The Noble Eightfold Path and Buddhist Sainthood : หน้า 103/263

fold Path diligently to the extent they are prepared to lay down their life for their practice, have the chance to uproot craving from the mind by transcendental extinction — by attaining the various levels of Buddhist sainthood according to their own potential. There are many documented examples of those who have managed to follow in the Buddha’s footsteps — there are the eighty outstanding male arahat-disciples of the Lord Buddha and numerous outstanding female arahat-disciples — recorded by name in the Buddhist scriptures and today’s Buddhist history textbooks. Furthermore there are 1,250 arahants who assembled miraculously on Mágha Pūjā Day, nine months after the Lord Buddha’s enlightenment to hear the preaching of the Ovadāpaṭimokkhā¹. Furthermore, there are multitudes who faithfully devote their lives to the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path with steadfast faith in the existence of Nirvana as the highest aim in life — and those people will also eventually attain the various levels of Buddhist sainthood according to their potential. Such Buddhist nobles have overcome craving, even though some have not yet attained Nirvana — they have seen and known Nirvana via their Dhamma eye i.e. by meditational insight. Even though it is more than 2,500 years since the Lord Buddha entered Parinirvāṇa — a long passage of time which has inevitably caused some details of His Teachings to be lost or distorted — even to the present day there are still those who faithfully devote their lives to the study and the 1. The Ovadāpaṭimokkhā is a teaching which contains the most basic principles of Buddhism, sometimes referred to as the ‘heart of Buddhist teachings’ given in three verses — a sermon delivered by the Buddha to 1,250 spontaneously assembled arahants at Veluvana Grove on the full-moon day of the third month [Māgha].