The Fourth Noble Truth - the Eightfold Path

(For podcast, click here)  (For ITunes version, click here)
We are continuing a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism.  I recommend the book Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley.   We’ve talked about compassionate awareness, honesty and curiosity and how we often inaccurately label ourselves and others.

For the third talk in this series, we’ll discuss the Fourth Noble Truth, which is the Eightfold Path.  These eight practices are designed to invigorate our daily lives with compassionate awareness, honesty and curiosity.  It’s translated as a path but in the original teachings it was described more like a wheel with eight spokes or an eight-limb concurrent process.  It’s not designed to start at the first step and end at the last, but rather to incorporate each as the situation arises. 

These steps are often described as Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.  However, the word “Right” may not accurately relate the original teaching.   Many translations use the word, “Right”, but that implies a rigidness, a right versus wrong.  A better translation might be Clear or Wise or Complete.  I like the word “Clear” because it describes how we are wiping off the windows of our vision to see more clearly ourselves and our lives.  But perhaps Wise is the best description.  Wise describes what is skillful and what does the most good and the least harm. 

The Eightfold Path is often broken down into three sections—this is a little different than Adrienne Howley’s take on them, but I admit I prefer the description in Lama Surya Das’ book, Awakening the Buddha Within, which is the book we are going to tackle next.  In it, he describes the three sections as Wisdom, Ethics and Meditation.  Let’s look at these three separately.

The first two steps are part of the Wisdom training:  Wise View and Wise Intention.  We all have a certain view of the world.  We may hang on to the view that our parents told us, or we may have come up with our own perspective through our life experiences.  If I were to ask you, “How do you describe the world?”  What would you say?  What would your parents have said?  Is it a scary place?  A difficult place?  A wonderful place?  An unfair place?  A beautiful place?   We often view the world through our past experiences or from the perspective of others who have convinced us of how they see things.

When I was growing up, there was a girl down the street named Shirley Stewart.  I can see her face right now.  She lived catty-cornered to me, and she would follow me home from school every day and taunt me the whole way, saying that she wanted to fight me for some reason or other.  Now, I was a scrawny, sickly little kid—I did not have one good punch in me, but I certainly fantasized about hitting her right in the face!  I’d like to say I was a pacifist but I was just too dang scared to try and mess with her.   She never hit me but threatened to do so about a thousand times.  Luckily, we moved away from the neighborhood when I was 12, but I can still see Shirley’s face staring me down, making me feel stupid and weak.  When I was young, I saw myself through the eyes of Shirley Stewart.  When I was in college, I began to have more confidence in myself, the mental and emotional energy looking for ways to hate her.  She turned out to be a very nice person, but at first I didn’t realize why I hated her so much.   I wasn’t seeing her clearly.  Wise view is about about being willing to have a certain fresh curiosity about ourselves and those around us.

Can we really put one label on the world or on ourselves or on others, particularly since everything and everyone are always changing?  What has happened in your past that you are still hanging on to? What are the filters through which you see the world?  We may have a relationship that went sour, and then all potential partners start to seem to have those same traits.  We may have been mistreated when we were young, now the whole world might look like a scary place.   We begin to recognize these filters and peel them away, so that we can see ourselves and others more clearly. It helps build a sense of wonder in each moment, a fresh curiosity to see more clearly. 

Wise intention is how we prioritize what to do.  What are your intentions in your life?  What do you value?  If you could describe your values in three words, what would it be?  Now, think about your thoughts, words and actions this last week.  How well did those match your values that you just described?   The Buddhist path is designed to help us live our values, and the first step is being clear about what you care about, then translating that into practice every day. 

These first two steps are cultivating a desire and intention to see ourselves and the world more clearly.    The next three steps are about ethical living.  With this clear perspective, we can begin to live a sacred life.

Wise speech is about being more careful before we respond.  As we discussed the very first day in this series, we can ask ourselves three questions:  Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?  That may cut out about 75% of what we’re telling ourselves and others! 

Have you ever hung up your cellphone and started recapping the conversation to the person you’re with, only to double check that the cellphone is disconnected?  What were you saying that you didn’t want the person on the phone to hear?  It’s easy to use gossip and slander as a bonding process among friends.  Wise speech is reminding us that words have power, and we can choose words to encourage and support.  Encouragement and support can be a better way to bond with each other.  What do you say to yourself? How do you encourage and support yourself each day?

Wise Action is acting in ways that are wise and compassionate.  With greater awareness, we can create more options on how to respond to outer circumstance.  Habit and past experience are not the only ways to choose how to act.  Wise action comes from a place of reflection and an intention for good.

Wise Livelihood is working in a way that supports oneself and others on their spiritual journey.  This step does not mean we all have to change jobs! Of course, we try to choose jobs that don’t include weapons of mass destruction, but any job has some potential for killing—even a nurse is killing bacteria in order to reduce illnesses.  It is far more important to wake up to how we work.  You may have an awesome job but still be acting in ways that are unskillful.  Wise Livelihood reminds us to seek work that is supportive but also to do whatever work we’re doing in ways that are supportive as well.

And lastly, we have the Meditation Training of Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness and Wise Concentration.  Adrienne translates these in slight different words, but I think they convey the same meaning

Wise Effort is having a passion for enlightenment.  It can feel much easier sometimes to just do what we’ve done before.  Go back to the rut, go back to old habits.  This Eightfold Path is about applying energy and focus to a new way of living.  What thought will you have in those difficult moments to keep you doing/thinking this new habit?  Wise Effort is encouraging us to reach within and find that passion for happiness and to, as the Dalai Lama proclaims, “Never give up!”

We talked a few weeks ago that we can practice mindfulness as if our hair is on fire, and the only way to put out the flames is compassionate awareness.  This new way of living takes practice and energy.  Dig deep within you to find the passion and fire to change.  In the coming weeks, there will be moments when an old way of thinking will arise.  A moment of craving to go back to the old way of living, it will at times seem so much easier than practicing these newfangled steps.  At that moment, when the past coping mechanisms seem to have renewed allure, we can remember to connect with the passion to live a new life, a greater life, a more fulfilling life.  Find that passion now so you’ll know where it is when the going gets tough.

Wise Mindfulness is practicing mindfulness by being fully present in each moment.  Mindfulness is a commitment to staying awake to the reality in each moment, no sleepwalking through life.  We can approach living with curiosity and non-preference, savoring things just as they are.  Then, from this place of curiosity, the richness and fullness of the world opens up and provides us with amazing gifts of clarity.  It’s important to NOT think about mindfulness as a burden to bear but as a gift that we are giving ourselves, a totally free, easily obtained, always there, medication for what ails us.

"He who maintains attentive mindfulness is like the great sage, the Buddha. Careful attention to mindfulness is an elixir and a blessing."  --Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Tibet, nineteenth century

Wise Concentration is practicing concentration to train our mind.  These changes don’t occur overnight.  It takes practice and focus. To experience this amazing transformation, it helps to practice concentration daily. We practice by focusing on our breath or on a mantra or on walking or on eating, being very focused on whatever is that we are doing.  Eventually, we can release the focus into just being, when just being becomes our natural state of openness and awareness. 

So, this week, your assignment is simple:  Look for ways to bless yourself and the people around you. Bless others with your undivided attention, listen with an open heart.  Bless others with your smile-smile at people you don’t know even smile at the people you do know.  Bless yourself by kind thoughts of encouragement and support. Try being with yourself or another in a non-judgmental way.  You might even have someone in your life that would be willing to have a mindful lunch or dinner with, where the two of you practice these eight steps as best you can.  It might make for a very different eating experience!

Basics of Buddhism 2: Compassionate Awareness and Honesty

(For podcast, click here)  (For ITunes version, click here)

Today we continue a series of talks on the Basics of Buddhism.  I’m highly recommending the book, Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley. 

This man who lived 2600 years ago, named Siddhartha Gautama, left home in search of a way to relieve suffering, his own and all beings.  He had been studying many different spiritual methods available at that time.  There were several people trying two very different methods—indulging to excess in worldly pleasures until you were repulsed by them (many of us have already tried that method), or denying yourself any worldly pleasure, a practice called Asceticism, which encouraged eating barely any food and sleeping in the forest, to find spiritual enlightenment.  Siddhartha had all the finest things when he was a prince growing up, and then decided to become an ascetic for 5-6 years.  He almost died from the extreme deprivation.  When he gave up asceticism, he realized that there must be a middle way. This is why Buddhism is often described as the middle path. 

In its essence, he found out that if you are compassionately aware and perfectly honest with yourself, you can begin to relieve suffering.   The first teaching by the Buddha after his enlightenment was the Four Noble Truths: 

·  Life is difficult.

·  Life is difficult because we seek to satisfy ourselves in ways that are inherently unsatisfying.

·  The possibility of liberation from difficulties exists for everyone.

·  The way to free ourselves is to practice the Eightfold path that results in enlightened living. 

The first Truth is that life is difficult.  The word in Pali was dukkha. In his book, Insight Meditation, The Practice of Freedom, Joseph Goldstein translates dukkha in three ways, suffering, insecurity or being unsatisfied.  The Buddha realized that most of us live with some sense that things or we are just not quite right.  We might even get close, achieve a goal, feel successful, then we often go right back to feeling that there is something more to be done.  It seems our culture encourages doing--doing can be confused as the thing that gives us value as a person. 

There is also deep suffering in life--We get old, we get sick, we die.  Those that we love get old, get sick, and die. This is the reality of living, and we often suffer because of it.  The First Noble Truth is about facing this reality honestly.

Many times, it might seem like detaching from our thoughts and feelings would relieve the suffering.   Many of us have tried to not get involved in order to avoid being hurt.  Many of us have found that this method does not work very well either.  We then suffer from a feeling of isolation and loneliness.  The word non-attachment is often used in Buddhist texts, and it is sometimes misunderstood that the teachings are encouraging us to deny our thoughts, our emotions, deny anything that causes us suffering.  However, the truth of the teachings is the exact opposite.  We are encouraged to get to know our selves in a deeply honest and compassionate way, to get to know our thoughts, our emotions, our relationships, very very well.  Non-attachment is to realize that these thoughts and emotions are NOT who we truly are, but FIRST we have to SEE them in order to transform our response to them.   Compassionate awareness and honesty are the key ingredients to the Buddhist path.  Adrienne Howley goes so far to say that, “Buddhism can be of no real value to an individual unless one learns to be perfectly honest with oneself.”

So, I encourage you, in this moment, to finish the sentence silently, “if I were perfectly honest with myself, …”  What would you say? This level of questioning doesn’t stop at the first answer that might arise.  Sometimes when we’re in pain, we feel angry, but when we probe deeper, there might be fear underneath the anger.  This process of perfect honesty is a method to retrace the steps of our difficulties, to get to the root cause. 

So, this first Noble Truth, “Life is difficult”, is a statement of honesty.  We don’t shy away from it, we don’t pretend it’s not true, and we don’t just accept it as, The Second Noble Truth points out that we make life difficult because we seek to be happy in inherently unsatisfying ways.  We keep trying to rearrange the external circumstances of our lives in order to be happy, and if we do manage to get everything and everyone doing what we consider to be the “right” thing (which in and of itself would be a miracle!), then before we know it, everything and everyone changes. 

This second Noble Truth reveals itself in two ways:  first, we seek happiness outside of ourselves, and second, if we do find some happiness, we wish for things never to change.  Understanding impermanence is also a key factor in the Buddhist teachings.  Everything is changing.  Some things are changing faster or slower than others, but everything and everyone is changing.  The underlying energy may remain, but the things created by that energy are constantly changing.   The “you” that you were in high school is the not the “you” that you are right now (some might think, “Thank goodness!”).  In fact, the “you” now is not the “you” that will be in ten minutes.  Yet, we wish so badly for things to remain constant so we can get a handle on things.  We all want to have some control over our lives to find happiness, and everything keeps changing, seemingly thwarting our efforts.

One of the inherently unsatisfying ways we deal with our world is that we put labels on everything, so we can feel like we know it, and it’s done. We label things like doorknobs and lightbulbs and other objects—some labels are helpful.  But, we also label ourselves and other people.  These labels can cause us to not see what is really happening in the here and now. 

I want to tell this painful story about myself.  I remember a couple of years ago driving down the road, my cellphone rings and I see my sister’s number appear on my phone.  My thoughts and emotions immediately kicked into gear—“oh God, I just can’t deal with my sister today—she is the most negative person I know.  Should I answer it? Should I let it go to voicemail? Then, I’ll have to call her back and then I dread it until I do”….and on and on…the dialogue went back and forth in my head.  I decided to answer the phone.  She had an idea about something to do with our mom’s house.  I listened for about five minutes, and it felt like torture.  I finally shouted back at my sister that I just couldn’t handle all her negativity.  At that moment, my sister broke down and cried.  Now, I really felt badly.  She gained her composure and told me that in the last week, she had read the book called the Secret”, and that she had been working on being more positive all week.  She had actually taken two hours preparing to call me because she knew I’d be more open to her idea if she presented in a positive way.  In that moment, I realized that I had not really listened to a word that my sister said in the first five minutes of the phone call.  I had labeled her negative long before I picked up the phone.  I was on the lookout for any sign of a negative perspective, I even saw it when it probably wasn’t even there.  That is how putting labels on people can bring us suffering.  Experiment with seeing everyone first in a non-judging way. The person may not dramatically change, but our experience of the relationship with them will change dramatically.

Even worse, we often label ourselves in the same way—“I’m always like this, I’ll never change.  I’ll never be able to….”  There may be things that we cannot do, but I guarantee that every single one of us is changing at this very moment, and exciting new options are arising in each moment, and each of us has the power within us to decide which direction to go from here.   We have an amazing number of choices in this culture, and most of the time, we don’t even consider anything but the ones we’ve chosen before.

So, life is difficult because we seek to satisfy ourselves in inherently dis-satisfying ways.  The Third Noble Truth is what the Buddha discovered. There is a way out of our unskillful thoughts and behaviors.  He discovered that there is peace hiding in each and every moment.  And we can learn to tap into that peace, regardless of our external circumstances.  These teachings are that powerful.  Imagine what it would be like to come from a place of peace and have control over your responses in each situation as it arises? 

Adrienne Howley states that the Buddhist path begins with learning mind control.  Not that we will be able to stop unskillful thoughts or unhelpful emotions from arising, but we can learn how to create a gap between stimulus and response, so we have a choice, have the time to respond differently.  We can learn how to place our power in compassionate awareness and honesty instead of wasting it on unhelpful conditioned behaviors and knee-jerk responses that create more suffering for ourselves and those around us. 

To redirect the power within you, you’ll need to have the desire to choose differently, you’ll need to tap into the inspiration needed to keep going when the going gets tough.  It might be a word, a phrase, a picture, a vision, whatever might work for you.   I encourage you to give that some thought.  As an example, we are encouraged to be mindful as if our hair is on fire, and visualize that compassionate awareness is the only thing that will put out the flames.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path, eight ways of living that encourages this honesty and inspiration.  And we’ll talk more about that on Tuesday evening.

As we leave this room and experience the world outside, we can use the tool of mindfulness, or compassionate awareness in each moment, to decipher what is actually happening, beyond the labels and old habits.  One practice that you might try is to pick any common activity that you do throughout a week, like opening a door, or starting your car, or when the phone rings.  Consider choosing one activity for this week, and each time it happens, practice being fully present and compassionate aware in that moment.  That small step is an excellent start to embracing the Four Noble Truths!

Lastly, Roz Stoneking offered this answer to the question “What is the difference between Christian prayer and Buddhist prayer, since there is no “God” to pray “to”.  Roz describes Buddhist prayer as  "a commitment to join your energy to that divine energy within each of us which unites and sustains us as we work for the good of all beings.”   Well said!