“When writers call the Buddha a ‘spiritual democrat,’ they mean he felt sure he could go anywhere in India and find that needle in the haystack, the person who would come up after the sermon and say, ‘I want to know more about how to prevent hostile thoughts from arising. Please teach me,'” writes Eknath Easwaran in his translation of the Dhammapada. “The serious student is what every teacher seeks, and the Buddha found enough of them in these crowds to build a movement that has had a powerful and enduring effect on people’s hearts and lives for centuries.”

It can be hard to study Buddhism with its numerous schools and variations of teachings. That is why a while back I wrote an article titled “What is Theravada Buddhism?” where I list several reasons why it’s a good starting point for anyone who is at the beginning of their path. The Dhammapada is an important part of that school’s canonical collection of scriptures called The Three Baskets (Pali: Tipitaka). You can think of it as an equivalent of a practical handbook with the core of the Buddha’s teachings condensed in poetry and arranged by theme: anger, greed, fear, happiness, thought, and so on.

The Dhammapada is ever more important because the Buddha didn’t leave us a static structure of doctrine but rather an ongoing roadmap that we can follow to develop inner calm and wisdom. It’s not a secret that a considerable part of the teachings was meant for monks, but the Dhammapada was meant for a wide audience and could be easily understood and practiced by lay followers. Eknath Easwaran — a prominent Indian scholar and spiritual teacher — puts it best when he writes that “if everything else were lost, we would need nothing more than the Dhammapada to follow the way of the Buddha.”

The Dhammapada’s method for transforming our minds can already be seen in its first chapter titled “Twin Verses.” It presents us with a pair of possibilities for human conduct, each leading to a different outcome. “If one who enjoys a lesser happiness beholds a greater one, let him leave aside the lesser to gain the greater,” said the Buddha and these verses illustrate the wisdom of these words:

1. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it.
2. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

Why it’s so hard for us to enjoy a lesser happiness in order to behold a greater one? The obstacle is always our mind. It’s our mental state that determines which choice we make. The mind wires us for the tendency to look out for our own interest, and its natural response to any situation is to take the easy way out, to go with the current.

3. “He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me” — those who dwell on such thoughts will never be free from hatred.
4. “He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me” — those who do not dwell on such thoughts will surely become free from hatred.

To find a way out, the Buddha teaches us, one has to go against the current, against every selfish impulse. We should refrain from taking the easy path traveled by the many. “In his experience of enlightenment, he had seen for himself that eternal principles operate in human affairs,” notes Eknath Easwaran while translating the Buddha’s timeless verses:

19. Those who recite many scriptures but fail to practice their teachings are like a cowherd counting another’s cows. They do not share in the joys of the spiritual life.
20. But those who know few scriptures yet practice their teachings, overcoming all lust, hatred, and delusion, live with a pure mind in the highest wisdom. They stand without external supports and share in the joys of the spiritual life.

Complement this particular portion of the Dhammapada, a practical and accessible guide to the Buddha’s timeless teachings, with ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi on liberating quality of limitations in Buddhism and his lecture on the Noble Eightfold Path, then revisit the Buddha’s famous simile of teaching as a raft and the reason why he left his parents’ palace to become a wandering ascetic.

“Just as in the great ocean there is but one taste — the taste of salt — so in this Doctrine and Discipline there is but one taste — the taste of freedom,” said the Buddha while pointing out the emancipating quality of his teaching.

This is a beautiful quote that resonates with our modern times, where freedom of speech, action, and thought are the cornerstones of our public and private life. Yet this seeming harmony shatters when we start to learn the Dhamma and see that many elements of the Noble Eightfold Path have to do with limitations rather than freedom. “Can freedom as an end really be achieved by means that involve the very denial of freedom?” asks American Buddhist monk Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi in the opening essay of his magnificent collection Dhamma Reflections. The answer lies — he notes while proceeding to untangle the question — in the distinction between two types of freedom: freedom as a license and freedom as spiritual autonomy. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Contemporary man, for the most part, identifies freedom with license. For him, freedom means the license to pursue undisturbed his impulses, passions and whims. To be free, he believes, he must be at liberty to do whatever he wants, to say whatever he wants and to think whatever he wants. Every restriction laid upon this license he sees as an encroachment upon his freedom; hence a practical regimen calling for restraint of deed, word, and thought, for discipline and self-control, strikes him as a form of bondage.

Contrary to this ordinary notion of freedom of doing what you want, spiritual freedom is something that can’t be acquired by external means. It comes from within as a result of training aimed at renunciation of passion and impulse in order to reach a higher end. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

The freedom to which the Buddha points is spiritual freedom — an inward autonomy of the mind which follows upon the destruction of the defilements, manifests itself in an emancipation from the mold of impulsive and compulsive patterns of behavior, and culminates in final deliverance from samsara, the round of repeated birth and death.

Buddhism teaches us that when an uninstructed person experiences a pleasant feeling, it arouses the tendency to lust — the desire to possess and enjoy the stimulating object. Likewise, that same person experiences aversion towards all painful feelings and is dulled and confused by neutral feelings. If left unchecked, these latent tendencies to lust, repugnance, and ignorance transform into greed, hatred, and delusion, which deprive us of the capacity for self-control and clear thinking. Outwardly we may appear to be free, but deep within we are prisoners of our own desires. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Spiritual freedom, as the opposite of this condition of bondage, must therefore mean freedom from lust, hatred, and delusion. When lust, hatred, and delusion are abandoned in a man, cut off at the root so that they no longer remain even in latent form, then a man finds for himself a seat of autonomy from which he can never be dethroned, a position of mastery from which he can never be shaken. … If pleasant objects come within range of his perception he does not yearn for them, if painful objects come into range he does not recoil from them. He looks upon both with equanimity and notes their rise and fall.

Complement this particular portion of Dhamma Reflections, an enlightening read for any practicing or aspiring Buddhist, with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi lectures on the First Noble Truth, the Second Noble Truth, and the Noble Eightfold Path, and then revisit the Buddha’s simile of teaching as a raft.

“I was delicate, most delicate, supremely delicate,” said the Buddha while remembering his days as a prince in his parents’ palace. “Lily pools were made for me at my father’s house solely for my benefit. Blue lilies in one, white lilies in another, red lilies in a third. … A white sunshade was held over me day and night so that no cold or heat or dust or grit or dew might inconvenience me.”

Imagining all this opulence, one can’t help but wonder how someone so fortunate could even think about leaving all of it behind to lead a life of complete renunciation and extreme austerities. Yet that’s exactly what the Buddha did at the age of twenty-nine. Many of us know about his eventual discovery of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. But what do we know about the time before that and the reasons that prompted the Buddha to leave his former life of luxury? This is one of many subjects taken up in a wonderful book titled The Life of the Buddha According to the Pali Canon based on the research and translations by a Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Nanamoli. What this book is trying to accomplish is to present us with the earliest canonical version of the Buddha’s life as described in the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism.

In describing his former life, the Buddha said that he “had three palaces; one for winter, one for the summer, and one for the rains.” Indeed, he was surrounded by servants, good food, entertainment, and all the riches of his kingdom were at his disposal. But there was something that troubled him amidst all this wealth. The Buddha recounts:

Whilst I had such power and good fortune, yet I thought, “When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to ageing, not safe from ageing, sees another who is aged, he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted; for he forgets that he himself is no exception. But I too am subject to ageing, not safe from ageing, and so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is aged.” When I considered this, the vanity of youth entirely left me.

I thought, “When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to sickness, not safe from sickness, sees another who is sick, he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted; for he forgets that he himself is no exception. But I too am subject to sickness, not safe from sickness, and so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is sick.” When I considered this, the vanity of health entirely left me.

I thought, “When an untaught ordinary man, who is subject to death, not safe from death, sees another who is dead, he is shocked, humiliated and disgusted, for he forgets that he himself is no exception. But I too am subject to death, not safe from death, and so it cannot befit me to be shocked, humiliated and disgusted on seeing another who is dead.” When I considered this, the vanity of life entirely left me.”

He concludes with this reflection, “Why being myself subject to birth, ageing, ailment, death, sorrow and defilement, do I seek after what is also subject to these things? Suppose, being myself subject to these things, seeing danger in them, I sought after the unborn, unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, undefiled supreme surcease of bondage, Nibbana?” And so his main search for the path to transcendence began.

Complement this particular portion of The Life of the Buddha with the Buddha’s simile of teaching as a raft and then revisit Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s lecture on the Noble Eightfold Path.

“Letting go is a way of letting things be, of accepting things as they are,” wrote Jon Kabat-Zinn while reminding us about the essential mental qualities we need to cultivate in our meditation practice. “When we find ourselves judging our experience, we let go of those judging thoughts. We recognize them and we just don’t pursue them any further. We let them be, and in doing so we let them go.”

This is a beautiful teaching, and yet a very strange and alien one to our inborn way of seeing things and the way we form the crust of our outermost selves. For most of us, the emotions that pain the most, the thoughts that wound the most, are those that we can’t let go: the yearning for unattainable things, precisely because they are unattainable; reliving of what never was; guilt over not being someone else; discontent with the way things are. All these semitones of the mind’s consciousness create in us an agonizing landscape, an everlasting twilight of what we are. It is precisely because of this precarious human condition that another teacher of immense wisdom took up this issue two and half millennia ago to its exquisite extreme in his famous exposition, one that shows us the true meaning of letting go and moving on — the Buddha’s simile of teaching as a raft. Presented here in a beautiful retelling written by an eminent Buddhist scholar-monk Walpola Rahula and included in his book What the Buddha Taught.

THE BUDDHA’S SIMILE OF TEACHING AS A RAFT

O monks, a man is on a journey. He comes to a vast stretch of water. On this side the shore is dangerous, but on the other it is safe and without danger. No boat goes to the other shore which is safe and without danger, nor is there any bridge for crossing over. He says to himself, “This sea of water is vast, and the shore on this side is full of danger; but on the other shore it is safe and without danger. No boat goes to the other side, nor is there a bridge for crossing over. It would be good therefore if I would gather grass, wood, branches and leaves to make a raft, and with the help of the raft cross over safely to the other side, exerting myself with my hands and feet.” Then that man, o monks, gathers grass, wood, branches and leaves and makes a raft, and with the help of that raft crosses over safely to the other side, exerting himself with his hands and feet. Having crossed over and got to the other side, he thinks, “This raft was of great help to me. With its aid I have crossed safely over to this side, exerting myself with my hands and feet. It would be good if I carry this raft on my head or on my back wherever I go.”

What do you think, o monks, if he acted in this way would that man be acting properly with regard to the raft? “No, Sir.” In which way then would he be acting properly with regard to the raft? Having crossed and gone over to the other side, suppose that man should think, “This raft was a great help to me. With its aid I have crossed safely over to this side, exerting myself with my hands and feet. It would be good if I beached this raft on the shore, or moored it and left it afloat, and then went on my way wherever it may be.” Acting in this way, would that man act properly with regard to that raft? In the same manner, o monks, I have taught a doctrine similar to a raft — it is for crossing over, and not for carrying. You, o monks, who understand that the teaching is similar to a raft, should give up even good things (dhamma); how much more then should you give up evil things (adhamma).

The simile of teaching as a raft, an essential part of What the Buddha Taught, remains a guiding beacon of light for spiritual seekers, both old and young. Complement it with a kindred simile of teaching as a path, the Noble Eightfold Path, delivered in a lecture by another prominent Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi.