Search results for: "The Eightfold Path"
- The Freedom to Give… So the eightfold path turns into a onefold path: generous service in the Buddha field. Once generosity gets screwed into strange shapes like this, the Dharma gets screwed into strange shapes as well. So it’s good not to overlook the basics. It’s good to have a right understanding of what the basics are all about. That way you keep the rest of …
- The Path to Stream Entry… Ajaan Lee wrote a book on the eightfold path, and his explanations of the different factors blurred the lines between the factors. He did that intentionally, because virtue has an organic relationship with right concentration; right concentration has an organic relationship with discernment. They all come together in this process of being very attentive to what your mind is doing—what its intentional actions …
- Not-self in Context… As we know from other suttas, the eightfold path is a path of action that leads to the end of action—in other words, to a state of mind that’s not created. But you’ve got to do the action to get there. So the context here is action and trying to find a skillful action that leads to good results. And action …
- Three Parts of Right View… That’s what the eightfold path is, and that’s why it’s noble. It leads to the deathless—and all the activities that it enjoins are noble activities. They foster the highest qualities of the mind, and they harm no one at all. The fruit of the path—that’s the image the Buddha uses, the path yields fruit—was the deathless happiness …
- Respect for Concentration… The Buddha once said that Right Concentration is the heart of the Eightfold Path. The other seven factors are its requisites, things that help it along, that give it strength, but concentration itself is the heart. So, keep that in mind. Try to maintain that heart, don’t let it stop beating because it’s hard to get started again. If it beats erratically …
- Appropriate Attention Always… You develop the eightfold path so that you can abandon craving and be done with the suffering. Again, you’ve got this framework for approaching each moment. This is one of the functions of mindfulness: to keep that framework in mind. When something comes up, you know what to do with it. For instance, with the hindrances: Those are part of the cause of …
- Virtue Fosters Concentration… When he decided that there were eight folds in the eightfold path, it wasn’t because he liked the number eight and he had two extra spaces so he stuck the precepts in there. That’s not the case at all. Right speech and right action are an immediate result of having right view and right resolve. And they’re going to have a …
- From Darkness to Light… For most of us, he says, the eightfold path is divided. We follow the right eightfold path for a while, then the wrong eightfold path for a while, then the right path again, then the wrong path. He said it’s no wonder we don’t get anywhere. You have to learn how to take that framework—“Where is the suffering right now? What …
- A Path for a Noble Desire… Which is why he didn’t just call this path the eightfold path. It’s the noble eightfold path. That’s to distinguish it from other eightfold paths. In every consistent path for a desire you have to have a view about what’s worthwhile in life and the way things act in life. You have to be resolved that you’re going to …
- Something New… of seeing the world, and they just fall back on those. But the Buddha is saying that you can change these things, and he lays out the path to change: the eightfold path. And it’s a noble path. It lifts the level of the mind. So it’s all laid out, and it’s up to you to decide whether to bring something …
- Right Livelihood… Right livelihood is the poor stepsister of the eightfold path. It’s the factor that the Buddha hardly defines at all. He simply says the disciple of the noble ones avoids wrong livelihood and makes his or her living through right livelihood — which doesn’t tell you much. Part of this may have been simply a question of etiquette. There’s only one passage …
- A Path Rooted in Desire… Notice that those eight factors are all versions of the eightfold path. They may be wrong versions, but they follow the pattern of the path. Here our desire is to put an end to suffering, to act in a way that, instead of causing suffering, will actually bring about its end. So. Try to understand: What is suffering, how is it caused, and what …
- A Sense of Yourself… As the Buddha said, how do you develop mindfulness? You practice all the factors of the eightfold path. There’s a belief in some places that there’s the path of mindfulness that leads to awakening, and a separate path of concentration that leads to awakening. The path bifurcates, and although either fork takes you to the goal, you have to choose or the …
- The Triple Training… But the fact that the eightfold path lists them in a different order makes an important point. Sometimes you need discernment to help with your virtue and with your concentration. This became a controversial point. It’s also one of the distinctive features of the forest tradition. When Ajaan Lee wrote his first book, which very closely reflected the teachings he had received from …
- The Brightness of Life… Any teaching where you’ve got the elements of the eightfold path, you’re going to have awakened people. So it’s a universal teaching. That’s one of the meanings of the word ariya. We translate it as noble, but it also means standard or universal. There’s something in the West that shrinks away from the idea of universal or absolute or …
- Laying the Infrastructure… So concentration, mindfulness—all the elements of the Eightfold Path—are things to be developed. And where do you find the things to be developed? They’re right here, right in front of your nose. That’s where the work is to be done—not in your anticipation of where you’re going to go, but in paying really close attention to the breath …
- The Second Frame of Reference… There’s a sutta where he asks, “How do you develop the four establishings of mindfulness? You develop them by developing the eightfold path”—and that includes everything from right view on down through right effort and right concentration. Right mindfulness builds on right effort and is a natural continuation of it; it’s meant to lead toward right concentration. The Mahasatipatthana Sutta itself …
- Anapanasati Day… In other words, when you get to the first jhana, you’ve released the mind from sensual thoughts, you’ve released it from what they say are unskillful mental qualities, which the texts define as wrong view, wrong resolve, wrong all the way down the line through the wrong factors of the eightfold path. Once you release the mind from those things, you’re …
- Focus on the Doing… In addition to the eight factors of the eightfold path, there’s right knowledge and right release. Right release is interpreted as real concentration, when the mind finally hits a state of concentration that’s totally unfabricated, can’t be destroyed, can’t be affected by anything at all. It builds on the concentration you’re doing. It’s not that you do concentration …
- Guardian Meditations… This is why the eightfold path is not only composed of right view, but also other factors that help to increase your ability to know, to learn, to be aware of the mind, and to help you let go of the factors that obscure the mind. That’s why one of the Buddha’s terms for the path is “developing and letting go.” You …
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