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Four Noble Truths: Patipada (4 of 5) The Eightfold Path

Greetings again. Today we're coming to the end of the series on the Four Noble Truths, and in this penultimate talk, we're talking about the Fourth Noble Truth. I want to say now what I've said repeatedly: that there are many interpretations of these Four Noble Truths. Probably all of them exist because someone found them beneficial. Different interpretations are beneficial in different contexts and situations of our life. Knowing different interpretations means we have a bigger toolbox by which to meet and respond to our life, hopefully in a wise way.

The most common interpretation of the Four Noble Truths goes something like this: there is suffering in the world. Not that life is suffering, but to the degree to which there is suffering, that suffering has a cause. That cause is represented by the word craving, clinging, or the compulsive kind of wanting that exists for human beings—maybe a kind of addiction, sometimes attachment. The cessation of that suffering involves a letting go, an abandonment, a putting down of that craving, clinging, and attachment.

However, it's not easy to do so. These attachments that we have can be very deeply rooted. They can be deeply subconscious; we can't even see some of the ways that we're attached. Sometimes we know we're suffering, but it's just a big mass of suffering. We don't see any causes or conditions for it; we're just feeling lousy and bad. Because of the challenges of letting go deeply and experiencing this freedom from suffering, there is a path. There is a set of practices a person can do that sets the conditions in place to begin clearing the field. It helps us settle, helps us see deeply and clearly, and helps the mind develop its capacity to see deeper and deeper into what's going on so that we can really come to the place of liberation.

That path is represented in the Four Noble Truths by the Eightfold Path. The practice for the cessation of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. It is the path of the noble ones; it's a path for those who become ennobled, the path towards freedom. It is a wonderful set of eight practices that are not beliefs we have to believe, but practices we engage in that begin changing the conditions of who we are. They allow us to live in a more contented, more settled way.

The middle parts of the Eightfold Path have to do with ethics. They have to do with sīla^[1], with our behavior—to live by the precepts, to speak properly without causing harm, and to have a livelihood that doesn't cause harm. If we can live a life of harmlessness, it's easier to be relaxed about ourselves and to feel good about ourselves. We don't have the agitation, the regrets, and all the things that make it hard to settle.

It's useful to go about the world with the right attitude and the right intention. Going around with the intention of being hostile, unfriendly, or greedy for pleasures is not a very conducive way of living a life if what a person wants is to really settle, quiet, and calm the mind, opening oneself deeply to connect to what's going on inside to find freedom from suffering. The second factor of the Eightfold Path is right intention or right attitude, which is sometimes defined as an attitude of compassion or harmlessness. More literally, it's an attitude of non-ill will, goodwill, kindness, and friendliness. This attitude is not a requirement like, "You should do this." It's more like: if what you want is to create the conditions for a mind and heart that are settled enough to really be present for experience, it helps if you live with these attitudes and approaches.

Then it helps also to cultivate mindfulness, to really be settled and practice a lot of mindfulness. The more we can practice, the more prepared we are for the difficulties of life. To finally start to be mindful when things are difficult might be too late; we might not have the inner strength to do so. The same thing applies to concentration. Developing the mind's capacity to be really focused, calm, unified, and present is one of the great pleasures of life. It also helps us to encounter suffering and encounter ourselves in a deep and effective way. And then there is right effort, the endeavor to live well.

I'm going through them all quickly and out of order, but the first one is right view. Right view has many interpretations and explanations for what it is, and again, it depends on the context. The core understanding is that right view is seeing the world through the framework of the original idea of the Four Noble Truths: suffering, the arising of suffering, and the cessation of suffering. Seeing the arising and ceasing of suffering is the way forward. That's more of a meditative experience—really deeply being with arising and passing experience. That's the classic idea of right view.

The Buddha also gave other ideas of right view, and some of them are more practical for everyday life. One of the very important ones has to do with causality or consequence: that what we do has consequences. We don't do things leaving no trace. If we act with skillful intentions, skillful qualities will somehow be supported and developed. If we do things with unskillful intentions, unskillfulness is developed, and suffering occurs. Act with hate, and the results of hate are not pleasant. Act with love, done wisely, and it has good results. The same is true for generosity, wisdom, and all these things. What we do and how we do things are not inconsequential. Even how we think about things is not inconsequential for the purposes of becoming free.

If you're interested in the path of freedom, this is not a moral obligation or a moral judgment, but rather a very practical concern. If you're interested in freedom from suffering, then you want to take a lot of care with how you behave and the conditions you set in place. Putting good consequences into place can be as simple as your drive to work. If you're always harried because you're always leaving at the last possible minute, the consequence is that you get to work harried, and you're not particularly kind to people or happy when you get there. Maybe you leave home five minutes early so you can drive in a relaxed way and arrive much more calm. That sets the conditions for better circumstances to be attentive in practice as we go through our life.

The idea is that these sets of practices are actually very wise things to do. We learn those eight sets of practices, get an understanding of them under our belt, and pick them up at different times in different circumstances. They can be really good for beginners in Buddhism to do, and they're also good for people who have been practicing for some time. The Eightfold Path is always part of the deal in Buddhism; it defines the core practices. In the interpretation I'm giving today, the Eightfold Path is a prescription for beginners: know your suffering, know the cause, and in whatever way you can, let go of that cause. If you can't let go of it, or to go further, cultivate the Eightfold Path.

As I said yesterday, the Eightfold Path is not just a prescription of what to do; it is also presented as a description of what liberated people are like. Once a person becomes really free of attachments and clinging, how they live their life is in fact described by the Eightfold Path, even without actively doing it. It's the absence of clinging that leads us to do these good things. Without clinging, there's no unethical behavior—that's the Buddhist definition of it. When you really let go of clinging, you will naturally follow the ethical pieces of the Eightfold Path, and so forth. It's very interesting that for beginners, we have the Eightfold Path as a practice, and for people who are really awakened, it represents their way of life.

I like to think that the practice we do—Eightfold Path, meditation, and all that—mirrors or contains elements of the goal of freedom itself. One of the ways to practice is to allow the means to contain part of the goal. Do not consider the goal and the means to be so separate from each other, but allow the goal to inhabit or be embodied in the very means of how we practice. This means that whatever practice we're doing in Buddhism, we're being very careful that we're not clinging as we do it. We're not being ambitious, selfish, conceited, hard on ourselves, disappointed, or critical of how we're doing it. All of that represents going in the opposite direction of the practice.

Rather, to include the goal in the means implies that even as a beginner, we take on these practices with an open hand, with a lightness, gentleness, or a radical simplicity. We do this without needing it to be a certain way, wanting it to be a certain way, pushing, or clinging. We enter into the practice with generosity, openness, clarity, calmness, and whatever degree of non-attachment we can have. In particular, we cultivate a gentleness and a non-clinging to the clinging that we do have. As we do this practice, we learn to recognize and see much more clearly what's going on for us. It's an introspective practice, and we see our clinging, our hostility, our greed, and all the things we have. Rather than using that to suffer more, we try to meet it and be touched by it. We hold it gently and kindly, supportively. We don't get involved with it, we don't condone it, but we also don't criticize it, contract around it, or get angry or mean about it.

The Eightfold Path, in its different ways of being seen, is a beginner's practice and an advanced practitioner's practice. It's the life of those who have let go of clinging, and it forms the areas where we practice non-clinging right from the start. We do Right View, Right Intention, Right Action, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. But let's be careful how we do it. Let's do it with determination, clarity, dedication, and love, but also without further clinging. We shouldn't use it as material to be critical of ourselves. If Buddhism at its heart is a path to the end of suffering, please don't use Buddhism and Buddhist practice as another reason to suffer. That doesn't make any sense.

As you engage in this Buddhist teaching, be careful that you don't suffer because of it. Don't use it as something to be critical of yourself or of other people because they're not living up to a "Buddhist standard." Keep close by the understanding that we walk this path so we don't suffer. The goal is found in the means—maybe only a hint in the beginning, but the goal grows, develops, and expands as the means incorporates the goal more and more. Rather than a goal out there in the future, the goal is already here, and we're expanding and developing it until it's fully mature in us.

Conclusion

Thank you very much for today. Tomorrow will be the last talk of this series on the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. At the end tomorrow, I'll take a little bit of time if you want to stay and ask some questions in the chat. That would be wonderful. Thank you.