EIGHTFOLD PATH - Wise View

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

As we continue our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das, we’ll start on the Eightfold Path, which is the Fourth Noble Truth.  This is the medicine that the Buddha gave for enlightened living.  If you are suffering, this is your prescription.  The eight components are view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.  In some translations, you’ll find the adjective to describe all these teachings as “Right” (Right view, etc.),  but that word "Right" is too black and white, too absolute. A better translation might be Beneficial or Wise.  Whatever is beneficial or wise for relieving suffering.

The first component, Wise or Beneficial View, is seeing things as they truly are, not through the filters of our past experiences.

This first step is critical to the practice of all the other steps.  It’s taught first because it’s an excellent place to start the journey.  We begin by waking up to the fact that we are causing our own suffering.  I think of it in the same vein as the first step of the 12-step program, when people admit that they are powerless over some old conditioned unskillful behavior.  And, along with this fact, we also have the view that it is possible to relieve our suffering, that others have done it and we can as well.  Confidence, even the smallest amount, can be cultivated.

The other day, someone said to me that they were waiting to do something they really wanted to achieve until they got their ducks in a row.  I can really relate.  No matter how many things are going right in my life, I’m often focused on the one or two things that aren’t going so well.    I sometimes seem to be solely focused on getting all the ducks in a row.  Five of the ducsk are doing just fine, and I still have two that are running amok.  I get the last two in line, the another one goes out of whack.  I have started to see how my clinging to things being a certain way often ensures that I’m never completely happy. I’m subtly trying to get those ducks in some arbitrary row that I’ve made up. I make to do lists of all sorts, subconsiously feeling like once everything is done, then I’ll be happy.  For me, the first step of the Eightfold Path, Wise View, reminds me to honestly examine why I want things to be different in the first place.  

In his teachings, the Buddha was trying to point out that getting the ducks in a row is not the purpose of life.  If we do happen to get the ducks in a row, it will probably be fleeting because, before we know it, those pesky ducks will be running amok again OR we will desire new ducks or all the other ways that our thoughts and emotions can be scattered.  Before we start chasing after the ducks again, we could try a new approach.  We can try using mindful awareness to examine more closely what is actually happening, seeing more clearly our thoughts, our motivation and our actions from a fresh perspective.  

“If only…”  Lama Surya Das encourages us to identify those subtle and not-so-subtle ways that we hide from the truth, by identifying what we’re wishing for.  “If only….”  How would you finish that sentence?   Most of us, we continually consciously or unconsciously defend the stories that we repetitively tell ourselves, about our childhood, our family, who or what we are.  In Buddhism there is a Sanskrit word called, “Samsara” that is literally translated as “perpetual wandering”.    It is the symbol of this cyclic conditioned existence that we find ourselves in. We often keep doing the same things, telling ourselves the same stories about it, and having the same frustrating outcome.  Wise View helps us get off the hamster wheel.

A Zen proverb says if you cling to nothing, you can handle anything.  So, we can take this opportunity right now to be more honest with ourselves, to practice seeing things more clearly.  

Exercises to practice Wise View are:

1.       I don’t know.  Even if you think you know, it’s extremely valuable to rest in the place of not knowing.   Imagine yourself being in your situation for the very first time.  What would it feel like to let go of our previously held beliefs about ourselves, and about others and start from a place of not knowing?

“We’ve enclosed ourselves in a relatively small space by thinking life is only one certain way. It binds us in, and we’re not aware that we’re living in a tiny, cluttered room.  BUT with the practice of mindful awareness and quiet reflection, it’s as if the walls of the room are torn down, and you realize there’s a sky out there.”   Larry Rosenberg, The Art of Doing Nothing (Spring 1998)

2.       Self-inquiry.  What am I holding on to?

What are you clinging to?  What are you not being honest with yourself about?  In this moment, finish this sentence, “If I were being completely honest, I would tell myself….”  What would you say? How can we commit to dropping the old stories, dropping the old way of explaining things or people or past events or even ourselves.  

If you are in an accident and you break your arm, ignoring it, not looking at it, will not fix it.  It’s only when you face the reality of the wound, only then you can begin to take appropriate action to heal. 

3.       Let go of any sense of struggle 

Who or what are we fighting with or against anyway?  How can we try to surrender to the moment, to the deep truth in the moment?  Imagine that life isn’t about struggling at all, that life can be about being in the flow of living.  Letting go of this sense of struggle, having a sense of surrender can be incredibly powerful.

4.       Cultivate compassion

The practice of seeing clearly is what finally moves us toward compassion. Seeing, again and again, the infinite variety of traps we create for seducing the mind into a struggle, seeing the endless rounds of meaningless suffering over lusts and aversions (which, although seem so urgent, lusts and aversions are not the source of happiness).  We begin to feel compassion for ourselves. And then, quite naturally, when we feel compassion for ourselves, we then start to feel compassion for everyone else. Start with yourself!  We can know, as we have never known before, that we are all stuck with bodies and minds and instincts and impulses.  We can surrender to this fact, and that is the first step out of the suffering.

It is often pointed out in the Buddhist teachings that compassion and wisdom go hand-in-hand.  True compassion for yourself AND others is NOT mutually exclusive. 

With Wise View, we commit seeing ourselves and others with insight and compassion.  Tara Brach, in Radical Acceptance said, “In any moment, we can take refuge in awareness.  When we get lost, we need only pause, relax open to what is here, what is now and re-arrive in the natural presence that is our true home.” We can give up the struggle, embrace the ducks wherever they are, and allow ourselves to be at peace.  This is the first step towards true transformation.  

We practice seeing things, ourselves and all others as if for the first time.