Of all the paths,
the Noble Eightfold Path is the best.
(Of all the truths,
the Four Noble Truths are the best)…
This is the only path…
Walking upon this path,
you will make an end of suffering.
— The Buddha (Dhammapada)
Related Course:
The Path of Paths:
Walking the Noble Eightfold Path
Once you say your way is the best… you’ve lost way. May you walk carefully on the path and always watch yourself once you start walking, for one can always fall…always consider what you have learn and never take anything for granted. It would be too easy.
but do keep walking!
🙂
This is a clear teaching from the Buddha. If the Noble Eightfold Path is not the best, that leads to enlightenment, the Buddha would have lied. It would be as if saying the Buddha himself lost his way. If you discern a better path than the Buddha, so be it. If not, and this path is forsaken, you’ve lost way.
Is it truly the best way? The only way to know is to learn about it properly and walk it. This is what the Buddha encourages too, to learn with active intelligent enquiry to realise for oneself. To simply say it is not the best, while not discerning a better path, you’ve lost way.
The Buddha’s teachings on the priority of the Noble Eightfold Path, which emphasises that the path to enlightenment is NOT a case of ‘anything goes’:
https://thedailyenlightenment.com/2010/11/when-is-so-called-buddhism-not-buddhism
:w00t: