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THE SYSTEMS OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
extinction of all passions and added : “I go to the city of Kashis to beat the drum of the immortal in the darkness of the world." Upaka did not understand him and replied after a little conversation, “It may be so, friend,” shook his head and took another road and went away.
At Benaras, Gautama enters the Deer Park (FANGIT) in the cool of the evening and met his former disciples. And he explained to them his new tenets :
“ There are two extremes, O Bhikkhus, which the man who has given up the world ought not to follow the habitual practice, on the one hand, of those things whose attraction depends upon the passion, and especially of sensuality, a low and pagan way, unworthy, unprofitable and fit only for the worldly-minded, and the habitual practice, on the other hand, of asceticism which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable. There is a middle path, O Bhikkhus, avoiding these two extremes, discovered by the agria Buddha, a path which opens the eyes and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to fall."
And he explained to them the four truths concerning suffering, the cause of suffering, the destruction of suffering, and the way which leads to the destruction of suffering. And the way was described to be eightfold. “ This doctrine", Gautama said, “was not, O Bhikkhus, among the doctrines handed down. In Benaras in the hermitage of HTIGT, the supreme wheel of the Empire of truth has been set rolling by the Blessed One--that wheel which not by any BHUT or $787, not by any god, not by any FETT Or Fre, not by any one in the universe can ever be turned back."
The five former disciples of course were soon converted and were the first members of the order.
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