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Four Noble Truths: Patipada (2 of 5) Entering the Stream

So today I continue the talks on the Fourth Noble Truth, and the key word for the Fourth Noble Truth is paṭipadā^[1]. It means something like a method or a practice. I translate it as "practice." So it is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering.

There's a long tradition of translating this word paṭipadā as "way," because the English word "method" can also mean "way," as in a way of doing something. But the English word "way" also can mean a road, a path that one goes on. This has led to a very easy confusion between magga^[2]—the Eightfold Path, which is the word magga, not paṭipadā^[3]—and equating the two. The Fourth Noble Truth—the truth of the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering—is often equated as the same as the truth of the path leading to it. And since it is the word "path," it must mean the Eightfold Path. That teaching does exist in the suttas^[4], but as I've been trying to say here today, it's not the predominant teaching. However, there is a strong connection between the Eightfold Path and the fulfillment, the awakening that the Four Noble Truths point to.

The way I've been teaching the Four Noble Truths is that there is a two-step^[5] process of deep insight, a deep encounter with inconstancy—with how things arise and pass away. That is not really so easy to understand often in daily life. Rather, it's really something to discover in the deep stillness of the mind, the quiet of the mind, and the way we are there in the present flow of present-moment experience.

And then, as I said yesterday, we make space for that and discover a kind of freedom in that space, in the non-involvement, the non-entanglement with the flow of the stream—the river of life as it flows through us, as we are part of the flow. There's some kind of freedom there. To understand and see that this is the way to this—I say this is the way, the practice for the cessation of suffering—doesn't require us to understand the cause of suffering. But it does address some of the things that do cause suffering: the clinging, the holdings, the craving that are interfering with that flow, getting caught in that flow.

First, the practice is to understand in a deep way that this is the way forward, at least in insight meditation. And then to relieve, to go to the full fulfillment of this. One comes to the full awakening of the Four Noble Truths: the full awakening to suffering, the full awakening to the arising of suffering, to the cessation of suffering, and the full awakening to "this is the way, this is the practice of the cessation of suffering."

This idea of complete^[6] liberation, complete letting go—whether it's partial or whether it's full—does change a person. This change is sometimes called the Eightfold Path. There are two meanings of the Eightfold Path. The one that's most associated with contemporary interpretations of the Four Noble Truths is that the Fourth Truth is the Eightfold Path, and it is the path, the practices we have to do to build up the momentum to be on the path that leads eventually to liberation.

The stronger idea in the early suttas^[7] around the Four Noble Truths, connected to it, is that the Eightfold Path is not a path that leads to freedom from suffering, but rather is an expression of our liberation. Someone who becomes a "stream enterer"^[8]—entering the stream of the Dharma—is at the first stage of awakening. In the sutta that defines it, it says that the stream one enters is the Eightfold Path.

So rather than the Eightfold Path being the way to some degree of awakening, when one has awakening, one enters into the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path that the suttas say originates in oneself. There is no Eightfold Path outside of ourselves; it is really found in ourselves. It's found in ourselves with some degree of letting go, some degree of liberation and freedom.

To live by the Eightfold Path is not so much living by taking on all these to-do lists describing the Eightfold Path, where you memorize a list: "You have to do this here, and this here, and this here." Rather, it's a description. The Eightfold Path is a description of how someone begins to live when they have some degree of freedom, when they've touched something deep inside: their goodness, their wholeness, their lack of clinging and grasping.

This idea that with some degree of liberation, practice begins to unfold, and the more we allow for it to happen, the more it unfolds, is a big part of the Buddhist teachings. When I was younger, I saw a lot of metaphors that described the spiritual path as being like climbing a mountain. It suggested that somehow it's difficult work to climb a mountain. To paraphrase or reformulate what the Buddha said, that's only half the way—to go up the mountain. Once we're on top of the mountain, then we're going down the mountain.

The metaphor the Buddha uses for the practice that goes down the mountain is water flowing down a mountainside. When it rains on the mountainside, the water gathers together into little streamlets, creeks, and rivulets. The creeks become streams, streams become rivers, rivers become big rivers, and it just keeps flowing all the way down and eventually gets to the ocean. The water will flow downhill unless there's something blocking it. So the practice at some point, when we get to the top, is to just allow the water, allow the momentum to flow.

The Buddha also used the example of a log in a river. A log will flow in the current of the river unless it gets stuck on the side on the shore, or if some person on the shore grabs it and holds on to the log. But if the log stays in the middle of the current, it will go all the way out to where the river goes to the ocean.

Someone who becomes a stream enterer—the Pali word in the sutta literally means "current" more than "stream"—might not get the impression of what that is if it is just seen as wading in a stream or floating nicely. But the connotation in this ancient text is that you enter the current of the river so it can take you somewhere.

Here we're talking about a phase of practice where allowing becomes the name of the game. We have to stay present, but we're allowing our freedom to move through us and unfold to greater and greater freedom. One of the ways the Buddha talks about this is practicing based on seclusion, non-attachment, dispassion, cessation, and letting go. Once a person has let go in a very deep way, they have a feeling, they have a sense, they have a reference point inside for what this place of freedom is like. The language they use is maybe not the language some people in the modern world would use, but this idea of allowing what's deep inside—a sense of freedom—to live there, and our actions are closely related to that freedom, to that openness, that clarity.

If we have this open, clear heart, it's going to be very hard for a person to want to be unethical, to intentionally harm other people, because it's a violence against ourselves to do that. If we are connected to that sense of inner freedom and non-clinging, the attitude, the intention by which we live our life—Right Intention—will be one of kindness and compassion as opposed to cruelty and ill-will.

The second factor of the Eightfold Path: if we have a deep connection to our freedom and liberation, we'll be careful with how we speak.

If we have a deep connection to our liberation, then the awareness, the mindfulness that comes from that will be Right Mindfulness. Mindfulness that is opening and forward-leading, that allows things to keep flowing and moving. The stillness and concentration will come out of that as well. Over and over again, the Buddha talks about basing one's practice on the liberation one has attained. It doesn't have to be a dramatic liberation. As we practice, there are times when we start feeling this release, feeling this freedom. That freedom and release allows the practice to go deeper and deeper.

The core insight that the Buddha emphasized over and over again—and maybe there are other insights, other ways for different people, and maybe for you—but for the ancient texts, this insight is into inconstancy: the arising and passing of things. Then, as things flow and move, to begin to release the grip of the hand, the grip of the mind, the clinging. And at some point, to feel that that release is meaningful enough that it becomes a reference point. So that as we continue to live in this inconstant, changing, impermanent world, we start orienting ourselves to not cling again. Or if we do cling, to realize this place of non-clinging. The traces of non-clinging, the memories, the feeling we have of this place of freedom becomes the reference point for all that we do.

The more that becomes the reference point, then the life of someone who is free is described by the Eightfold Path: by Right View, Right Intention, Right Action, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. And this is the stream we enter into. This is what lives inside of us, that originates in us, that then leads to further and deeper liberation.

There's a very intimate relationship between the liberating insights into inconstancy and what Buddhism talks about as the Eightfold Path. Repeating myself, one of the ideas of the Eightfold Path is it's not a beginner's practice, but rather it's the description of the life of the people who are really maturing in the path of release, of freedom.

Well, I'll go further along with this in the next few days, but hopefully that's enough for today. So thank you for your involvement in being here, and my opportunity to share this.