Session 003: The Noble Eightfold Path (Part 2)

Today’s session started out with the talk this time and then a guided meditation. In this blog post, you will first see the video recording of the meditation, then the video recording of the talk and then the handout text.

Talk

Meditation

Handout

The 4-page handout that we gave out in today’s class is posted below as blog content for you:

The Noble Eightfold Path - Part 2 of 2

Jan 22nd 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

4. Right Action

This factor we understand as taking action that is not harmful to others. (See how it is interlinked to our way of thinking in Right Intention?)

Three big categories are to be mentioned for what Right Action constitutes:

1. Not to harm or kill another living being. Pretty obvious for the most part, but it does include ants, mosquitoes, and other critters we may have an aversion toward.

2. Not to steal or take what isn’t voluntarily given to us (courteously asking for something is okay for us lay people). Also not to do cheating, scheming or manipulating others into giving us something.

3. Not to have improper sexual conduct.

While the teaching tells us what we shouldn’t so, let’s turn it around to how we really should act:

1. Respect and cherish life. We can bring a bug outside instead of swatting it or use a mosquito repellent instead of a mosquito killer lamp. That way we can consciously support life while staying comfortable.

2. In effect, we should want little, so we are more likely to get everything we need to live in a legal and moral manner.

3. To have sex only with an eligible person. For our Western society that means the following: when we’re married, that means only with our spouse; if not, it can only be with unmarried or non-engaged people who are adults who are not closely related or who have taken a vow of celibacy. Either way, it’s gotta be consensual. Anything else may cause harm to others and thus should be abstained from.

So, we need to act properly. As mentioned in the introduction, this is not in order to please the Buddha or any other teacher or deity, but to rest in a peaceful mind and to create a harmonious society and environment of trust. The more trust there is, the easier and less stressful life is.

There is one more thing to consider. When one becomes a Buddhist, one lives according to five precepts. While the first four are basically the contents of Right Speech and Right Action, the fifth one is not to drink alcohol, take drugs, or other intoxicants. That’s not because these are bad per se (they can be very useful, as one can experience in a medical emergency). Rather, it is because being “under the influence” can blur the mind and keep us from not killing (e.g. a DUI car accident), not stealing and not speaking properly (a lot of things seem funny or proper when one is drunk which are harmful to others in reality), and not behaving properly sexually (e.g. alcohol removes inhibitions that better stay put). 

5. Right Livelihood

Right livelihood is about earning one’s living according to certain guidelines. One should find work by i) legal means, ii) peacefully, iii) honestly and iv) in a way that is not harmful to others. The Buddha lists five ways of livelihood that bring harm to others and must be avoided:

1. Dealing in weapons.
2. Dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter, slave trade, and prostitution).
3. Dealing in meat production and butchery.
4. Dealing in poisons.
5. Dealing in intoxicants.

He also outlined several means of gaining livelihood which fall under wrong livelihood: practicing deceit, treachery, soothsaying (fortune-telling), trickery and usury (the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest). In essence, any action that involves the breaking of right speech and right action is a wrong form of livelihood and occupations such as selling weapons and intoxicants don’t violate those but are still wrong because they harm others. It’s important to recognize two things here. These guidelines are important to follow not for some moral or ethical code that is decided upon by society as good things. But more importantly, it’s important because of the karmic impressions and defilements the violation of these leave in the mind. When one does something that harms others, it will leave a residue in our mind even if memory erases it. This residue in the mind then joins the ignorance, hatred/ill will, and desire and they, in turn, influence our thoughts, speech, and actions - creating a vicious cycle of more negative karma. And these are also the same that come up in our meditation practice keeping us from experiencing a quiet, still, and peaceful mind. By pursuing these eight factors, we are nipping the cycle and starting a string of virtuous cycle.

6. Right Effort

There are four segments of Right Effort:

1. Keeping the mind clear of negative or unwholesome thoughts.

2. Getting rid of negative or unwholesome thoughts if they have arisen already.

3. Getting the mind into a wholesome state.

4. Keeping the mind in a wholesome state.

Each segment describes what we have to do depending on what phase our state of mind is in. Right Effort is part of the third section of The Noble Eightfold Path of “Right Meditation” as it can be developed and applied most consciously in meditation practice. However, if a moment of present-moment-awareness is long enough for an analysis, we can work on our ability to stay in the moment by knowing what kind of effort we have to apply at each moment of awareness - be it in meditation or in day-to-day life.

It all takes practice. The more we practice and apply ourselves, the better it gets.

7. Right Mindfulness

We’ve talked about this in detail last time. It’s basically the practice to be fully aware of what we’re doing in every moment, so we can experience reality (impermanence, suffering, no-self) as it is and become at peace with it and even find utter joy and full contentment in it.

We practice mindfulness in the ideal setting of our meditation cushion and reach the beginning stages of a breath awareness and a temporarily peaceful mind. We apply it in every-day life by always being in the present moment, as taught wonderfully not only by Buddhist but also by worldly teachers such as Eckhart Tolle.

The Buddha teaches the following four “foundations of mindfulness”, fields in which we can investigate and practice mindfulness:

1. Being mindful of our own physical body and its five senses.

2. Being mindful of feelings that arise in us from sense contacts and thoughts that we have.

3. Being mindful of the ever-changing states of our own mind and, with it, how our mind really works, meaning being a continuous sequence of moments of consciousness.

4. Being mindful of the fact that nothing has an inherent self, but rather is just things happening with one thing leading to another, aka karma in the broadest sense of the word.

For further reading on mindfulness and how it’s important and can be practiced, may we please refer you to last week’s talk and handout named “Session 001: Mindfulness and Dissolving Defilements” under https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-001-mindfulness-and-dissolving-defilements.

8. Right Concentration

The 8th factor of The Noble Eightfold Path is Right Concentration or samma samadhi. Some teachers such as Ajahn Brahm call it Right Stillness because it evokes less forcing and more letting go. According to the American Monk, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Right Concentration is about one-pointedness of the mind that is wholesome. He explains:

“Samadhi is exclusively wholesome one-pointedness, the concentration in a wholesome state of mind. Even then its range is still narrower: it does not signify every form of wholesome concentration, but only the intensified concentration that results from a deliberate attempt to raise the mind to a higher, more purified level of awareness.”

The key features of samadhi are that the mind is continuously able to attend to an object which then results in a calming down of mental functions - very different from a mind that is unconcentrated. When the mind is concentrated or still in this way, then it is free from worries, and the mental hindrances as it can stay focused on its object of meditation. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes that: 

“This freedom from distraction further induces a softness and serenity which make the mind an effective instrument for penetration. Like a lake unruffled by any breeze, the concentrated mind is a faithful reflector that mirrors whatever is placed before it exactly as it is.”

This is where one can achieve wisdom through the eight stages of deep states called meditative absorption or jhanas in Pali. Through each of the stages one experiences wisdom not just knows reality intellectually. This culminates into the various stages of enlightenment. I’ve read that there are two ways to achieve deep concentration: one is through insight (vipassana) and the other is through stillness (samadhi). Ajahn Brahm says that insight and stillness are two sides of the same coin and cannot be separated. They are part and parcel of the same process. You can learn more about this in his book, “Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond. A Meditator’s Handbook”.

Summary

All of this may be overwhelming, but bit by bit this Noble Eightfold Path can become a practical tool to review ones’ life and decisions. It’s not something to be followed in blind faith or because we respect the Buddha or because it is written in the ancient literature. It is to be taken as a working hypothesis, just like a scientist would, and test it in our own experience. We hope this presentation has been helpful in seeing meditation and mindfulness practice in the context of the entire expression of the path that the Buddha laid out as what led to his enlightenment.

Thank you! See you in class next week!

~ Sophia + Cristof