page_title: Gautama Buddha
section_title: The Path to Liberation
hierarchical_section_title: Gautama Buddha / Teachings / Teachings preserved in the Early Buddhist Texts / The Path to Liberation
caption_attribution_description: English: Seated Buddha, Pakistan or Afghanistan, Ghandhara region, 2nd - 3rd century CE, gray schist, Honolulu Academy of Arts
context_page_description: The Buddha was a philosopher, mendicant, meditator, spiritual teacher, and religious leader who lived in Ancient India. He is revered as the founder of the world religion of Buddhism, and worshiped by most Buddhist schools as the Enlightened One who has transcended Karma and escaped the cycle of birth and rebirth. He taught for around 45 years and built a large following, both monastic and lay. His teaching is based on his insight into duḥkha and the end of dukkha – the state called Nibbāna or Nirvana.
  The Buddha was born into an aristocratic family, in the Shakya clan but eventually renounced lay life. According to Buddhist tradition, after several years of mendicancy, meditation, and asceticism, he awakened to understand the mechanism which keeps people trapped in the cycle of rebirth. The Buddha then traveled throughout the Ganges plain teaching and building a religious community. The Buddha taught a middle way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the Indian śramaṇa movement. He taught a spiritual path that included ethical training and meditative practices such as jhana and mindfulness.
context_section_description: Liberation (vimutti) from the ignorance and grasping which create suffering is not easily achieved because all beings have deeply entrenched habits (termed āsavas, often translated as "influxes" or "defilements") that keep them trapped in samsara. Because of this, the Buddha taught a path (marga) of training to undo such habits. This path taught by the Buddha is depicted in the early texts (most famously in the Pali Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta and its numerous parallel texts) as a "Middle Way" between sensual indulgence on one hand and mortification of the body on the other.
  One of the most common formulations of the path to liberation in the earliest Buddhist texts is the Noble Eightfold Path. There is also an alternative formulation with ten elements which is also very commonly taught in the early texts.
  According to Gethin, another common summary of the path to awakening wisely used in the early texts is "abandoning the hindrances, practice of the four establishments of mindfulness and development of the awakening factors."
  The early texts also contain many different presentations of the Buddha's path to liberation aside from the Eightfold Path. According to Rupert Gethin, in the Nikayas and Agamas, the Buddha's path is mainly presented in a cumulative and gradual "step by step" process, such as that outlined in the Samaññaphala Sutta. Early texts that outline the graduated path include the Cula-Hatthipadopama-sutta (MN 27, with Chinese parallel at MĀ 146) and the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13, with Chinese parallel at DĀ 26 and a fragmentary Sanskrit parallel entitled the Vāsiṣṭha-sūtra). Other early texts like the Upanisa sutta (SN 12.23), present the path as reversions of the process of Dependent Origination.
  Some common practices which are shared by most of these early presentations of the path include sila (ethical training), restraint of the senses (indriyasamvara), mindfulness and clear awareness (sati-sampajañña) and the practice of jhana (meditative absorption). Mental development (citta bhāvanā) was central to the Buddha's spiritual path as depicted in the earliest texts and this included meditative practices.
  Regarding the training of right view and sense restraint, the Buddha taught that it was important to reflect on the dangers or drawbacks (adinava) of sensual pleasures. Various suttas discuss the different drawbacks of sensuality. In the Potaliya Sutta (MN 54) sensual pleasures are said by the Buddha to be a cause of conflict for all humans beings. They are said to be unable to satisfy one's craving, like a clean meatless bone given to a dog. Sensuality is also compared to a torch held against the wind, since it burns the person holding on to it. According to the Buddha, there is "a delight apart from sensual pleasures, apart from unwholesome states, which surpasses even divine bliss." The Buddha thus taught that one should take delight in the higher spiritual pleasures instead of sensual pleasure. This is explained with the simile the leper, who cauterizes his skin with fire to get relief from the pain of leprosy, but after he is cured, avoids the same flames he used to enjoy before (see MN 75, Magandiya Sutta).
  Numerous scholars such as Vetter have written on the centrality of the practice of dhyāna to the teaching of the Buddha. It is the training of the mind, commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions, and leading to a "state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi)." Dhyana is preceded and supported by various aspects of the path such as seclusion and sense restraint.
  Another important mental training in the early texts is the practice of mindfulness (sati), which was mainly taught using the schemas of the "Four Ways of Mindfulness" (Satipatthana, as taught in the Pali Satipatthana Sutta and its various parallel texts) and the sixteen elements of "Mindfulness of Breath" (Anapanasati, as taught in the Anapanasati Sutta and its various parallels).
  Because getting others to practice the path was the central goal of the Buddha'
caption: Gandharan sculpture depicting the Buddha in the full lotus seated meditation posture, 2nd-3rd century CE
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