Charity, Goodwill, Honesty & Tolerance

This, then, is in brief the way to walk the Path. It is just a brief summary, just the essence of it. It could be dealt with in more detail to cover the numerous different forms of practice out of which an individual may choose just the one that best suits his own particular temperament. One can think of it as the Noble Eightfold Path, or the Four Exercises in Mindfulness, or the Ten Skillful Actions, or something else, just as one chooses. We may choose to think of it as the Ten Virtues, which a buddha is said to possess. These virtues are, once again, the Path to be walked from ordinary human status to buddhahood. If we feel Ten Virtues are too much for us to aim at, that is all right; and if we feel we could manage all ten but not the the degree possible for a Buddha, that is all right too. These virtues simply constitute a mode of practice governed by insight into thoroughly unsatisfactory nature of this worldly condition, this cycle of samsara, these compounds. Our job is to cross over from all this to the other side, nirvana, by means of the kind of action that sees things as they really are, as transient, unsatisfactory, self-less things. We practise charity, goodwill, honesty, tolerance, all the virtues that we realize will give mastery over the lower kinds of thought, the kind that is blind to the three characteristics.

To sum up, then, walking the Path we must begin, develop, and culminate with perfectly clear insight into the three characteristics. This is all there is to it. I hope you will follow this Path taught by the Buddha and gain the benefits of so doing.