The Buddha's Eightfold Guide to Life
His Step-by-Step Teachings for Less Suffering and More Joy
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Over 20 years ago, I took an Abhidhamma ("Higher Teaching") course at my Sri Lankan temple in Los Angeles. After the first class, I thought, “Man, Buddhists really love lists!”
As the weeks went by, my teenage mind was inundated by the Five Aggregates (khandhas), the four types of consciousness (citta), the different mental factors (cetasikas) -- ranging from 42 to 52 depending on tradition -- the 12 causal links (nidanas) of Dependent Origination, and more, including subdivisions involving even more lists.
This issue of Lion’s Roar explores one of Buddhism’s most essential lists, that of the Ennobling Eightfold Path (part of the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment), right:
- view,
- thought,
- speech,
- action,
- livelihood,
- effort,
- mindfulness,
- concentration.
As Sister True Dedication explains, the great thing about the Eightfold Path is that “each element of the Path contains the other seven within it, and they work together to create
a complete path to liberation.”
Throughout this issue, Lion's Roar authors reveal the intertwined nature of different elements of the Path. They stress the importance of the Eightfold Path in our lives off the meditation cushion, through compassionate interaction with our world.
We don’t need Buddhism to explain these concepts: Koun Franz argues in his examination of how "right view" is rooted in a realization of suffering, impermanence, and non-self [the unfulfilling, unstable, and impersonal nature of all phenomena and states of rebirth].
“What Buddhism does is to say, these things matter.”
These days, when I teach the Eightfold Path to the tweens and teens at my temple’s Sunday School, I emphasize its nonlinear and circular nature.
I tell them, “If you’re doing one, you’re doing them all.” I tell them, “Try to embody just one element of the Eightfold Path every day. The rest will fall into place.”
- Associate Editor Mihiri Tillakaratne
TAKE A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE THE ISSUE
What Really Makes Us Happy As a Buddhist teacher, psychiatrist, and leading researcher, Dr. Robert Waldinger studies life from three very different perspectives.
But he says they all come to the same basic conclusion about what really makes our lives happy and meaningful and what doesn’t.
More
The Path of Joy and Liberation
The Buddha’s Four Noble [Ennobling] Truths include the truth that the Eightfold Path is a way out of suffering. It’s not just the path
to happiness, says Sister True Dedication, it’s happiness itself. [After all, there is no way to happiness because happiness is the way.]
More
Realize Your True Nature
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche presents practices for recognizing the true nature of mind — empty [impersonal] and open, luminous and aware.
More
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