The Eightfold Path:
Wisdom
- Right Understanding (AKA Right View) - Know the truth.
- See and understand things as they really are, not as you 'wish' them to be.
- Right Aspiration (AKA Right Intention) - Free your mind of evil.
- Commit to ethical behavior for the good of the whole.
Morality
- Right Speech - Say nothing that hurts others.
- Abstain from false speech. Do not tell deliberate lies and do not speak deceitfully.
- Abstain from slanderous speech and do not speak maliciously against others.
- Abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others.
- Abstain from the idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth.
- Right Action - Work for the good of others.
- Abstain from harming sentient beings. Abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or unconsciously.
- Abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty.
- Abstain from sexual misconduct.
- Right Livelihood - Respect life. Buddha describes 4 activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid:
- Dealing in weapons.
- Dealing in living beings (includes slave trade and prostitution as well as raising animals for slaughter).
- Working in meat production and butchery.
- Selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs.
Concentration
- Right Effort - Resist evil.
- Prevent the arising of unwholesome states.
- Abandon unwholesome states.
- Arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen.
- Maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
- Right Mindfulness - Control your thoughts.
- Contemplation of the body
- Contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral)
- Contemplation of the state of mind.
- Contemplation of the phenomena.
- Right Concentration - Practice meditation.
- Right concentration is the practice of meditation.
The Fourfold
Discipline of Samanyasa:
1 – The ability to correctly discriminate between the real
& eternal (nitya) and the substance that is apparently real, aging, changing & transitory (anitya).
2 – The renunciation of petty desires that distract the
mind, willing to give up everything that is an obstacle to the pursuit of truth
and self-knowledge.
3 – The Sixfold
Qualities (Samadi satka sampatti):
1: Mental
tranquility, ability to focus the mind.
2:
Self-restraint, the virtue of temperance.
3: Dispassion,
ability to be quiet and disassociated from everything.
4: Endurance,
perseverance, ability to be patient during demanding circumstances.
5: Faith,
trust, confidence and loyalty.
6: Attention,
intentness of mind.
4 – A positive longing for freedom and wisdom, driven to the
quest of knowledge and understanding.
-------
Understand that The
Four Goals of Purusartha are natural and proper goals:
1 –The right way to life, the duties and obligations of the
individual toward himself and the society as well as those of the society
toward the individual.
2 – The means to support and sustain one’s life.
3 – Pleasure and enjoyment.
4 – Liberation, release.
1 – Sensory desire
(The
particular type of wanting that seeks for happiness through the five senses of
sight, sound, smell, taste, and physical feeling)
2 – Ill will
(All kinds
of thought related to wanting to reject, feelings of hostility, resentment,
hatred and bitterness)
3 – Sloth torpor and physical or mental inactivity
(Heaviness
of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and
thick depression)
4 – Restlessness and worry
(The
inability to calm the mind)
5 – Doubt
(Lack of
conviction or trust)
The Four Noble Truths
of Dukkha:
1 – The truth of suffering
-Life is
suffering
-Suffering is
temporary, conditional, and compounded of other things.
2 – The truth of the cause of
suffering
-Suffering is craving or thirst.
-We continually search for
something outside ourselves to make us happy, never fully satisfied.
-This thirst grows from ignorance
of the self.
-We go through life grabbing one
thing after another to get a sense of security about ourselves. We attach not
only to physical things, but also to ideas and opinions about ourselves and the
world around us. Then we grow frustrated when the world doesn’t behave the way
we think it should and our lives don’t conform to our expectations.
3 – The truth of the cessation of suffering (the end of
suffering)
-Through diligent practice, we can
put an end to craving.
-Ending the hamster-wheel chase
after satisfaction is enlightenment.
4 – The truth of the pathway that frees us from suffering
-The Buddha
prescribes the Eightfold Path as the treatment for our illness.
-There is no particular benefit to
merely believing in a doctrine. Instead, the emphasis is on living the doctrine
and walking the path.
No comments:
Post a Comment