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Part 6 – The Buddhist Dharma: The Middle Way

From the silence of Patanjali’s Yoga, we now step into the vast garden of the Dharma. Here, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, offered not a philosophy to speculate upon, but a direct medicine for the suffering of existence. His teaching was practical, compassionate, and universal: the ending of dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction) through insight and practice.

At the heart of the Dharma lies the Four Noble Truths:

1. There is suffering. Life as we live it is touched by pain, impermanence, and longing.

2. There is a cause of suffering. It arises from craving, clinging, and ignorance.

3. There is an end to suffering. Liberation (Nirvana) is possible.

4. There is a path. The Noble Eightfold Path is the way to freedom.

Unlike rigid dogma, the Buddha called his teaching a raft—to be used to cross the river, then left behind. It was never meant to be clung to as ideology, but lived as experience.

The Noble Eightfold Path flows in three streams:

• Wisdom (Prajña): Right View, Right Intention

• Ethics (Śīla): Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood

• Meditation (Samādhi): Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration

This path is the Middle Way—avoiding both extremes of indulgence and self-mortification. It is the balance of body, speech, and mind, cultivated in awareness and compassion.

While Patanjali emphasizes stilling the waves of consciousness, the Buddha emphasizes seeing clearly into the nature of reality: impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), and non-self (anattā). This insight does not end in despair, but in boundless compassion, for all beings are seen as sharing in this same cycle of birth and death.

Thus, the Dharma opens not only the path of liberation but also the heart of compassion. The Bodhisattva ideal, which arose later in Mahayana Buddhism, carries this further: the vow not to enter final Nirvana until all beings are freed. Here, the individual’s awakening becomes inseparable from the liberation of all.

Where the Yoga Sutras speak of discipline and the Tao whispers of natural harmony, the Buddha points directly to the root of suffering and offers a practical path out. It is a teaching for kings and beggars, monks and householders, for anyone who longs for peace.

The Dharma is both a mirror and a medicine. It shows us our suffering clearly, and it heals us through the very seeing. In this way, it is not separate from Yoga, nor from Tao—it is another facet of the same jewel of Truth.