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Introduction

Good morning and good day. I see that someone is apologizing for being late. That person didn't know that the YouTube channel was turned on late. We had a short sit, and here we are. There are three settings on YouTube: a private setting, a public setting, and an unlisted setting. Somehow it had been switched to the unlisted setting. It took me a while to realize that because it's not an area where I've ever had to really look before. Even though I've been doing this YouTube stream for many months, I'm far from a YouTube expert in how it all works.

Eightfold Path: Right Consideration (1 of 3)

My friends, the topic is the Eightfold Path, and today I start the second factor of the eight-factored path. That is usually called in English "Right Intention." I prefer these days to call it "Right Consideration," partly because intention involves having a plan. It's usually something that we are aiming to do. It doesn't have to be; it could be broader in meaning, but it implies having an aim or a plan. It's a little bit more cognitive or elaborate to set an intention, have an intention, or consider an intention.

The word saṅkappa, sammā saṅkappa^[1], literally and more commonly in Pali, is just another word for thinking. Perhaps it's a particular kind of thinking that involves really thinking in a focused way on something, and also thinking in a little bit more of a constructed way, like deliberation. It involves considering what something is, or considering some topic, and in doing that we're organizing ourselves around it or understanding it better. So it's a little bit more than just thinking, but it's not quite as intentional as intention.

So it's very closely related in my mind to attitude, or how we think, in addition to what we're thinking of. It's how we're considering something.

The tradition says there are three forms of Right Consideration. The usual translation of the first one is renunciation, and I'll talk about that and offer an alternative. The second is literally "non-ill will," and the third is non-cruelty or non-harming.

Whenever in Pali there's a negative compound—so it starts with a negative prefix in Pali—like "non-ill will," it implies not only the absence of ill will but also the presence of a variety of opposites to ill will. Sometimes you'll see it presented as kindness, loving-kindness, or friendliness. For non-cruelty or non-harming, it's avihiṃsā. Some of you know the word ahiṃsā (non-violence) that was really made international by Mahatma Gandhi. Avihiṃsā has basically the same meaning: non-harming, and sometimes non-cruelty. It's often said the opposite of that is compassion.

The first one, usually called renunciation, is stated to be the opposite of kāma, the word for a kind of very strong sensual desire. Some people will sometimes translate it as lust. Some people just say sensual desire. But generally, it's considered to be a kind of attachment to sensual pleasures. Renunciation has a broader meaning than just renouncing sensual pleasures. But probably the original meaning of what we call renunciation was closer to something like letting go of, or turning away from, the drive and lust for sensual pleasures, and the attachment to it.

There was a little linguistic play at work here, and that's where the confusion arises. The word for renunciation is nekkhamma^[2], and probably the original word for non-sensual lust was nikkāma—something approximately like that. So a confusion arose, and it ended up being the Pali word for renunciation. It doesn't really matter that much. It's all good, but it's kind of interesting. Some people have trouble with the word renunciation.

What's much more interesting about this now is what motivates this. Where does Right Consideration come from? Why think about things in this way, or have this attitude when we go about our life? When we consider anything, we want to consider it this way: without any ill will, without any cruelty or wanting to cause harm, and without the strong attachment to wanting or needing sensual pleasure (kāma). But where does that motivation come from? Is it just an admonition? Is it just an obligation for Buddhists to be that way because it's the second factor of the Eightfold Path and we should live that way? Where does it come from?

This is where it gets very interesting. I said last week that there are two kinds of Eightfold Paths. There's the ordinary Eightfold Path for people who have not really tasted some quality of freedom yet, and there's the Eightfold Path of the noble ones, the ones who have tasted freedom.

When we haven't tasted freedom from ourselves, the principle behind the Eightfold Path is that actions have consequences. If you want to have wholesome, beneficial, and helpful consequences, act and live in wholesome and beneficial ways. In that way, it's beneficial to live a life without addiction to sensual pleasures, without living with ill will and acting from it, and even more importantly, not living with cruelty or wanting to harm anybody. Hostility, ill will, cruelty, and addiction to sensual pleasures are all considered unwholesome and unhealthy. They lead in the wrong direction; they lead to suffering. So the principle is that you want to do what's wholesome.

Initially, a person might just have to believe it: "This is what the Buddhists say, and I'll take my chances with it, try it out, and see." But with time, the idea is that it becomes self-verifying. We see it for ourselves: "Yes, my life works so much better when I'm not addicted to sensual pleasure, when I'm not involved in ill will, or when I'm not involved in cruelty of any kind." Our lives work a lot better if we are kind and friendly, if we have compassion. My life works better when I have compassion and kindness for myself, and my life works better when I have that for other people. So it gets verified.

But for someone who has a taste of liberation, of freedom, there's a different motivation. It's motivated by a real sensitivity to freedom itself. In later Buddhism, they talk about practicing Right Consideration with Nibbana^[3] as the object. I take Nibbana to mean release or freedom. So it means having some sense of understanding and appreciation that is palpable, visceral, and alive—an appreciation of freedom, of letting go, of release, of not clinging, of not being contracted, and of not being stuck or obsessed by something.

When something has been opened so widely and fully in our hearts and minds, we see and feel the presence of that non-clinging, that freedom, in a very deep way. With that presence being part of how we understand things, we see that moving towards sensual addictions, ill will, and cruelty is a loss of that freedom. In fact, being involved in these kinds of unwholesome activities requires a contraction, a tightening, and a closing down that is the very antithesis of what freedom is. To feel, know, and experience that is to feel how we're diminished, and how it causes stress, strain, and suffering in us.

So someone who is free enough and has really opened up the space of freedom in their mind will clearly see the consequences of ill will, cruelty, and sensual addictions. They will see, feel, and know that a natural movement towards kindness, friendliness, and compassion is almost an expression of that openness. It's almost like that is what keeps it open. That isn't always so obvious, because our relationship to kindness, friendliness, and compassion can be complex. There can be attachments and fears that motivate it, as well as ideas of "should" and conceit that come along with trying to be kind and friendly.

I remember the first time in my life when I was maybe 18, I had this idea to really try to be kind to someone—to really lay it on. I think the person almost ran away! [Laughter] There was so much "me" in it, and so much artificial sweetness, that it probably felt awful for the person.

So freedom also protects our kindness. It protects our letting go of sensual attachments, and it protects our compassion. All these auxiliary, side-movements of conceit and obligation—"I should be this way," "I have to be this way," or "Look at how good I am, I'm the one who's kind"—we can feel and see how they're forms of contraction and tightness, and how we're diminished by them.

To have freedom as a reference point is a phenomenal teacher. When Nibbana is an object—I don't really like that expression, but that's what the later tradition talks about—with release and freedom as a reference point, then of course we will practice Right Consideration. The attitude we have as we go through our life will be one that is not addictive. It won't have ill will or cruelty or wanting to harm anybody. We'll do the opposite. We'll express loving-kindness and compassion in a natural way, not a forced way.

But until that freedom is strong and clear, it's really wise and a good thing to practice Right Consideration and Right Intention, coming from the wisdom that doing wholesome things is better than doing unwholesome things. Doing wholesome things leads to better results. We want to keep that in the center.

Finally—and maybe I'll say more about this tomorrow since we've run out of time now—what's important to note here is that the latter two forms of Right Consideration (non-ill will and non-cruelty) have to do with our relationship to other people. Non-sensual addiction is perhaps more about ourselves. It has an impact on other people, but it's primarily about not harming ourselves.

What we see with the latter two—about living in the world kindly and with compassion coming out of freedom—is that liberation sets a condition for these beautiful relationships we can have with other people. The more free we are, the more that will naturally come out of us in a way that's unique and particular to each of us, with all our different personalities. Whether we're introverted or extroverted, it's expressed in different ways. Freedom has social consequences.

Thank you very much. I'm happy you're here, especially those of you who were able to hang in there with our YouTube challenge. We'll continue on this theme of Right Consideration tomorrow. Thank you.