But the essence of those many thousand discourses scattered in the Buddhist scriptures is found in the noble eightfold path. It should not be thought that the eight categories or divisions of the path should be followed and practiced one after the other in the numerical order as given in the usual list above.
But they are to be developed more or less simultaneously, as far as possible according to the capacity of each individual. They are all linked together and each helps the cultivation of the others. These eight factors aim at promoting and perfecting the three essentials of Buddhist training and discipline: namely: a ethical conduct s ila , b mental discipline s amadhi and c wisdom panna. It will therefore be more helpful for a coherent and better understanding of the eight divisions of the path if we group them and explain them according to these three heads.
According to Buddhism, for a man to be perfect there are two qualities that he should develop equally: compassion karuna on one side, and wisdom panna on the other. Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance, and such noble qualities on the emotional side, or qualities of the heart, while wisdom would stand for the intellectual side or the qualities of the mind.
If one develops only the emotional, neglecting the intellectual, one may become a good-hearted fool; while to develop only the intellectual side [and] neglecting the emotional may turn one into a hard-hearted intellect without feeling for others. Therefore, to be perfect one has to develop both equally.
That is the aim of the Buddhist way of life: in it wisdom and compassion are inseparably linked together, as we shall see later. Now, in ethical conduct sila , based on love and compassion, are included three factors of the noble eightfold path: namely, right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Right speech means abstention 1 from telling lies, 2 from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, 3 from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, and abusive language, and 4 from idle, useless, and foolish babble and gossip.
When one abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech one naturally has to speak the truth, has to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful, and useful. One should not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place. Right action aims at promoting moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct.
It admonishes us that we should abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and that we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way.
One can clearly see here that Buddhism is strongly opposed to any kind of war, when it lays down that trade in arms and lethal weapons is an evil and unjust means of livelihood. What we experience is entirely in our hands. Therefore the Buddha has said that we should give up the causes of karma and the disturbing emotions.
Virtuous actions result in happiness and unvirtuous actions result in suffering. This idea is not particularly easy to grasp because we can't see the whole process take place from beginning to end. There are three kinds of actions: mental, verbal, and physical.
These are subdivided into virtuous and unvirtuous physical actions, virtuous and unvirtuous verbal actions, and virtuous and unvirtuous mental actions. If we abandon the three types of unvirtuous actions, then our actions become automatically virtuous. There are three unvirtuous physical actions: the harming of life, sexual misconduct, and stealing.
The results of these three unvirtuous actions can be observed immediately. For example, when there is a virtuous relationship between a man and woman who care about each other, who help each other, and have a great deal of love and affection for each other, they will be happy because they look after each other.
Their wealth will usually increase and if they have children, their love and care will result in mutual love in the family. In the ordinary sense, happiness develops out of this deep commitment and bond they have promised to keep. Whereas, when there is an absence of commitment, there is also little care and sexual misconduct arises. This is not the ground out of which love arises, or upon which a home in which children can develop happiness can be built.
One can readily see that a lack of sexual fidelity can create many kinds of difficulties. One can also see the immediate consequences of other unvirtuous physical actions. One can see that those who steal have difficulties and suffer; those who don't steal experience happiness and have a good state of mind. Likewise, those who kill create many problems and unhappiness for themselves, while those who support life are happy. The same applies to our speech although it is not so obvious.
But on closer examination, we can also see how happiness develops out of virtuous speech and unhappiness results from unvirtuous speech. At first, lying may seem to be useful because we might think that we can deceive others and gain some advantage. But the Sakya Pandita said that this is not true. If we lie to our enemies or persons we don't get along with very well, because they are our enemies they are not going to pay attention to what we are saying anyway.
It will be quite hard to deceive them. If they are our friends, we might be able to deceive them at first by telling a lie. But after the first time, they won't trust us any more and may see us as untrustworthy. Lying therefore doesn't really accomplish anything.
Then if we look at the opposite, a person who takes pains to speak the truth will develop a reputation for being a truthful person and out of this trust many good things will emerge.
Once we have considered the example of the consequences of lying, we can think of similar consequences relating to other kinds of damaging speech: slander, and coarse, aggressive, and useless speech. In the long term virtuous speech produces happiness and unvirtuous speech produces suffering.
When we say 'useless speech,' we mean speech that is really useless, not just conversational. So, if we have a good mind and want someone to relax and be happy, even though the words may not have great meaning, our words are based on the idea of benefit and goodness.
By useless speech we mean chatter for no reason at all. Worse than that is 'chatter rooted in the disturbing emotions. We just gossip about people's character. That is really useless speech.
Besides being useless, this very often causes trouble because it sets people against each other and causes bad feelings. The same applies to 'harmful speech. If there is that really genuine, beneficial attitude and love behind what we say, it is not harmful speech. But if speech is related to the disturbing emotions such as aggression or jealousy, then it is harmful speech and should be given up.
We can go on to examine the various states of mind and see that a virtuous mind produces happiness and unvirtuous states of mind create unhappiness. For instance, strong aggression will cause us to lose our friends. Because of our aggressive-ness, those who don't like us or our enemies will become even worse enemies and the situation will become inflamed. If we are aggressive and hurt others and they have friends, eventually those friends will also become enemies. On the other hand, goodness will arise through our caring for our loved ones and then extending this by wishing to help others.
Through this they will become close and helpful friends. Through the power of our love and care, our enemies and people we don't get along with will improve their behavior and maybe those enemies will eventually become friends. If we have companions and wish to benefit others, we can end up with very good friends and all the benefits which that brings. In this way we can see how cause and effect operate, how a virtuous mind brings about happiness and how an unvirtuous mind brings about suffering and problems.
There are two main aspects of karma: one related to experience and one related to conditioning. The karma relating to experience has already been discussed. Through unvirtuous physical actions we will experience problems and unhappiness. Likewise, through unvirtuous speech such as lying, we will experience unhappiness and sorrow.
With an unvirtuous state of mind, we will also experience unhappiness as was demonstrated by the example of having an aggressive attitude.
All of this is related to the understanding that any unvirtuous activity produces unhappiness and pain. The second aspect of karma relates to conditioning. By acting unvirtuously with our body, speech, or mind, we habituate ourselves to a certain style of behavior. Unvirtuous physical or verbal behaviors create the habit of this type of behavior. For example, each time one kills, one is conditioned to kill again. If one lies, that increases the habit of lying. An aggressive mind conditions one's mind so one becomes more aggressive.
In our later lives, that conditioning will continue on so that we will be reborn with a great tendency to kill, to lie, to engage in sexual misconduct, and so on. These are the two aspects to karma.
One is the direct consequence of an act and the other is the conditioning that creates a tendency to engage in behavior of that kind. Through these two aspects karma produces all happiness and suffering in life. Even though we may recognize that unvirtuous karma gives rise to suffering and virtuous karma gives rise to happiness, it is hard for us to give up unvirtuous actions and practice virtuous actions because the disturbing emotions exercise a powerful influence on us.
We realize that suffering is caused by unvirtuous karma, but we can't give up the karma itself. We need to give up the disturbing emotions because they are the root of unvirtuous actions. To give up the disturbing emotions means to give up unvirtuous actions of body such as killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct , the unvirtuous actions of speech such as lying, slander and harmful and useless speech , and the unvirtuous aspects of mind such as aggression, attachment, or ignorance.
Just wanting to give up the disturbing emotions does not remove them. However, the Buddha in his great kindness and wisdom has given us a very skillful way to eliminate the very root of all the disturbing emotions through the examination of the belief in the existence of an ego or a self.
The False Belief in a Self We cannot easily understand this belief in a self because it is very deep-rooted. But if we search for this self that we believe in, we will discover that the self does not actually exist. Then with careful examination we will be able to see through this false belief in a self. When this is done, the disturbing emotions are diminished and with the elimination of a belief in self, negative karma is also eliminated.
This belief in a self is a mistaken perception. It's an illusion. For example, if one has a flower and were to interrogate one hundred people about it, they would all come to the same conclusion that it is indeed a flower. So one could be pretty sure that it is a flower. But, if one asked a person 'Is this me'' he would say, 'No, it's you.
We tend to think of 'me' as one thing, as a unity. When we examine what we think of as ourselves, we find it is made up of many different components: the various parts of the body, the different organs, and the different elements. There are so many of them, yet we have this feeling of a single thing, which is 'me. By contemplating this and working through it very thoroughly, we begin to see how this 'I' is really a composite. Once we have eliminated this incorrect way of thinking, the idea of an 'I' becomes easy to get rid of.
So, all of the desire rooted in thinking, 'I must be made happy' can be eliminated as well as all the aversion rooted in the idea of 'this difficulty must be eliminated. Once the negative karma ceases, suffering will no longer take place. This is why Buddha said that the root of suffering needs to be abandoned.
The first two noble truths may be summed up with two statements: One should be aware of and know what suffering is. One should give up the origin of suffering. To summarize, once we recognize what suffering really is, then we begin by removing its causes. We do this by stopping doing unvirtuous actions which create suffering. To stop these unvirtuous activities, we eliminate them at their root which is the disturbing emotions and various unhealthy attitudes.
To eradicate the disturbing emotions we need to remove their heart, which is the belief in a self. If we do that, then we will eventually come to realize the wisdom of non-self.
By understanding the absence of a self, we no longer create the disturbing emotions and bad actions and brings an end to that whole process. Meditation leads Buddhists to gain wisdom, as by acting in a morally and ethical way, Buddhists can grow their wisdom. Ethics 1. Right action behaving in a skilful way and not harming others 2.
Right speech speaking truthfully 3. Meditation 4. Right mindfulness being aware of yourself and the emotions of others 5. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end.
The notion of suffering is not intended to convey a negative world view, but rather, a pragmatic perspective that deals with the world as it is, and attempts to rectify it. The concept of pleasure is not denied, but acknowledged as fleeting. Pursuit of pleasure can only continue what is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic belies an understanding of happiness.
In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable. The Four Noble Truths are a contingency plan for dealing with the suffering humanity faces -- suffering of a physical kind, or of a mental nature. The First Truth identifies the presence of suffering. The Second Truth, on the other hand, seeks to determine the cause of suffering.
In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering.
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