The point that the path offers a way to live in alignment with deeper truths suggests that the Eightfold Path is more a way of liberation than merely a way to liberation, which makes sense. This implies that the Eightfold Path may have developed naturally from Shakyamuni Buddha’s behaviour and teachings. 

The Buddha’s teaching, particularly as expressed in the Eightfold Path, has long been seen as a practical method to achieve liberation from suffering. However, to approach the Eightfold Path purely as a means to an end is to miss something essential about its role within the Buddha’s broader teaching. If we understand the path as more than a step-by-step guide towards liberation, and instead as a way of living in harmony with the truths that the Buddha uncovered, we can begin to appreciate its deeper, more profound purpose. This understanding reframes the Eightfold Path as both the process and the expression of liberation itself.

This approach invites us to look at the Eightfold Path not just as a set of practices to follow in order to reach some distant goal of enlightenment but as a way of embodying the insight into the nature of reality that the Buddha attained. In this view, liberation is not a final destination but something we live in the present through the qualities that the Eightfold Path cultivates — wisdom, skilful living, and mental discipline. This shift in perspective helps to explain why the Eightfold Path has played such a central role in the evolution of the Buddha’s teaching and suggests that it may have emerged organically from Shakyamuni Buddha’s own behaviour and life example.

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