The Noble Eightfold Path - Outline

Understanding the Path

Wisdom, ethical behavior, and mental training depend on each other, they are all developed together. Moral discipline allows the mind to be developed and unified, which brings forth wisdom. Preliminary right view and right intention are necessary to begin.

Right view

Mundane right view - understanding the truth of karma

Karma means action, it is about the moral quality of your intentional actions. Actions are expressed through the body, speech and mind.

The 10 courses of unwholesome action arise from the 3 unwholesome roots, greed, aversion, and delusion, and involve breaking four of the five precepts:

  • Bodily action - Destroying life, taking what is not given, wrong conduct in regard to sense pleasures

  • Verbal action: - false speech, slanderous speech, harsh speech, Idle chatter

  • Mental action - covetousness, ill will, wrong view

Understanding karma means understanding that our actions matter, that they affect our future state, and that morality is not relative.

Issues with Karma:

  • Ethical behavior by itself won’t lead to nirvana, but it is necessary for the path.

  • Old karma vs. new karma

  • Types of karma - personal karma vs. the karma resulting from being born as a human being

  • Karma is too complex for us to fully understand, it is one of the 4 imponderables - do not use it as a crutch or excuse

  • Karma is affected by our intention and our state of mind, but an action isn’t wholesome just because you believe it is if you have wrong view.

  • Mental states are just as important as physical actions, see Salt Crystal Sutta

Superior right view- The Four Noble Truths (The symptoms, the disease, the cure, and the prescription)

First Noble Truth - Understanding suffering

  • Birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair

  • Association with the unpleasant, separation from the pleasant

  • Not getting what one wants

  • “In brief” the five aggregates of clinging - form (rupa), feeling (vedana), perception (sanna), mental formations (sankhara), sense-consciousness (vinnana) (see below)

  • The three traditional types of dukkha - pain, change, and conditioned existence (see below).

Second Noble Truth - the origin of suffering - craving and clinging which arise from ignorance.

  • Ignorance causes selfish desire (tahna). Wholesome desire that doesn’t involve clinging or selfishness is sometimes called kamma-chanda. Examples of dhamma-chanda would be an aspiration to follow the path and a commitment to hold the right intentions oulined in the 2nd fold of the path.

  • The specific way craving arises and causes problems are outlined in the chain of dependent origination (see below).

  • The Three Poisons, the Four Nutriments, and the Eight Worldly Winds are an alternate ways of understanding craving and clinging (see below)

Third Noble Truth - The cessation of suffering - Nirvana/Nibbana (see below)

Fourth Noble Truth - The way leading to cessation, which is the Eightfold Path

Right intention (These counteract desire, ill will, and harmfulness)

Traditionally there are three right intentions:

  • Renunciation (nekkhamma). Renunciation is developed by mindfulness and right effort, not force.

  • Goodwill or loving-kindness (metta)

  • Harmlessness (ahimsa)

There is a famous sutra on metta - https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.08.amar.html

Metta is one of the four Bhrama Viharas, which are another traditional set of right intentions the Buddha taught specifically as a way to attain a better rebirth (such as in the Brahma realm).

  • The Brahma Viharas are:

    • Goodwill (Metta)

    • Compassion (Karuna)

    • Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)

    • Equinimity (Upekka)

  • The way to practice metta meditation in the sutras is to send metta and the other Brahma Viharas to beings in each of the four directions, above, below, and then to all as to himself.

  • Buddhagosa was taught an additional method, to wish metta toward oneself, then a loved one, a neutral person, a difficult person, then all beings.

Right speech - (Developing a good moral sense - see The Guardians of the World below)

Abstaining from false speech

Abstaining from slanderous speech

Abstaining from harsh speech

Abstaining from idle chatter

Right action

Abstaining from taking life

Abstaining from stealing

Abstaining from sexual misconduct

Right livelihood

Qualities: legal, peaceful, honest, not harmful

Wrong things to deal in: Weapons, Living beings, Meat, Poisons, Intoxicants

Wrong methods: Deceit, Treachery, Soothsaying, Trickery, Usery

Right effort

Prevent arising of unwholesome states (5 hindrances) by mindfulness of senses

  • Sensual desire (greed)

  • ill will (aversion)

  • Dullness/drowsiness,

  • Restlessness/worry

  • Doubt (inability to commit)

Abandon arisen unwholesome states: 

  • Replace unskillful thought with opposite

    • Impermanence / unsatisfactoriness for greed / desire

    • Metta for ill will

  • Visualizing energy for dullness

  • Focus on breath to counteract worry

  • Inquire into teachings to dispel doubt

  • See thought as vile or having bad consequences

  • Divert attention

  • Scrutinize, investigate its source

  • Suppress with willpower as last resort

 Develop wholesome states (7 factors of enlightenment)

  • Mindfulness (sati)

  • Investigation (dhammavicaya)

  • Energy (viriya)

  • Rapture (piti)

  • Tranquility (passaddhi)

  • Concentration (samadhi)

  • Equanimity (upekkha)

Maintain wholesome states (7 factors)

Right mindfulness (4 foundations of mindfulness)

 Body / Rupa (body scan, parts of the body)

Feelings / Vedana (positive, negative, or indifferent)

Mind / Citta / Heart (moods)

Phenomena/Dhamma (mental factors, 5 hindrances, 5 aggregates, 6 senses, 7 factors of Enlightenment, 4 Noble truths)

Right concentration / Samadhi

Access concentration - settling the mind on an object and quieting thoughts

Jhana factors:

  • Applied thought and evaluation (Vitakka and Vicara)

  • Rapture / glee (piti)

  • Happiness (sukha)

  • One-pointedness (ekaggata)

  • Equanimity (upekkha)

4 Material Jhanas

4 Immaterial Jhanas

Wisdom 

Right view as insight into reality

Right intention as final renunciation of defilements

Resources

Six Senses

  • Sight

  • Hearing

  • Touch

  • Taste

  • Smell

  • Mind-sense (Mano) - We sense thoughts using a specialized part of our mind in the same way we sense light using a specialized part of our body, the eyes.

The Five Clinging Aggregates (Skandhas)

The five aggregates are all things we imagine to be ourselves, By clinging to them we generate a comforting sense of self that blinds us to our true nature. The way to use the five aggregates in your practice is to notice that every experience you have, every thought, feeling, or sensation, can be categorized as one or more of the aggregates. The aggregates are like the machinery of the mind and body, they operate on their own and are not “you” in any fundamental sense. You can read more about the five aggregates in the book What the Buddha Taught about halfway thorough the chapter on the First Noble Truth.

  • Form (Rupa) - This refers to the physical body, our physical sense organs, and physical objects in general.

  • Feeling (Vedana) - an instant reaction, either positive, negative, or neutral, to any sense-experience or thought. It is the “taste” of an experience, a “gut feeling” about something. Vedana arises before we have time to think.

  • Perception (Samjna or Sanna) - assigning a name or concept to sense-experience. This is where we assign a label to everything we experience and categorize it so that we can think about it. This labeling and categorizing can at times completely obscure the original experience, causing projections and shadows.

  • Volition / Mental Formations (Samskara or Sankhara) - our intentional or habitual thoughts and our reactions to sense-experience. Sankharas contains our beliefs, values, ideas, habits, assumptions, and judgments. They are a result of our past experience and cause us to respond to the world in ways that create our future experience. Our intentional actions, and thus our karma, are caused by the Sankharas.

  • Sense-consciousness (Vijanana or Vinnana) - the part of the mind that sees us as an object in a world of objects. It combines our sense-experience and the other aggregates into a compelling story that we believe is true. Sense-consciousness is what creates the movie of our lives that constantly plays in our heads, the story we repeat to ourselves about what our life means.

Three Types of Dukkha (The explanation of the first two are adapted from What the Buddha Taught) —

The conception of dukkha may be viewed from three aspects: (1) dukkha as ordinary suffering (dukkha-dukkha), (2) dukkha as produced by change (vipariṇāma-dukkha) and (3) dukkha as conditioned states (saṃkhāra-dukkha).

The Pain of Pain - dukkha-dukkha

All kinds of suffering in life like birth, old age, sickness, death, association with unpleasant persons and conditions, separation from loved ones and pleasant conditions, not getting what one desires, grief, lamentation, distress – all such forms of physical and mental suffering, which are universally accepted as suffering or pain, are included in dukkha as ordinary suffering (dukkha-dukkha).

The Pain of Change - vipariṇāma-dukkha

A happy feeling, a happy condition in life, is not permanent, not everlasting. It changes sooner or later. When it changes, it produces pain, suffering, unhappiness. This vicissitude is included in dukkha as suffering produced by change (vipariṇāma-dukkha).

The Pain of Conditioned Existence - saṃkhāra-dukkha)

This type of pain is the most subtle of the three. Because all objects and events are a result of past causes, nothing in this world can be said to have its own essential nature. It is “empty” of a true nature. In addition, conditioned things, including ourselves, are always changing because of events outside of our control. We have no ownership of them, so they are unpredictable and uncertain. We cannot make anything in the world behave as we wish, including our own bodies and minds.

A couple of sutras on suffering

Pain vs. suffering - what is avoidable in our current life
The Dart - https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.nypo.html

Raṭṭhapāla’s summary of suffering https://suttacentral.net/mn82/en/sujato

The world is unstable and swept away.
The world has no shelter and no savior.
The world has no owner—you must leave it all behind and pass on.
The world is wanting, insatiable, the slave of craving.

12-Step Chain of Dependent Origination

What creates and sustains “the world”? Each step leads to the next.

The mysterious first two:

  • Ignorance (Avijja)

  • Formations (Sankharas)

The 7 steps through the Aggregates

  • Sense-consciousness (Vijnana)

  • Mind and body (nama-rupa)

  • Sense-organs (Ayatana)

  • Contact (Phassa) - 6 sense bases perceiving:

    • Sights

    • Sounds

    • Smells

    • Tastes

    • Touches

    • Thoughts

  • Feelings (Vedana):

    • There are three traditional types of feelings:

      • Positive

      • Negative

      • Neutral

    • The aggregates work together, so “Vedana” is usually thought to include the other four aggregates.

  • Craving (Tanha):

    • There are three traditional types of craving taught as part of dependent origination:

      • Kama Tanha - sense-pleasure

      • Bhava Tanha - becoming, fulfilling a vision of ones self

      • Vibhava Tanha - not-becoming - get rid of, rejecting a vision

    • The Three Poisons are an alternate understanding of craving:

      • Greed (Kama and Bhava Tanha)

      • Aversion (Vibhava Tanha) - hatred, fear, and indifference

      • Delusion (Ignorance)

    • The Four Nutriments are yet another way to understand craving based on the Aggregates
      (see discussion at accesstoinsight.org):

      • Food - material food which creates and sustains the body (rupa)

      • Sensation - (sensory and mental) impressions (phassa) which create and sustain feelings (vedana)

      • Volition - mental volitions (mano-sañcetanā) which create and sustain karma

      • Sense-consciousness (viññāna) which creates and sustains our existence as an object in a world of objects

  • Clinging (Upadana) - our craving narrows our attention to a particular type of clinging.

    • There are four traditional types of clinging:

      • Sense pleasure

      • Views and beliefs

      • Rules, practices, cultural conventions (often translated as rites and rituals)

      • Self view

    • The 8 Worldly Winds are an alternate understanding of clinging focused on what society values:

      • Pain and Pleasure

      • Gain and Loss

      • Praise and Blame

      • Good and Bad Reputation - Status

The last 3 steps - Dependent Origination creates a new existence:

  • Becoming (Bhava) -

    • Single-life view - craving and clinging cause you to attach to an object or situation

      • Our attention becomes focused on the one thing we think will save us

      • The object becomes magical to us, it glows.

      • It can be a new relationship, a new job, a new phone, a new purpose, a new philosophy, etc.

    • Multi-life view - becoming attached to a new life in one of three realms

      • Sensual Realm (You are here)

      • Fine Material Realm (Rupa-Jhanas)

      • Formless Realm (Arupa-Jhanas)

  • Birth (Jati) - We got the thing or the situation we wanted! Now what? Reality sets in. We become subject to a new set of conditions and new desires begin to arise.

  • Aging and Death (Jaramarana) - No worldly thing or situation is reliable or permanent.

Nirvana

Quote from Ajahn Sumedho: A difficulty with the word Nibbana (Nirvana) is that its meaning is beyond the power of words to describe. It is, essentially, undefinable. Another difficulty is that many Buddhists see Nibbana as something unobtainable – as so high and so remote that we’re not worthy enough to try for it. Or we see Nibbana as a goal, as an unknown, undefined something that we should somehow try to attain.

Sariputta’s conversation with Anuruddha - “It would be good, friend, if rather than occupying yourself with these concerns, you turned your attention to the deathless element”. Can also be translated as “attend to the deathless”, or “turn to the deathless”.

Kappa’s Question about being stranded in the flood - https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.5.10.than.html

Alternate translation of the Buddha’s reply - “There is an island, an island which you cannot go beyond. It is a place of nothingness (no-thing-ness), a place of non-possession and of non-attachment. It is the total end of death and decay, and this is why I call it Nibbana.”

Ajahn Amaro’s Book - The Island - https://www.amaravati.org/dhamma-books/the-island/

Synonyms for Nibbana - https://dhammawiki.com/index.php/33_synonyms_for_Nibbana

The Guardians of the World

  • The Lokapala Sutta mentions two guardians:

    • Ethical Intution (Hiri) - Often translated as moral shame

    • Ethical Logic (Ottappa) - Often translated as moral dread

  • Buddhaghosa’s metaphor of an iron rod, glowing hot on one end and covered in crap on the other.

  • Morality is not a list of rules, it’s a state of mind. It is an understanding of the world that arises when the mind is free of selfish thoughts and delusions.

  • Only moral people can be free - my own interpretation

The Ten Fetters

  1. Belief in a self (sakkāya-diṭṭhi)

  2. Doubt or uncertainty, especially about the Buddha's teachings (vicikicchā)

  3. Attachment to rites and rituals, or cultural conditioning as Ajahn Sumedo calls it (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)

  4. Sensual desire (kāmacchando)

  5. Ill will (vyāpādo or byāpādo)

  6. Desire for material existence, rebirth (rūparāgo)

  7. Desire for immaterial existence (arūparāgo)

  8. Conceit - a subtle sense of self (māna)

  9. Restlessness (uddhacca)

  10. Ignorance (avijjā)



    Books on the Four Noble Truths


    Ajahn Sumedho’s Book https://www.amaravati.org/dhamma-books/the-four-noble-truths

    “What the Buddha Taught” by Walpola Rahula https://sites.google.com/site/rahulawhatthebuddha/home

    First Sermon Sutta - Four Noble Truths https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html

    The Dart Sutta https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.nypo.html

    Raṭṭhapāla https://sutta central.net/mn82/en/sujato

    Second Sermon - Not Self / Aggregates https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.mend.html

    Loka Sutta (The World) https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.044.than.html