Lord Buddha

Having gained this doctrine the Buddha thought how difficult it would be for
humanity to understood because of their attachments and lust. Trying to
teach it to them would be vexation for him. However, the god Brahma asked
him to teach the doctrine, because some people, who were not too impure,
were falling away from not hearing the teachings. Then the Buddha in pity
for beings surveyed their conditions and saw some of little impurity whom he
could teach. At first he thought of his former teachers Alara Kalama and
Uddaka, but in his clairvoyant awareness he realized that both of them had
just died in the last few days. Then he decided to teach the five mendicants
who had been with him in their striving. Perceiving that they were in the
deer park at Benares, he decided to go there.

                Along the way he met an Ajivika ascetic named Upaka, who when
told of the Buddha's enlightenment, merely said that he hoped that it was so
and went his way. When the five mendicants saw Siddartha Gautama, they
thought they would not rise in respect but would offer him a seat. However,
as the Buddha arrived, they spontaneously greeted him as a friend. They
still criticized him for living in abundance, but the Buddha explained that he
does not live in abundance. He spoke to them as one enlightened, and they
had to agree that he never had spoken to them in that manner before. While
he admonished two of them, the other three went off to collect alms; then
he spoke with those three while the other two went for alms. In this way all
five soon attained insight and the supreme peace.

                In this deer park at Benares the Buddha gave his first sermon in
which he explained that the two extremes are not to be practiced by the one
who is enlightened - what is joined with the passions and luxury which is
low, vulgar, common, ignoble, and useless, nor what is joined with self-
torture which is painful, ignoble, and useless too. Avoiding these two
extremes the enlightened follow the middle path which produces insight and
knowledge and leads to peace, wisdom, enlightenment, and nirvana.