The Noble Path of the Noble Ones

The moral, ethical, psychological, philosophical, practical, and intellectual systems expounded by the Buddha are called the Dhamma. It is more popularly know as Buddhism. Strictly speaking, Buddhism is not a religion, nor a system of faith or worship. Buddhism is rather a course or way that guides a disciple through pure living and pure thinking to achieve supreme wisdom and final liberation from all evil and defilement.

The foundation of Buddhism is the Middle Way, or Noble Path. This path avoids two extremes: one is the search for happiness through pleasure of senses; the other is the search for peace through self-mortification. The Middle Path gives clear vision, the eye of wisdom, and it leads to calmness, peace, happiness, purification of mind, liberation from defilement, and enlightenment.

The Eight-fold Path

The Noble Path, or the Middle Way, is composed of eight factors:

         1. right understanding

         2. right thinking (intention)

         3. right speaking

         4. right action

         5. right livelihood

         6. right effort

         7. right mindfulness

         8. right concentration

Right Understanding

Right understanding is the keynote of Buddhism. Right understanding is defined as the understanding of realities and truths-- in other words, it is the understanding of oneself as one really is, because these realities and truths are concerned with every fathomable portion of our body. To understand rightly things as they really are, we should penetrate into the deepest level of our body. Deep understanding is called penetration, seeing a thing is its true nature without name or label. Thinking about truths is not enough. We must realize these truths by ourselves. We must penetrate deep into ourselves in order to experience ultimate reality and to eliminate defilement and suffering. It is right understanding that is true wisdom.

Right understanding involves a profound and subtle knowledge of our true nature. In the course of mediation practice it becomes increasingly clear that everything is impermanent. All the elements of the mental and physical body exist in a moment and pass away. These are arising and vanishing continuously. All phenomena are in constant flux. There is no lasting security in a flow of impermanence. Deep insight into the selfless characteristic of all things begins to offer us a radically different perspective on our lives and the world. When we experience the process of mind and body without the burden of self, and the microscopic transience of all things is realized, then our mind will stop grasping and clinging. This is the right understanding that is developed in meditation through careful and penetrating observation.

Right Thinking (Intention)

Clear vision leads to clear thinking. Right thinking serves a double purpose: it eliminates evil thought, and develops pure thoughts. Right thinking is free of any sense of desire, ill will, or cruelty. It is characterized by selfless renunciation, lovingkindness, and non-violence. These are extended to all beings. The endless cycle of desire for sense pleasures keeps the mind in turbulence and confusion. Right thinking means being aware of sense desires, and the letting go or them. Then the mind becomes lighter-- there is no disturbance or tension, and we begin to free ourselves from selfishness and possessiveness. Freedom from ill will means freedom from anger. Anger is a burning fire in the mind that causes great suffering to others as well. One should be able to recognize anger and let go of it. Then the mind becomes lighter and easier, expressing its good will and lovingkindness. Thinking that is free of cruelty, free of harmfulness, free of violence, is thinking steeped in compassion, sympathetic to the suffering of others and wanting to alleviate this anger.  The thoughts of selfless renunciation, non-hatred, and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom. All thoughts of selfish desire, ill will, hatred, and violence are the results of a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life.

Right Speaking

Right thinking leads to right speech. How we relate to the world, to our environment, and to others depends upon our speech. The Buddha's teaching is a prescription for putting us into harmony with our surroundings, and for establishing a proper ecology of mind so that we are in accord with others and with nature around us. The first aspect of relation to the world is the way of right speech. Right speaking means not saying what is not true, not lying, not backbiting, and not speaking slanderous, abusive or harsh language. We should abstain from false, harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, idle, and useless speech, foolish babble, and gossip. We should not speak in any way that might bring about enmity, disunity, or disharmony among people.

When we abstain from these forms of wrong or harmful speech, we naturally will have to speak truthful, friendly, benevolent, pleasant, gently, meaningful, and useful speech. Our speech must be honest and helpful, creating a resonance of peace and harmony. We should not speak carelessly. Our speech must be steadfast in its truthfulness, dependable, and straightforward with others. We should try to reconcile those quarrelling. We should encourage those united. We should delight in harmony, seek after peace, and rejoice in unity, creating this harmony and peace by our speech. Our speech must be sweet and pleasing to the other's ear. Our speech must be kind, heart-warming, courteous, agreeable, and enjoyable to others. It must be trustworthy and treasured. We must not be a deceiver of the world with our wrong speech. Our speech must be reasonable, well defined, connected with the goal, worth remembering, well chosen, well constructed, and timely. Our speech must be at the right time and in the right place. If we cannot say something useful, helpful, and peaceful, it is better to keep "noble silence".

Right Action

We reap what we sow. Evil results in suffering and good results in happiness. Our suffering and happiness are the direct results of our own good and evil deeds. When a person with right understanding realizes this just law of action and reaction, he refrains from evil actions: killing living beings; taking things not given by their owner, and dishonest dealings; committing sexual misconduct; intoxication whereby one loses one's sense of what is good or bad, right or wrong. Right action aims at promoting moral, honourable, and peaceful conduct.

Our action also must be pure. Avoiding these four evil actions, we can establish pure and wholesome action. Although we are not always able to see the far-reaching consequences of each of our actions, we should take care not to create disturbances in our environment, but to emanate love and compassion, peace and harmony, gentleness and happiness.

§  If we understand rightly that life is precious to all, we should not destroy the life of other beings. We should extend love and compassion towards all living beings.

§  If we understand rightly that honesty, trustworthiness, and uprightness are high values, we should not do any stealing or dishonest dealing.

§  If we understand rightly that illegitimate sexual intercourse debases the exalted life of man, we should abstain from such misconduct.

§  If we understand rightly that intoxication causes one to lose one's knowledge of right and wrong, we should abstain from it to cultivate heedfulness and clarity of vision.

§  If it is so, then our actions will become right and pure.

Right Livelihood

Purifying thought, words, and deeds at the outset, our sublime mental activities try to purify our livelihood by refraining from five kinds of trade forbidden to a lay disciple. These are: trading in arms; trading in human beings; breeding animals for slaughter; trading or producing intoxicating drinks or drugs; and trading in poisons. Everybody must have a proper way of making a living. One's livelihood should not require one to break any of the five precepts in order to earn a living. If one breaks one of the five precepts, one clearly causes harm to another. Neither directly nor indirectly should our means of livelihood involving injuring other beings. Any livelihood that requires killing any living being, whether human or animal, is clearly not right livelihood. Selling intoxicating drinks and drugs, selling poisons, weapons, arms, bullets, or bombs brings harm to others, and injures the peace and harmony of multitudes. All of these are not right livelihood. (We clearly see from this position that the trade in arms and lethal weapons is evil and unjust means of livelihood that Buddhism is strongly opposed to war of any kind.) Operating a gambling casino also may be a cause of harm to those who come to play there. If one exploits others by deception, performing feats of magic, or falsely claiming spiritual attainments, then one is not practicing right livelihood. One should live be a profession which is honourable, blameless, pure, and innocent to others. Right livelihood is an important part of integration to show the beauty of life.

Right Effort

Right effort is the first step in the practice of meditation. It is the energetic will of man. Our mind is easily overwhelmed by ignorance, badly waved by craving, passionately enraged by anger. We must therefore strengthen our mind so that the mind becomes firm and stable. Thus it becomes more energetic and powerful for supporting the other mental states and for preventing disturbances.

In the course of meditation practice, as meditators, we find how difficult it is to control our mind. As soon as we try to focus the mind on the object of meditation, thousands of thoughts jump into our minds. After some time, we have forgotten completely about meditation. We begin again with renewed determination, and again after a short time, we realize that the mind has slipped away without our noticing. Our mind is always fluctuating-- it is fickle, swift, and flits wherever it likes. It is hard to check; it is difficult to control. Our mind flutters like a fish that is drawn from its watery abode and thrown upon land. This is the deep-rooted habit of our mind, but we must start to investigate our true nature. We must try to stop such a running mind. We must try to control such a fickle mind. The Buddha stated that the wise person straightens such a mind as a Fletcher straightens an arrow.

Right effort is closely associated with right mindfulness. Right effort plays a very important part in this Noble Path. We can find a rubbish heap of evil, and a storehouse of virtue. By this energetic effort we must remove the rubbish heap and cultivate the seeds of virtue. We must maintain and develop the storehouse of virtue.

The Buddha described four types of right effort:

§  To prevent evil and unwholesome states from arising;

§  To abandon those evil states that have already arisen within;

§  To produce and cultivate good and wholesome states not yet arisen;

§  To develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present within.

We must practice all four of these right efforts.

§  We must prevent ourselves from falling into evil.

§  We must eliminate evil from within ourselves.

§  We must cultivate good within ourselves.

§  We must develop good within ourselves for our own purification and liberation.

This is right effort which leads to right mindfulness. Effort if the root of all achievements.

Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness means being aware of what is happening in the present moment. Our mind spends most of its time lost in fantasies and illusions, pleasant and unpleasant experiences, and anticipating the future with eagerness and fear. While we are sinking in such craving and aversions, we are unaware of what is happening in the present moment, and what we are doing right now. But, surely, it is this moment that is the most important for us. We cannot live in the past—it is gone. We cannot live in the future—it is note yet come. We can only live in the present. If we can pay attention to every one of our present actions, we would not be blamed for repeating the mistakes of our past, and we would not more dream of the future. If we can cultivate and develop the ability to be aware of the present moment, we can use it as a guide for planning our actions in the future so as to never fail to attain our destination. Therefore we must develop our ability to be aware of the present moment. To establish this right mindfulness, we have to give our attention diligently to:

§  The activities of the body

§  Sensations of feelings

§  The activities of the mind

§  Ideas, thought, conceptions, or the phenomena of mind objects

We must be aware and mindfully attentive constantly with regard to these four foundations.

Sati (mindfulness) is very powerful. If we could be constantly aware of every action of our mental and physical body, then our mind would be fixed firmly on a single object, and would discover the nature or characteristics of reality, giving us a good guardian over our mind. Thus the establishment of concentration and the penetration of wisdom would be well completed. Therefore, right mindfulness on these four objects tends to eradicate the misconceptions with regard to desirability, so-called happiness, permanence, and an immortal soul. Mindfulness attends to the flow of things as they are. Observing the process of realities, right mindfulness brings the qualities of poise, equilibrium, mental balance, purification of mind, and advancement toward liberation.

Right Concentration

Right effort and right mindfulness lead to right concentration. Samadhi is one-pointedness of mind. It is the concentration of the mind on one object to the entire exclusion of all else. Concentration is the ability of mind to stay with one object, to be stuck to one object as it is. The characteristic of concentration is non-distraction of the mind. The function of concentration is to integrate the mental states, to keep them together. The manifestations of concentration are peacefulness, calmness, and steadiness of mind. Happiness or comfort of mind is the proximate cause of concentration. When meditators experience happiness of comfort, concentration will follow. A concentrated mind acts as a powerful aid to seeing things as they truly are by means of penetrative insight. Right concentration resembles a polished mirror where everything is clearly reflected with no distortion or distraction.

According to the Theravada scriptures, there are forty subjects of meditation which differ according to the temperaments of individuals. Among those forty meditation subjects, meditation on the mindfulness of breathing is a very popular one and a practical example for establishing concentration in the meditators’ world.

Another aid for deepening meditation is silence. Much of the energy that is conserved by not talking can be used for the development of mindfulness. As with the meditation practice itself, silence, too, should be easy and relaxed. By keeping silence, the whole range of mental and physical activity will become extremely clear. Verbal silence makes possible a deeper silence of mind. Try to cultivate a sense of solitude. To do this it is helpful to suspend preconceptions about yourself, about relationships, about other people. During meditation take time to experience yourself deeply. When we understand ourselves, then relationship become easy and meaningful. Concentrated effort during meditation leads to the development of moment-to-moment mindfulness that can remain focused on a single object. Through this cultivated skill the mind will become powerful and penetrating. During the meditation you will become very mindful and notice carefully all of your moments, returning each time to your main object of meditation, which is the inflow and outflow of the breath. You will find that meditation deepens through the continuous application of this kind of awareness.

Now we will begin our sitting practice with this very simple object of awareness, the mindfulness on breathing, which is the most basic and easiest of all practices. It is capable of producing extremely deep states of meditation calm called the four-fold absorptions (jhana). The jhanas temporarily dispel the hindrances (nivarana) that normally contaminate the mind and produce joy, calm, peace, happiness, purification, equilibrium and keenness of mind. Having perfected the jhanas it is then possible to cultivate various supernormal powers (abhinna).

By practicing meditation on breathing in and out, your mind becomes tranquil, purified, cleansed, flawless, perfect, free from defilements, subtle, ready to act, firm, and imperturbable. With a mind so developed you can acquire such types of abhinna.

Five different methods of "Insight Meditation"

1)    Counting

2)    Connection

3)    Touching

4)    Fixing

5)    Observing

Venerable Sitagu Ashin Nyanissara

Sitagu Vihara, Sagaing, Myanmar