China: Buddhism:

ENLIGHTENMENT

THE Bodhisattva, having put Mara to flight, gave himself up to
meditation. All the miseries of the world, the evils produced by
evil deeds and the sufferings arising therefrom, passed before his
mental eye, and he thought:
"Surely if living creatures saw the results of all their evil deeds,
they would turn away from them in disgust. But selfhood blinds them,
and they cling to their obnoxious desires. They crave pleasure for
themselves and they cause pain to others; when death destroys their
individuality, they find no peace; their thirst for existence abides
and their selfhood reappears in new births. Thus they continue to move
in the coil and can find no escape from the hell of their own
making. And how empty are their pleasures, how vain are their
endeavors! Hollow like the plantain-tree and without contents like the
bubble. The world is full of evil and sorrow, because it is full of
lust. Men go astray because they think that delusion is better than
truth. Rather than truth they follow error, which is pleasant to
look at in the beginning but in the end causes anxiety, tribulation,
and misery."
And the Bodhisattva began to expound the Dharma. The Dharma is the
truth. The Dharma is the sacred law. The Dharma is religion. The
Dharma alone can deliver us from error, from wrong and from sorrow.
Pondering on the origin of birth and death, the Enlightened One
recognized that ignorance was the root of all evil; and these are
the links in the development of life, called the twelve nidanas: In
the beginning there is existence blind and without knowledge; and in
this sea of ignorance there are stirrings formative and organizing.
From stirrings, formative and organizing, rises awareness or feelings.
Feelings beget organisms that live as individual beings. These
organisms develop the six fields, that is, the five senses and the
mind. The six fields come in contact with things. Contact begets
sensation. Sensation creates the thirst of individualized being. The
thirst of being creates a cleaving to things. The cleaving produces
the growth and continuation of selfhood. Selfhood continues in renewed
birth. The renewed births of selfhood are the causes of sufferings,
old age, sickness, and death. They produce lamentation, anxiety, and
despair.
The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning; it is hidden
in the ignorance from which life grows. Remove ignorance and you
will destroy the wrong desires that rise from ignorance; destroy these
desires and you will wipe out the wrong perception that rises from
them. Destroy wrong perception and there is an end of errors in
individualized beings. Destroy the errors in individualized beings and
the illusions of the six fields will disappear. Destroy illusions
and the contact with things will cease to beget misconception. Destroy
misconception and you do away with thirst. Destroy thirst and you will
be free of all morbid cleaving. Remove the cleaving and you destroy
the selfishness of selfhood. If the selfishness of selfhood is
destroyed you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death, and
you will escape all suffering.
The Enlightened One saw the four noble truths which point out the
path that leads to Nirvana or the extinction of self: The first
noble truth is the existence of sorrow. The second noble truth is
the cause of suffering. The third noble truth is the cessation of
sorrow. The fourth noble truth is the eightfold path that leads to the
cessation of sorrow.
This is the Dharma. This is the truth. This is religion. And the
Enlightened One uttered this stanza:

          "Through many births I sought in vain
          The Builder of this House of Pain.
          Now, Builder, You are plain to see,
          And from this House at last I'm free;
          I burst the rafters, roof and wall,
          And dwell in the Peace beyond them all."

There is self and there is truth. Where self is, truth is not. Where
truth is, self is not. Self is the fleeting error of samsara; it is
individual separateness and that egotism which begets envy and hatred.
Self is the yearning for pleasure and the lust after vanity. Truth
is the correct comprehension of things; it is the permanent and
everlasting, the real in all existence, the bliss of righteousness.
The existence of self is an illusion, and here is no wrong in this
world, no vice, no evil, except what flows from the assertion of self.
The attainment of truth is possible only when self is recognized as an
illusion. Righteousness can be practiced only when we have freed our
mind from passions of egotism. Perfect peace can dwell only where
all vanity has disappeared.
Blessed is he who has understood the Dharma. Blessed is he who
does no harm to his fellow-beings. Blessed is he who overcomes wrong
and is free from passion. To the highest bliss has he attained who has
conquered all selfishness and vanity. He has become the Buddha, the
Perfect One.