Rediscovery of the Dhammakāya Tradition : หน้า 105/263

mentaries for most people to understand. The knowledge of Dhammakāya is said to have diminished and eventually for some unknown reason, disappeared from Buddhism approximately 500 years after the Parinibbāna of the Lord Buddha. After rediscovering the Dhammakāya tradition, Luang Phaw Wat Paknam devoted the rest of his life to the teaching of the tradition. He recognized the exceptional purity and precision of the tradition and saw the potential benefit it could bring to society at large. Luang Phaw Wat Paknam was thus engaged in outreach programmes for the Dhammakāya Tradition for approximately forty years of his life. The fruits of his efforts have made the Dhammakāya Tradition recognized by countless temples and adherents in Bangkok, upcountry Thailand and abroad. Indeed, anyone who practices the Dhammakāya Tradition in earnest will surely see results in proportion to their efforts. Majjhima Paṭipadā is the Middle Way of practice In the Lord Buddha’s first sermon to the group of five initial disciples he advocated to steer between the extremes of sensual indulgence [kāmasūkkallikānyoga] and self mortification [attakilamathānyoga] in one’s practice. He said that the way of practise one should aim for is the Middle Way [majjhima paṭipadā] which the Lord Buddha had already practised to completion. How can we know whether what we are practising is the Middle Way? In theoretical terms, we can know that we are on the right track if we are practising the Noble Eightfold Path — or more briefly if we are practising self-discipline [sīla], meditation [samādhi] and wisdom [paññā] — then these are also the theoretical essentials of the Middle Way.