to them the one true
way; the foolish masters practising austerities, and those who love to
gratify their senses, he pointed out to them these two distinctive
classes, and how both greatly erred. "Neither of these," he said, "has
found the way of highest wisdom, nor are their ways of life productive
of true rescue. The emaciated devotee by suffering produces in himself
confused and sickly thoughts, not conducive even to worldly knowledge,
how much less to triumph over sense! For he who tries to light a lamp
with water, will not succeed in scattering the darkness, and so the man
who tries with worn-out body to trim the lamp of wisdom shall not
succeed, nor yet destroy his ignorance or folly. Who seeks with rotten
wood to evoke the fire will waste his labor and get nothing for it; but
boring hard wood into hard, the man of skill forthwith gets fire for his
use. In seeking wisdom then it is not by these austerities a man may
reach the law of life. But to indulge in pleasure is opposed to right:
this is the fool's barrier against wisdom's light. The sensualist cannot
comprehend the Sutras or the Sastras, how much less the way of
overcoming all desire! As some man grievously afflicted eats food not
fit to eat, and so in ignorance aggravates his sickness, so can he get
rid of lust who pampers lust? Scatter the fire amid the desert grass,
dried by the sun, fanned by the wind--the raging flames who shall
extinguish? Such is the fire of covetousness and lust. I, then, reject
both these extremes: my heart keeps in the middle way. All sorrow at an
end and finished, I rest at peace, all error put away; my true sight
greater than the glory of the sun, my equal and unvarying wisdom,
vehicle of insight--right words as it were a dwelling-place--wandering
through the pleasant groves of right conduct, making a right life my
recreation, walking along the right road of proper means, my city of
refuge in right recollection, and my sleeping couch right meditation;
these are the eight even and level roads by which to avoid the sorrows
of birth and death. Those who come forth by these means from the slough,
doing thus, have attained the end; such shall fall neither on this side
or the other, amidst the sorrow-crowd of the two periods. The tangled
sorrow-web of the three worlds by this road alone can be destroyed; this
is my own way, unheard of before; by the pure eyes of the true law,
impartially seeing the way of escape, I, only I, now first ma