A Buddhist Parable: The Man Born Blind

It's too hot to blog much, so here are is a Buddhist parable to ponder. It is interesting in that it is is almost the reverse of Plato's cave. Instead of everyone only seeing shadows except for someone enlightened, the focus is on one man who cannot see, and what it tells us.


The Man Born Blind

There was a man born blind, and he said: "I do not believe in the world of light and appearance. There are no colours, bright or somber. There is no sun, no moon, no stars. No one has witnessed these things."

His friends remonstrated with him, but he clung to his opinion: "What you say that you see," he objected, "are illusions. If colours existed I should be able to touch them. They have no substance and are not real. Everything real has weight, but I feel no weight where you see colours."

A physician was called to see the blind man. He mixed four simples, and when he applied them to the cataract of the blind man the grey film melted, and his eyes could see. The Tathagatha is the physician, the cataract is the illusion . . . and the four simples are the four noble truths.


The Four Noble Truths

"I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That's all I teach", declared the Buddha 2500 years ago.

The Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha's teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree.

• The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
• The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
• The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
• The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)

The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first two Noble Truths he diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified its cause. The third Noble Truth is the realisation that there is a cure.

The fourth Noble Truth, in which the Buddha set out the Eightfold Path, is the prescription, the way to achieve a release from suffering.

References
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml
http://oaks.nvg.org/pastbud.html