Have you tried to understand or follow the eightfold path? Have you succeeded? After following the path myself, studying buddhism ardently, and arriving at a solid confidence in the path due to the results I’ve achieved, I can’t help but wonder if some simple steps would have led me to the goal of the path sooner. If you want to answer that question for yourself and for me, read on to see how I have simplified the application of the eightfold path into a three step cycle.
First of all, the eightfold path is a good path, developed through years of scientific inquiry into the nature of life. It is scientific in the purest regard, Gautama had ideas that he experimented with and based on his results, came to new ideas to test out. Over and over he did this until he proved his initial intuition, until he freed himself from suffering. He then laid out the path for others to achieve what he did, to see what he saw, to live at ease as he lived. What could be better than finding that kind of treasure and sharing it? I have no criticisms of him, his work, or the path, nor have I made any changes to it. I simply have a perspective born of my own scientific process following his path, that is my treasure to share.
The eightfold path has a basic outline for living a life in harmony with others. It is a moral compass of sorts. It is, in some ways a consolation prize, in as much as, if you can’t attain enlightenment at least live right. While we can adhere to precepts or commandments or the path, one problem with that in regards to reaching enlightenment is that our human nature cannot be forced into artifice, well it can be but it will never be at peace there. Reflect on an arbitrary health goal or rule you’ve imposed upon yourself. You decide to not eat past 7pm, and at 6:59 you’re stuffing in all the cake and pizza you can manage. Or you work late and skip a meal. or you fail once and give up all together. However, imagine your body gets ill every time you eat past 7p, we will easily not eat past that hour. We understand why we are doing it, we are motivated. Forcing ourselves into behaviors, for any reason, even if it is a “good” one, we will fail, because our motivation is wrong, we want to be good or healthy, we aren’t actually experiencing our goodness or good health. So how do we bridge the gap between wanting to be good, enlightened, whole, at peace and actually being these? By gaining full understanding, which will lead to full confidence. You will not be at ease making decisions without confidence, and without confidence your decisions are arbitrary. Following the eightfold path as a rule is arbitrary, even if it makes sense or has proven good in others lives. So instead of diving into an arbitrary solution to what we believe is our problem, let’s get to know what it is we are after to begin with. It’s peace, right?
If it is peace we are after, this makes the assumption we do not have peace. Well what is peace anyway? Everyone being nice to you, you being rich, having a Leave it to Beaver family? Maybe it is all of those things, but first and foremost, would you agree that it is peace of mind you’re after. What if your Leave it to Beaver life is at a cost of rigid rules and putting on a show for others, that certainly isn’t peace. So if it is peace of mind we are after, then shouldn’t we get to know the dis-ease of our mind? For this I must add an element of Buddhism that is not directly connected to the Eightfold path. It is the Five Hindrances. The five hindrances are mental states that we all are very familiar with. Wanting, desire, greed; Not-wanting, aversion, hate, ill-will, anger; Laziness, depression, sloth, torpor; Restlessness, anxiety, worry, fear; and Doubt. The five hindrances give a center point to the practice of meditation and the eightfold path. Literally a center, which ironically or not is Buddha’s whole philosophy, the middle way. To know the middle mustn’t we know the ends? The center between your inner and outer world is your breath. Think about that, our breath comes into us from our environment, and we give our breath back to the world. The five hindrances are named just right, they block you from awareness of your breath. That blockage is why so many find meditation so difficult, daunting, or why many may not even try it, because they believe they cannot quiet their mind, or focus on their breath. It is also the blockage to both our inner peace and harmony in our outer world. To tie this back in to our point, we are trying to gain understanding and confidence so as to live freely and at ease versus binding ourselves by rules, beliefs, or other-centered actions.
This brings me to the three step cycle. Remember, if enlightenment should put us at ease, we cannot just make ourselves act right, nor can we make everyone else act right and expect to be at ease. We are living the practice from the first moment we begin and if you start practicing force, you will only get better at it. It will not suddenly lead you to ease after everything and everyone, including you, start acting right. In other words, both extremes of forcing yourself to take on all the internal pressure, or forcing others to change to make life better are the same thing. Both have failed for countless people, countless times and as Buddha would say, “its enough to be liberated from it.”
The verbs I use to title the three steps in the cycle, are: Observe, Experiment, Understand. Remember back to the fact that we want to gain understanding so we are at ease and confident in the way we approach our life. So that once we travel the path, we can be free of it too. What good is freedom if you have to carry this practice around all the time. Buddha says the same thing when he reminds you that the raft gets you across the river, and you put it down when you arrive. So that you can see how the steps lead to understanding, we could state it this way Observe + Experiment = Understand. You could say its like a recipe, Flour + water + salt + oil = bread. Or like directions to a destination, with very clear steps. Turn Left on the Avenue, stay straight for 3 miles. Without steps, how do you know you’ve arrived at your destination, how do you know you’re not lost? These are simply realities and questions I faced while navigating life and developing the eightfold path for myself. I struggled a lot to understand, read a lot, failed a lot, and my eventual answer to the questions of if I was getting it or not, arrived through this three step cycle. With the questions answered, with confidence, I hope the three step cycle will alleviate for you some of the time it took me, some of the wading through information, some of the struggle. I hope it leads others to the amazing peace that Buddha found and knew we all had within us. It is in you already…. know that… you’re now going on a hunt to find it.
Read the continuation Eightfold Path Simplified Part II
It is a tremendous amount of focus to detail this clearly. I am impressed with how Buddha did it, and didn’t he not even have paper? I wonder how much scribbling in the sand he did to help him follow his own thoughts to a resolution. I’m going to take a break for now, but please come back and read part II, where I will detail out what and how to apply the steps. I can’t wait to hear your successes, challenges, failures, questions, and about your perseverance . Remember this is a practice. How many free-throws do you think Michael Jordan missed? What if he just believed a free-throw was impossible, or that he wasn’t good enough, or that freethrows were stupid, because of that and gave up?
Arya Marga 