Practice and Truth The principles thus set out evidently form a program of practical training, having in mind certain aims, namely happiness, knowledge, enlightenment. We might try to summarise the whole program as follows, though there is no Tripitaka authority for this and the impression grows on the student that all the factors are to be cultivated together rather than serially, forming as it were a fugue in which a dozen different subjects combine in a tremendous crescendo leading up to enlightenment. A student who has a certain amount of confidence in the doctrine equips himself with the theory of the Four Truths. Having right intention and some understanding he conforms to virtue and practices discrimination of principles. He concentrates his will, thought, energy and investigations and so increases his self-possession and goes on to practice concentration, developing joy in this practice and assurance of body and thought, so that his meditations- bring him to equanimity. Then his understanding can exercise its full potential and he should be able to attain enlightenment, to verify in his own experience, understand in their true reality, the Four Truths. Though this is a way of training, it presupposes theory, the theory of the Four Truths, and a knowledge of certain observed facts about the nature of the universe, of life. As confidence is replaced by understanding the observation of facts gains in importance: for example the facts of causes or conditions in life, the principles or natural constituents of the universe through which the way leads. These facts, the truth about causation, the nature, that is the principles, of the universe, are discussed in other texts of the Tripitaka, which we may consider in the next chapter.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 02:10:54 +0000
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