CAN THE TEACHING OF THE TRILOGY LEAD YOU TO LIBERATION
| The Buddha teaches that the way to the end of dukkha is
through understanding. It is due to not understanding the real nature of existence that we
remain tied to dukkha. Because of our craving, clinging and attachment, we cling to body
and mind, because we see them as permanent, pleasurable and self. We interpret them as I,
mine and myself. From these erroneous notions all sorts of defilements arise. Greed arises
as the drive to acquisition.We want to grab hold of more power, more pleasure, higher
status. The deluded notion of self gives rise to anger and hatred towards what opposes
ourself. It causes the arising of selfishness, jealousy, pride, vanity, competitiveness.At
the deepest level the ideas of permanence, pleasure and selfhood sustain the round of
sansara. When we get tired of running in pursuit of the objects of our desire, of trying to substantiate our sense of selfhood, then we turn away and seek the way to liberation. The Buddha points out that liberation lies precisely in the realisation of these three marks of existence: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and selflessness, by looking at our experience with insight. When we stop identifying ourselves with the five aggregates, we see them as not mine, not I and not self. Then we become detached from the five aggregates and with detachment there comes liberation. That is the end of dukkha, the goal of the teaching. |