being unprofitable toward salvation, is to be left uninvestigated on the part of the disciple.
In the early days of the Buddha's preaching, many persons are said to have attained com plete purification (i.e., Nirvana) soon after their conversion; but there arose in time a more elaborate classification of believers according to the degree of their religious attainment; namely, the convert (lit. "he who has entered the stream"), the "once-returner° (who will be reborn on earth only once), the "not-returner" (who will be reborn only in the highest heavens), and finally the Arhat (Pali arahat, lit. °worthy one"), the perfected saint, who will be reborn no more. The spiritual discipline is partly a negative one, consisting in overcom ing the soul-heresy and scepticism and attach ment to outward works and ceremonies, in striv ing to suppress the great faults of sensuality, ill-will and mental error, and in destroying the four "taints" already mentioned. The positive
discipline is first ethical,—the cultivation of virtue, and especially of the sentiments of friendliness, sympathy with others' joy and sor row, and equanimity; then mystical,— the prac tice of ecstatic meditation in its four degrees (this not peculiar to Buddhism, but taken over from an early form of the °Yoga" system); and finally intellectual,— the attainment of supreme wisdom in the comprehension pf the "Four Noble Truths" Thus far Buddism would appear to be merely a system of self-discipline, but it shows a more distinctively religious aspect in its doctrine concerning the Buddha himself. The "Noble Truths," although they are in accordance with reason, are not discoverable by the unaided intellect of the wisest man, but must be learned from a Supreme Buddha, a "completely en lightened one," who is an omniscient being, endowed with various supernatural character istics and powers, and superior even to the highest gods. This glorious eminence can be attained only by one who, as a Bodhisattva or "potential Buddha," during countless existences on earth and in the heavens, has practised all the virtues with the firm resolution of becoming a Buddha, and who in the fullness of time de scends from the Heaven of Delight, is born as a man, gains the supreme illumination, and preaches the Truths. At his death he enters into complete Nirvana, and can then neither hear nor answer prayer (which indeed has no place in early Buddhism); but his memory is to be cherished by the faithful, and meditation upon it brings abundant profit.
Of the Supreme Buddhas, who appear only at long intervals, Gotama is the most recent and is consequently "the Buddha" par excel lence; but even the earlier texts give the names of his six immediate predecessors and mention also his successor Maitreya (in Pali, Metteyya), who will appear ages hence. In the younger Pali texts the list of the Buddhas of the past is extended to 24 or 27 names. It is impossible as yet to determine how far this doctrine of the Buddha, or omniscient sage, is due to the Indian habit of deifying any great religious teacher, in this case Gotama, and how far it represents merely the centring of pre existing mythological conceptions around his personality; but both processes have evidently been at work.