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'Middle Path', is the Noble
Eightfold Path which, by avoiding the two extremes of sensual lust and
self-torment, leads to enlightenment and deliverance from suffering.
To give oneself up to indulgence in sensual pleasure (kāma-sukha),
the base, common, vulgar, unholy, unprofitable; and also to give oneself up to
self-torment (atta-kilamatha), the painful, unholy, unprofitable, both
these two extremes the Perfect One has avoided and has found the Middle Path (s.
magga), which causes one both to see and to know, and which leads to
peace, to discernment, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna. It is the Noble Eightfold
Path, the way that leads to the extinction of suffering, namely: right
understanding, right thought, right speech, right bodily action, right
livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration" (S.
LVI, 11).

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