Understanding the Path to Nirvana: The Buddha's Teachings : หน้า 23/263

the attainment of Nirvana. In the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta, further to the clarification of the profitable path of practice, the Buddha stipulates paths of practice that are unprofitable and might even be harmful. The Buddha is able to explain the dangers of these other paths because, He himself had practiced all three paths of practice, namely: sensual-indulgence [kāmasukhallikānuyoga]; 2. Self-mortification [attakilamathānuyoga], and; 3. the Middle Way between these two extremes [mahijihmā paṭipadā]. 1. The Path of Sensual Indulgence The path of sensual pleasure [kāmasukhallikānuyoga], is to seek for pleasures through the channels of the five outer senses: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and physical contact. Such pleasures reduce the seeker to worldly mundaness. The more you let your mind be influenced by sense pleasures, the more defilements will accrue in the mind, in just the same way that the brightness of the sun can be covered up by clouds, defilements will cover up the innate brightness of the mind, and cripple its ability to perceive [maggānāṇa]1 the fetters that hold the mind back from Enlightenment or the wisdom to know the Sadhamma to the appoint of attaining transcendental [lokuttara] attainments. The path of sense pleasure fools the beings of the world into being contented with delusion, making them have to endure endless suffering in the Cycle of Existence. The Buddha taught us that the path of sense pleasure is sordid, worldly (i.e. for those still defiled), without benefit, ignoble, inappropriate for monks (because it is no path to release from defilements). These conclusions came from the supreme wisdom of the Lord Buddha. 1. Maggānāṇa is the knowing that allows one to be released from the fetters and defilements that ail the minds of beings.