The Buddha’s Eightfold Path.
To remove confusion as to how the Buddhist tradition works, I will briefly describe the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment. The Eightfold Path is a general blueprint, or rather a teaching of advice and wisdom, rather than doctrine. It is not designed to bring about fears or doubts as to how one lives, but rather to cultivate positive interventions, so that a practicing Buddhist can have some guidance. It is simply the process of awakening. It’s all about learning to live a moral path that will bring about the legendary “Enlightenment” that the Buddha spoke of. I think for anyone to truly grasp the meaning of Buddhism, they must first read the basics of his teachings and also come to have some understanding of the purpose of it all --- Enlightenment (freedom from attachment, embracing the moment). So, here is my own interpretation of the Eightfold Path. This is truly my own personal view of it, and is also subject to change as I learn more and mature.
The Eightfold Path is divided into 3 categories: Morality, Wisdom, and Mental Development. In this order, here they are:
--Right Speech
--Right Livelihood
--Right Action
--Right View
--Right Intention
--Right Effort
--Right Mindfulness
--Right Concentration
This is the “Code of behavior”, so to speak. It is the rough guidelines, which differ in every Buddhist school or way of thinking. It is up to you to determine what works for you, but not to stray from the essential teachings of compassion and renunciation. Furthermore, it is important that when you study anything, from philosophy to physics, that you grasp the fact that you should try to see things with an open mind, and leave your ego aside. Also know that this is one tiny miniscule thing that Buddhism has to offer. It is like one page in a thousand-page manual on the subject. The teachings go on and on and one can never possibly read it all or understand it all. Let’s get started:
On Right Speech:
Right Speech is defined by me as speaking with thoughtfulness and timeliness. It is about speaking so as to bring about harmony and compassion, but also to provoke thought and understanding. It is as though you only speak when it reveals insight and provides others with something new. Also, in Buddhist philosophy it is said that Right Speech also means avoiding frivolous conversation. This means it is rather pointless to ramble on and on about things that do not matter and that do not lead to greater happiness and wisdom. Because if the saying is true that “Words breathe life”, than perhaps it is important to speak things that have a point, and to choose your words carefully. This is something that I wholeheartedly embrace, because I do not enjoy speaking with someone who is not sincere and who engages in frivolous and pointless conversation. By saying this I do not mean that we should demean other’s words, but rather to pay greater attention to our own. Right Speech also refers to abstaining from lying, slander, or hateful speech. In my own life, this means not demeaning someone behind their back, and not lying unless it proves something of greater value, such as protecting the innocent. Now that I have spoken of the moral reasons, I must also cover the fact that it’s important not to embrace this as doctrine and to understand that it is okay to use harmful speech if someone is being hurt, or to prevent further destruction. After all, death and suffering come from a collision of thousands of factors, not just because it is a coincidence or chance. According to this philosophy, all things are bound by Karma and therefore can be unbound. Watch your words, they can lead to great suffering. Also, it is ok to make mistakes and we shouldn’t have to feel guilty over minor things. Just live life. If you’re a worker or student, obviously your own rules will be looser than a Buddhist monk. Use your common sense, be flexible!
On Right Livelihood:
Right Livelihood speaks for itself. This is something that any Buddhist should not try to stretch to fit their lives. Let me explain. Here is a good example straight from the web of things to avoid: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
The purpose of Buddhist morality is to avoid causing suffering to other beings. So, any job that directly leads to suffering should be avoided. It always comes back to you anyways. (Read the Buddhist and Hindu teachings of Karma) Also, Right Livelihood to me means making an honest living and not taking advantage of the weak or oppressed, but rather promoting other people’s sense of well-being to encourage growth. Competition and working hard are the essentials to producing and effective and harmonious society too, so don’t be afraid to work hard and learn to hate laziness. Peace through livelihood does not mean stagnation and indifference. Seek the truth with diligence.
On Right Action:
Right Action is the basis of morality. The Buddhist precepts, which are basically vows of morality, are based on Right Action, and Right Speech. Not for everyone, but it is something to look into. This part is like the Ten Commandments of any Bible based religion. It basically means to abstain from killing or hurting other living things, no stealing, no sexual misconduct. Again, these things are pretty straightforward and form the base of all of the practice. This is a very serious step, because this is when we learn about the wastefulness of blindly killing things, destroying life, taking what is not given, and making others suffer through our own selfish impulses. The ignorant will laugh at this for being feeble, or claim that this is impossible, but it is precisely the ignorant mind that we must seek to change. To embrace life with compassion and energy is Right Action. To leave your home every day on the right foot, so to speak. This isn’t rocket-science. Through all my years of studying, I have learned to enjoy the simplicity of this practice. Right Action implies that we should become more aware of the consequences of our actions, learn to live in appreciation of others, and to enjoy the fruits of our actions. If whatever you’re doing reduces your anger and attachment and greatens your humility and understanding, keep doing it.
On Right View:
The next category of Buddhist ethics are the wisdom traditions, which include Right View. Right View is difficult to pin down and define. Right View is something to be well constructed and thought out. Here is the formal definition that I found on the web:
“Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realize the Four Noble Truths. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.”
The Four Noble Truths that are refered to in this selection are the basic conclusions that form the basis of all Buddhist practice. Right View means understanding things as they really are, not delusionally grasping at reality. I will not try to stray to far from my original purpose of this essay, so I will not go into depth about the endless books written about Right View. Just know that having a Right View is essentially learning to cultivate a spirit of mind that is conducive to focusing on what is going on inside rather than what the external world appears to be. Learn to understand yourself first, and the problems of this world will disappear before your eyes. When you look upon death, suffering, and loss, you will be profoundly moved to understand that the problems with these issues are entirely constructs of our own consciousness. We are our own world. We control what we think and feel. This is Right View. Right View means seeing things as they are: subject to change, subject to being and unbeing. What is born must be unborn. What is created or constructed must be uncreated and destroyed. Even the mightiest mountain will eventually erode to become become the lowest savanna, or jungle, or valley. You may be healthy and happy now, but one day you will suffer, get sick, and die. The importance here is that you realize this nature of reality and learn to understand rather than fear it. Right View means seeing the entirety of everything, seeing the entirety of this moment, without delusions.
On Right Intention:
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Right Intention is in seeing the importance of your own drive. Do not become crazy worrying of your intention, but more importantly do not live with the wrong intention, otherwise you will simply suffer, being bound to your own ignorance. Why do you wake up everyday? How do you intend to treat those around you? How do you treat your family, friends, community, or enemies? What kind of picture are you painting around to those?
If you can envision yourself, through the eyes of others as a positive aspect in their lives, then the rich fruit of Karma is already well on its way. If your intention is to overall seek peace and harmony , good things will inevitably come your way. Right Intention is your own personal tool, something that only you can see. Your intention will determine how you react to any given situation. If your intention is to help others than you will go out and make others more willing to help others, and sooner or later, with collective force, you can change your entire world. But, it starts now with your own intention. Do not be neurotic, but just be a human being helping another human being, or a human helping the world. In this way you will develop Right Intention. Be what you are, with a good intention.
On Right Effort:
Simple: put forth the effort to bring about change and straighten things out. Put forward tremendous effort in anything you undertake. Even doing simple chores is effected by your effort. If you drag yourself around all day, from one place to another, never wanting to be there, then no wonder you are not happy. Put forth effort and learn the simplicity of this teaching. Without effort, there would be no point to get up in the morning. You would eventually die. In fact, not caring or putting forth effort can slowly change and break down your body. If you have no effort, why live?
Now, rarely is effort lacking that much, but sometimes you have to exaggerate your own tendencies in order to see the ridiculousness of it. Right Effort means putting effort where it is needed. Logically, this would be for self-interest. We need to have a place to live, food in our stomachs, and so on. Be cautious, however, because too much self-interest can lead to a terrible system where we only watch out for ourselves. We are human beings, the most advanced life forms on planet Earth. Therefore, we should hold ourselves to the highest standards by avoiding greed, clannish behavior, and all forms of degradation and deterioration. All life is precious, and therefore using Right Effort means applying the effort to uphold these high standards.
Right Effort corresponds to all of the other steps to Enlightenment, without it we are nothing. So, start today by applying the Right Effort to make your home and community a clean and safe place to live. Be a human being, be advanced in your thinking, and counter your own suffering. When these problems are solved, move outwards and bring others along the same path as yourself.
So, Right Effort is simple, really.
On Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration:
Right Mindfulness and Concentration are the more advanced segments of the philosophy, something to be mastered at a higher level of understanding. I have included them together because they form the meditative qualities of Buddhist philosophy, and these two practices can make your life more tolerable and meaningful. Right Mindfulness always applies, and this step is essential to the rest of your Buddhist practice. Let me give you a formal definition of Right Mindfulness from the Web:
“Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualize sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualization in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.”
Now how is that for vocabulary? Right Mindfulness means to see things as they are, being well focused and well balanced in your perception. It is in seeing how the mind clusters everything together and goes on auto-pilot. It has come to my awareness that in any given moment of your day, you should be mindful of exactly what you are doing. This is essential. The brain should never run on this so-called “auto-pilot”, but should rather focus on the present moment. This moment exists in its own entirety and therefore should never be overlooked. In other words, when you are eating a meal, do not be thinking about desert, and when you are driving a car or walking, do not be thinking about what you will do when you get to your destination. Live in this moment, as if it were your last. We humans have a tendency to only remember the extremes in our lives. In our history books, we only have documentation of the wars, the famines, and political movements, but we fail to document the vast quantity of time that goes on between those events, which, ultimately caused their arrival. Disaster rarely just jumps out of nowhere, but can usually be seen way ahead of time, if you pay attention to its arrival. Practicing Right Mindfulness can be quite liberating, because now you learn that you have the capacity to be fully awake and aware at all times, not just on the meditation cushion. Right Mindfulness is being wise and objective, and seeing the world for what it is. Now, related to Right Mindfulness is Right Concentration. Right Concentration can be formally defined as the following:
“The Buddhist method of choice to develop Right Concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels concentration also in everyday situations.”
To achieve Right Concentration, you will have to apply some sort of meditation practice to your life. I will not cover meditation in depth in this essay, so if you have any questions regarding this subject, check the web or library. There are countless volumes of writings on the subject. With meditation, you learn to focus your attention on one single “object”, such as your breathing, or posture, or a strand of meditation beads. By doing this, you are training your mind, and therefore yourself, to be more concentrated on your daily activities. In this way, the mind becomes more patient, more skillful, and has greater clarity and depth. Right Concentration means that you are no longer mentally scattered, no longer is your mind wandering, but rather it is single-pointedly focused on exactly one thing. Right Concentration can be used when you are in physical pain, to reduce its effects, or when you are doing something that requires tremendous concentration, such as painting, or writing a skillful essay. So, to conclude Right Concentration and Mindfulness, I must say that these are also critical parts of the Buddhist practice, and not something to be overlooked, forgotten, or underestimated. With more meditation and awareness, your mind will be sharp and alert, ready for anything.
The Eightfold Path is a guideline, and nothing more, to achieve Enlightenment. It’s design is to give you a holistic and multi-faceted approach to living. A true Buddhist master is living these at all times, and their results are clear. This can work for anyone, but it must be practiced diligently and with support. We are all in this together, so never hesitate to question, ask around, and study other philosophies as well. In fact, if you fail to study other approaches as well as Buddhism, you are cheating yourself. Part of Buddhist practice is to be open-minded and well-versed. This Buddhist approach continues to serve as a guide to many people wishing to escape suffering and confusion. Find out for yourself the truth of the Middle Way, the approach to the final and ultimate Enlightenment. As a writer and as a practitioner, I wish you the best of luck, and all my love and support.
