Truth and the Way

20
(aṭṭhaṅga-samannāgata-sekha-paṭipadā) whereas the path of ten is
the path of perfection, (dasaṅga-samannāgata-araha hoti). In the
latter one, right concentration (sammā-samādhi) leads further to
perfect insight (sammā-ñāṇa) and to perfect deliverance (sammāvimutti),
the end of the Noble Path.
It is worth noting that the Noble Eightfold Path has not found
a place in the Book of Eights of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, whereas the
ten stages of perfection, which are said to be utterly pure and clear
and which constitute the perfect path, are fully dealt with in the
same text in the Book of Tens.
On the occasion of his first discourse, the Buddha gave us a mere
outline of the path, a bare enumeration of its eight sections, as right
understanding (sammā-diṭṭhi), right intention (sammā-saṅkappa),
right speech (sammā-vācā), right action (sammā-kammanta), right
mode of living (sammā-ājīva), right endeavour (sammā-vāyāma),
right mindfulness (sammā-sati) and right concentration (sammāsamādhi).
Elsewhere, this path is called the method for the realisation
of certain conditions for the sake of which the brethren lead a
religious life; and those conditions are more sublime than heavenly
pleasures, for they culminate in the realisation, in this present life,
of that emancipation of mind and heart, which is arahantship.
When the Buddha, therefore, spoke of his teaching as the middle
path, he did not try to reconcile the two extremes of materialistic
self-indulgence and idealistic self-denial, but avoiding both he taught
the path that leads to the cessation of conflict, which produces virtue
and insight and which leads to the tranquillisation of deliverance
and the supreme insight of enlightenment. This course covers a
man’s moral life (sīla), his power of concentration (samādhi) and
his understanding of the truth (paññā).
In this and the following two chapters we shall deal with the
Noble Path from these three aspect of sīla, samādhi and paññā,
but in the order as the eight constituents are usually referred to.
And therefore, we first shall speak of insight (paññā) and the Noble