Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c11.33.3

v1.c11.33.3

He delivered his first discourse known as *Dharmacakra*, in which he referred to the two extreme practices, followed hitherto, viz., the life of ease and that of extreme asceticism, the former probably referring to the life led by Brāhmaṇas and Kṣatriyas who lived in towns and villages and performed elaborate sacrifices, and the latter to that of the ascetics living in the forests and given to severe self-mortifications.¹ He then explained the four Āryasatyas, or the four-fold method of examination of the things of the world,² by means of which, he said he was able to comprehend the causal genesis of things, consisting of three sections and twelve terms.³ It was this causal genesis that convinced him of the impermanent nature of things, and of the non-existence of a doer or a feeler, in other words, the non-existence of a self (ātma = pudgala) or of a transmigrator (saṅkramaka),⁴ and of action, good or bad. He found out that tṛṣṇā (desire) was the root of sufferings, and aṣṭāṅgikamārga the means to their cessation. He traced the origin of avidyā to careless mental constructions (saṅkalpajanitena ayonisena bhavate avidyā). Further, he was convinced that skandhas, āyatanas and dhātus do not make a Buddha and that avidyā owes its origin to mental constructions vikalpa) on the cessation of which it disappears and along with it all forms of existence. As he had found out this without the help of a teacher he was a Svayambhū (self-awakened).