ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns that there is dukha, a basic defectiveness in life experienced as a deep anxiety. It also concerns that dukha is caused by grasping for permanence and separateness. It discusses that the way to get rid of grasping is to get rid of the ignorance that underlies it. The chapter concerns that the way to get rid of ignorance and grasping is to follow the eightfold noble path. Siddhrtha corrected their wrong impressions of him, asserting that in abandoning asceticism he had not abandoned his efforts to achieve liberation. To understand the place of the Buddha in Buddhism, one must make some initial distinctions, for the Buddha: He is the historical person, Siddhrtha Gautama; He is the ultimate spiritual reality that resides in all beings as their hidden perfection; He is both the historical person and the ultimate spiritual reality incarnate, for Siddhrtha embodied the ultimate spiritual reality of existence awakened through innumerable lifetimes of spiritual effort.
