Buddhist Discourses Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Buddhist Discourses - Essay Example Firstly the conversation centers upon external and internal anxieties experienced by a person. Buddha says that the anxiety about something non-existent externally can be overcome by the realization that the possession of things is impermanent (Early Discourses, 110). What mine was before is not certainly mine now. If a person understands this truth, he will have no external anxiety. Also a person who thinks he will become a permanent thing and remain so for eternity after death becomes anxious if he is exposed to the dhamma as taught by the tathagata or his disciple. The teaching eliminates all standpoints of speculative views which involve obstinacy, favoritism, and possessiveness, produces an effect of calming of all dispositions to actions, forsakes all attachments, and destroys craving (Early Discourses, 110). The teaching is for nibbana, the complete freedom from suffering. This internal anxiety could be overcome if the person does not think he will be permanent and then expose himself to the teaching. At the end of this part of the conversation, the disciples do not seem to continue their quest for solution to the anxiety. Buddha simply starts asking questions about permanency of things. It was not clear how the internal anxiety could be overcome, meaning the process of removal of the anxiety.