Buddhism is essentially a path to inner freedom which centers upon the discipline of seeing.
What lies at its core, beneath its sometimes bewildering profusion of forms and doctrines, is a liberative vision to be cultivated by an arduous yet meticulously methodical course of training.
This vision, which gradually alters one’s most basic conceptions and attitudes, runs through every stage of the genuine Buddhist path, from the first glimmer of understanding which induces a person to enter the path right through to the indubitable knowledge of deliverance which consummates it. In the special terminology of the tradition it is called the vision of Dhamma: a penetrating insight into the nature of things as they really are independent of our grasping, wishful thinking and manipulative activity governed by self-serving ends.
The transmission of Buddhism from generation to generation, and from one geographical region to another, ultimately depends upon the transmission of this vision, without which there will be only the passing on of lifeless forms, not the communication of living Dhamma—the truth which quickens, elevates and liberates.
Particularly at the present critical junction of Buddhist history, when the future of Buddhism in its Asian homeland is seriously jeopardized both from within and from without, and thirst for a knowledge of its teachings becomes increasingly more acute in the West, the revitalization of the Buddhist vision and its articulation in a language relevant to the pressing existential problems of our age has become an urgent necessity. But unlike institutes and temples, the vision of Dhamma cannot be molded and managed by organized bodies for collective purposes. By its very nature it is unavoidably personal and thus can only be transmitted by those individuals, specially endowed, who have opened to it and made it the vital center of their lives.
—from the introduction to The Vision of Dhamma, Buddhist writings of Nyanaponika Thera
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To be free from suffering—this wish of all beings is also the origin of religion. If there were no suffering, there would be no religion. For the ultimate purpose of religion is, after all, nothing but the deliverance from suffering, although of course suffering is understood rather differently depending on the stage of development reached by a particular person.
The extent and diversity of suffering in the world is immense, and it is just as immensely difficult to free oneself from its iron embrace, which seems to hold us fast without prospect of escape. Many people, having struggled in vain to find a way out of suffering, have come to doubt the very possibility of release.
But hope and consolation are essential to the nurture of humankind. And this is why, even today, a great proportion of humankind are content with the promise of theistic religion to the effect that the believer will be delivered from suffering, not on this earth, but in a “hereafter.”
However, the number of people who are no longer content with this belief is constantly growing—people who will not and cannot be put off with promises of a next world. It is to these doubters and seekers that the Buddha’s teaching speaks today, as well as to anyone else who is willing to listen.
This teaching comes to us as truly good news, with the announcement that: “There is a deliverance, and it has been found! It can be experienced and realized in this life and in this world.”
Certainly, the way leading to deliverance from suffering is a long and arduous one, but it is plain and clearly marked, and can be followed by one’s own efforts. One of its advantages is that it offers “a gradual training, gradual practice, gradual progress,” and that the first steps on the path can be taken even by those who do not have much spiritual strength to begin with.”
—from The Way to Freedom from Suffering, by Nyanaponika Thera