Eight Fold Path

Dharma represents the teachings of the Buddha and the principles that will ultimately lead humans towards nirvana. The main teachings of the Buddha are the four truths and the eight-fold path, which make up the main steps towards ultimate knowledge, or nirvana. After the Buddha achieves enlightenment by meditating for forty-nine days, he proclaims that there are four noble truths of the universe that lead to the path needed to reach Nirvana. The first truth explains that everything involves dukkha, or suffering, and that throughout life a human will experience points where their life will fall into a category of suffering. The Buddha teaches that experiencing suffering is necessary to find the motivation to steer away from the second truth of tanha. The second truth shows that what causes suffering are human’s
The third truth just bridges the gap between the second and the fourth truth by clarifying that the way to be freed from selfish desires is to follow the eight-fold path. The fourth truth describes how humanity can free themselves from suffering and desire by following the eight-fold path that the Buddha outlines. By following the eight-fold path, a Buddhist can get closer to their idea of nirvana and move closer to the enlightenment that Buddha received. The eight-fold path consists of the eight steps that need to be followed for a human to escape from tanha and dukkha and move closer to the ideal way of living. The first step is that of right views, or the mind’s ability to reason, because without proper reasoning abilities a human would be incapable of finding their way towards the correct path. Leading straight into the second step is right intent, which relies on a person having already established what the problems that they encounter in the world are. Right intent consists of determining whether or not a person truly wants to begin the journey towards seeking nirvana, basically is nirvana the ultimate goal that their actions all lead