The Buddhist Path explained

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

The truest and funniest thing the Buddha did not say (Bodhipaksa/fakebuddhaquotes.com).

Fake Buddha quotes often have a lovely ring and the "stink of Zen" (H-K-D/flickr.com)

 

Buddha comments on Israel (SC)

Fake Buddha quotes continue to flood the Web such as, "You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself." What's true, what's the "path"?

  

Well meaning photographer H. Kopp Delaney found a treasure store of 108 quotes and assigned them stunning photographs.

  

Unfortunately, some of them are of dubious origin, while others are misleadingly translated.

A very good one but fake (fakebuddhquotes.com)

They are more something Stephen Seagal would say rather than Shakyamuni, the Awakened One -- well intended but sometimes missing the mark.

Sometimes they sound better than the real thing because rather than presenting timeless Buddhist ideas, they present New Age, Taoist, or holdover Hindu (Vedic) concepts in the guise of enlightened wisdom.

"Enlightenment" is not what most people think.

What can be done? Always be suspect of any quote not accompanied by a citation. Then before quoting, check the citation. Most quotable quotes come from The Dhammapada, a collection of Buddhist aphorisms and their origin stories providing context and meaning.
 

"Now are ye undeceived!" wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in his American classic Young Goodman Brown on hypocrisy in Salem, Massachusetts during our infamous Puritan witch trials. Caveat emptor.

  

What is the Path?

Wisdom Quarterly (EXPLANATION)

Our goal is not to make fun of fake Buddha quotes but to distinguish path from non-path.

Golden Buddha imparts a message of virtue, calm, and wisdom to arhats (Thai-on/flickr).

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Walk the path. (SadighGallery)

To correct this quote, here is Threefold Buddhist Path. It is the same just "unpacked" at three levels of resolution -- from very general to very specific:

• Threefold: the Buddha defines the "path" (magga) as virtue, concentration, and wisdom.
• Eightfold: he further outlines it as the Noble Eightfold Path.
• Thirty-sevenfold: gathering together many ancient sutras one finds various lists of 37 Requisites of Enlightenment.

What is VIRTUE? It is at a minimum keeping the Five Precepts, at a maximum living by the monastic rules in the context of an intensive meditation practice (the shortest path to the goal of full enlightenment in this very life). As part of the Noble Eightfold Path, it is the factors "right speech," "right action," "right livelihood."

Concentration purifies (Pranav Bhasin/flickr)

What is CONCENTRATION? It is serene, tranquil, purified, collected, focuesed intensification of mind. "Right concentration" refers to the first four absorptions (jhanas). But many practitioners and insight-meditation (vipassana or systematic-mindfulness practice) teachers maintain that access or neighborhood concentration is sufficient (and there is doubtful talk of vipassana-jhanas to accompany this claim).

Karma comes round (Moonbird)

It is true that not all who reach the ultimate goal do so by way of full absorption, but this is the exception rather than the rule. What they use is something very close to it called momentary concentration (kanika, for its side-by-side running along with insight practice, not because it lasts only a moment).

Concentration refers to the three Noble Eightfold Path factors: right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. (Mindfulness is interesting because it, as "bare attention," is an ingredient of concentration and, as contemplation, a subsequent practice of a concentrated mind. It leads to samadhi and goes beyond it to enlightenment; we cannot skip the first part and expect success).

Start with right view, know-and-see

What is WISDOM? It is liberating-insight into the radical facts of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, egolessness.

Part of meditating is coming to a point of directly seeing-and-knowing "path" from "non-path," what leads to the goal and what does not, the essential from the inessential.

There are also various super-knowledges one may attain, such as recollection of past lives or psychic powers. In terms of the Noble Eightfold Path, it refers to right view and right intention. 

The first sermon to the Five Ascetics

The many lists in which the Buddha's message has been enumerated as categories (e.g., the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Five Faculties, or Seven Factors of Enlightenment) are gathered into seven sets with 37 total elements. (They are not really completely separate elements because, e.g., mindfulness, or in-the-moment-awareness, comes up 14 times).

The Buddha should have said this one (P24).

This set-of-sets is called the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment, everything one would ever need to know, practice, and master to make an end of all suffering once and for all.

Omniscience or "Oneness" (advaita, a Vedic/Hindu concept not talked about by the Buddha and certainly not the ultimate goal) is not what happens and is not the point. For all that MUST be penetrated fully is the truth (Fourfold Ennobling Truth) and the Three Marks of Existence mentioned above.

• The Noble Eightfold Path (Beyondthenet.net)
• The Path of Purification (meditation manual)
• The Seven Stages of Purification (Ven. Nanarama)

The Buddha's Noble FOURfold Path

Bhikkhu Bodhi (beyondthenet.net), Four Truths; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Eightfold Path? I was into it back when it was the Fourfold Path" (Elephant Journal)

 
An Elephant's Footprint

Elephant at Borobudur (TrevThompson)

The recorded teachings of the Buddha are numerous. But all these diverse teachings fit together into a single unifying frame: the teaching of the Four Noble [or Ennobling] Truths.

The Buddha compared the Four Noble Truths to the footprint of an elephant. Just as the footprint of an elephant can encompass within it the footprints of any other animal -- lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, cats, dogs, and so on -- so all the different teachings of the Buddha fit into the single framework of the Four Noble Truths.

Punk rock Buddha (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

The Buddha makes it clear that the FULL realization of the Four Noble Truths precedes the attainment of enlightenment itself, which means touching or glimpsing nirvana, final liberation from all disappointment.

He says that when a teaching-buddha appears in the world, what is taught are the Four Noble Truths. The special purpose of the Dharma is to make known this path to spiritual-nobility, to ultimate truth and liberation from illusions and suffering.

And the special aim of those treading the path to enlightenment is to personally know-and-see (experientially verify) the Four Noble Truths:

1. The truth of disappointment (dukkha, unsatisfactoriness, unhappiness, pain, suffering, misery, the unpleasant),
2. The truth of the origin of disappointment,
3. The truth of the cessation of disappointment,
4. The truth of the path, the [eightfold] way to complete and final liberation from disappointment.

Elephant's Footprint sutra (BPS.lk)

The technical Buddhist term dukkha has often been translated as suffering, pain...misery. But dukkha or "disappointment," as used by the Buddha, has a much wider and deeper meaning.

 

It suggests a basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all forms and planes existence, even the most exalted and long lasting, all forms of rebirth, due to the fact that all forms are impermanent (even when they do not seem to be changing in heavenly planes) and without any inner core or substance.

The term dukkha indicates a lack of fulfillment, a lack of perfection, a condition that never measures up to our standards and expectations. Each word in the phrase "Four Noble Truths" is significant. What is the doctor's prescription?

• The Lesser Simile of the Elephant's Footprint (MN 27)
• The Greater Simile of the Elephant's Footprint (MN 28)
• Family Dharma: Elephant's Footprint (Tricycle)
• Chinese Buddhism owe a lot to Gandhara Civilization

Dr. Buddha, Master Physician (Prescription)

Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; BuddhaNet.net; Molly Hahn

Cats are good friends when they sleep in under the Sun (Molly Hahn/buddhadoodles.com)

 

The Buddha and my cat (Dee McIntosh/flickr)

The Buddha sets out the Four Truths as a formula a doctor would use to deal with a patient, a suffering person.

 

1. The Buddha first establishes the basic affliction, which is determined to be the problem of liability to disappointment and unsatisfactoriness; living beings are in pain.

2. Thereafter, he makes a diagnosis. That is, he explains the cause for this disease. This is the second truth, namely, that craving is part of the problem [explained in full in the 12 causal links of Dependent Origination], and craving is the link we can do something about right here and right now.

Accept what is. Let go of judgment. Remain aware of it. And you will know and see (BD).

 

3. As a third step a good doctor gives a prognosis, the possibility of the cessation of the problem. That is to say, a doctor determines whether a cure is possible. Is there some means of bringing about the end of our affliction, our problem, the pain we are sore from, complaining about, and seeking a cure for? Fortunately for living beings, the Buddha says YES: Suffering can be ended in this very life! We can stop all our suffering.

4. Finally, in the fourth step, perhaps the most important from the standpoint of the ailing patient, the doctor prescribes the course of treatment. The Buddha prescribes a fourth truth: the Noble Eightfold Path, the way to the end of all suffering, the treatment, the actions to take for enlightenment that leads to the goal of nirvana, which the Buddha very specifically defined as the final solution, the antidote, the cure, "the end of all suffering."

The Buddhist Path

Bhikkhu Bodhi (beyondthenet)

We say that the Path is the most important element in the Buddha's teaching because the Path is what makes the Dharma available to us as a living experience. Without the Path, the Dharma would only be a shell, a collection of doctrines without inner life. Without the Path, full deliverance from suffering -- Nirvana -- would be a mere dream.

• Discovery of a Lost Path
• The Way to Awakening
• The Middle Way
• Vision and Mission
• The Two Kinds of Noble Eightfold Path
• Not Mere Ethical Conduct