The most powerful motive that influenced
Buddha, who was a royal prince, to abandon all
his claims to the earthly advantages and to live
a monkish, retiring, contemplative life, was his
deep insight into the nature of life. He knew that
life as it is lived by most of sentient beings was
no more than a series of sufferings, for in trying
to escape one misery they invariably fall into
another misery which is perhaps greater and
heavier to endure. He asked himself whether
this misery could be exterminated. To ascertain
this it was necessary to find out the real funda-
mental cause of it all. The removal of the cause
was the removal of the effect.
In Ignorance he found the cause of misery
that surrounds and oppresses us, sentient beings.
People are ignorant as to the real significance
of existence; they blindly crave for it and its
continuance merely for its own enjoyment; they
do not know what destiny is awaiting them at
the end of their earthly career; they do not
know how pregnant of meaning is their every
act, their every thought, their every feeling;
they do not know under what conditions a phe-
nomenon called life is possible, and finally they
have a very confused notion concerning the true
nature of the soul which they identify with the
ego, simple, permanent, and absolute. On
account of this ignorance, they suffer ; on account



THE WHEEL OF THE GOOD LAW 105

of this ignorance, they keep oh augmenting the
causes of misery, and are unable to see the light
of wisdom.
