Noble Eightfold Path: Right Concentration

Uposatha Day Teaching

The Eighth and final Fold of the Eightfold Path is Right Concentration. Concentration in Pali or Sanskrit is samadhi, a familiar word in Buddhist vocabulary. A potter or other skilled craftsman also requires a degree of concentration and does his or her best work with concentration, in which the mind of the potter is collected in one place, concerned with one task, still, focused. Concentration contrasts with the more typical scattered state of the human mind. However the average human mind seems to be naturally concentrated when there is danger, when the cost of making a mistake is high, or when something is just darn interesting. Concentration when present typically brings euphoria, a blissful feeling, which might be why some people engage in dangerous activities like bungee jumping or driving fast for recreation. Buddhism provides the training that makes very deep levels of concentration available on demand.

The functions of the concentrated mind in Buddhist practice are in support of the other folds of the Noble Eightfold Path. In the mind’s typical state thoughts come at us like a rushing river, like a fire hose or like a sand storm. Alternatively we can say that the mind jumps around from place to place like a monkey, like a basket ball or buzzes around like a swarm of gnats. Under such conditions we have little opportunity either to observe our thoughts to get to know them, and almost all opportunity to observe and get to know what is happening in the world around us gets lost in the deluge of thought. Likewise under such conditions we have little opportunity to respond appropriately to thoughts as required by many of the steps in the Path.

Thoughts are also like choppy water, stirred up by paddlers and power boats, that obscures both external phenomena and the mind itself.. On the other hand, the concentrated mind is serene and sharp like a still forest pool, without a ripple, such that you can see every detail of the bottom of the pond. The serenity of concentration gives Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort and Right Mindfulness each a boost. Each of these involves making decisions with consideration of intentions and other mental factors. Serenity is like seeing these mental factors with a magnifying glass. For instance, part of Right Speech is not to speak in anger. For many people this is nearly impossible because the gap between anger and speech is slight. With a serene mind this gap is large. In fact one is likely to catch the series of thoughts leading to anger at an early stage with a softening effect. The sharpness or clarity of concentration gives a great boost to Right View, Right Resolve and Right Livelihood because it supports penetrating insight into the way things really are. For instance, one cannot avoid a continuous awareness of the flux and contingency of all things, and the tendency of the mind toward fabrication.

So concentration or samadhi is a very useful tool, for the potter as well as for the Buddhist on the Path. How do we get there? The short answer is, Through all of the other folds of the Noble Eightfold Path. If your life is less dispersed, if you do not spend your time struggling, your mind will be more concentrated. All the folds from Right Resolve through the three factors of Ethical Conduct and up to Right Effort establish a non-self-seeking relationship to the world, reducing our stress and anxiety. We will see next week how Right View brings this to an even deeper level. All this reduces the scattering of our mental resources, brings the mind to the here and now. Cultivating physical serenity in our lives is an additional aid to concentration: walks in the woods, avoiding idle chatter and mindless entertainment, reducing clutter in your surroundings, living an orderly, which often means highly conventional, life.

But the most direct instruments for establishing concentration are Right Effort and Right Mindfulness. Bhikkhu Bodhi in his treatise on the Noble Eightfold Path describes a metaphor used in an ancient commentary for the relationship of Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration: Three boys see flowers blooming high in a tree, but even the tallest of them, boy C, cannot reach them. Therefore another boy, A, leans over to let the tallest boy climb up on his back. This gives the needed height but boy C has trouble keeping his balance and is afraid to stand as high as he can. So the remaining boy, B, takes hold to steady C. Boy A is Effort, boy B is Mindfulness and boy C is Concentration. Through Effort, which works with the earlier folds, we gain a degree of purity and stability of mind. Concentration takes this to an even higher level, but cannot do this without Mindfulness.

Right Concentration is most effectively practiced in seated meditation, but tends to carry over from there into everyday life in a less rarefied form. The most common form of seated meditation involves selecting an object of concentration, such as the physical sensation of breath felt in the rising and falling of the abdomen, or simply a candle. Your task is to keep your mind focused on the object. Mindfulness reminds you of this task as distractions arise. It is the guard that protects concentration from all of the fascinating things the mind would like to do instead. Right Effort is primary in working with the unskillful mental factors that are likely to otherwise be distractions. These factors working together often feel like a struggle as the mind is repeatedly distracted from its object of concentration, sometimes for minutes at a time. But with practice, and especially as one sits for long periods, the mind settles and the concentration narrows increasingly in on the object. The struggle stills, or even disappears, leaving serenity and clarity.

Most meditation traditions take as their primary aim to develop intense levels of concentration. Concentration can be very intense indeed. The aim of meditation in Buddhism is somewhat different. Recall that in the years immediately preceding his enlightenment the future Buddha engaged in developing extraordinary state of concentration but in the end recognized the inadequacy of concentration. Intense states of concentration develop serenity with the advantages described above, but past a certain point this is at the expense of the clarity or sharpness necessary for insight into the nature of reality. The extreme one-pointedness of mind eventually shuts down investigation. In fact many adepts are said to have reached enlightenment with limited concentration. Also deep levels of concentration carries a couple of dangers. First, one can become attached to the pleasure of concentration, which then becomes a self-serving impediment to progress on the Path. Second, the intense serenity of concentration can mislead you into thinking you have reached some great attainment on the path, possibly even awakening. With these caveats, concentration is nevertheless and important tool which the sincere practitioner should give a lot of attention to developing.

On this day of the Last Quarter Moon spend some time in seated meditation, enjoy the serenity of clarity that comes with concentration and resolve to make seated meditation a part of your daily routine if it is not already, even if it is for ten or fifteen minutes each day.

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Science and Vinaya

Noble Eightfold Path: Right Mindfulness

Uposatha Day Teaching for the Full Moon

Right Mindfulness is perhaps the best known of the Eight Folds of the Noble Path. But few understand exactly what mindfulness is.

Let’s look in on our master potter once again. There he is spinning a pot on the potters wheel, with his eyes fixed on his fingers, and his fingers carefully and slowly shaping the clay. We notice that he is not listening to music in his studio. His cell phone rings and he ignores it, in his mind just notes that it rang and lets it go. Suddenly there is a loud pop, the door of his kiln flies open and flames shoot out. He carefully removes his fingers from the clay without disturbing what he has acheived so far, carefully detaches the fire extinguisher from the wall and advances to the site of the new mishap.

Mindfulness is simply to remember what it is you are doing, it is staying on task or taking up a new task at the proper time. It is an extremely important skill , in fact it underlies almost any other skill. In Buddhist training we cultivate mindfulness as the basis of all of the other factors of the path. The opposite of mindfulness is distraction, so we can think of mindfulness as a kind of guard for the senses and for what arises in the mind. It is the nose in the little slot on the door of a speakeasy that demands a password. Many people think of mindfulness as awareness, but actually it is more a matter of choosing what to be aware of.

How do we train ourselves to be mindful? Seated meditation is the simplest way. In meditation you are given a task, most generally to focus the attention on some object. For instance, your task might be to focus on the breath. We quickly discover that this is difficult, because the mind wants to wander off to more interesting or pressing things. We forget, sometimes for minutes at a time, but when we remember we bring the mind back to the breath. We are practicing mindfulness, or failing to practice it as the case may be. The breath is the only thing that should know the password, but we get distracted. With practice we actually get very good at it; we still get distracted but only for seconds rather than minutes at a time, and less and less frequently.

The beginning meditator is surprised and delighted to discover that the ability to stay mindful carries over to other tasks off of the cushion, generally to simple clearly defined physical tasks which do not require much thought. In fact, a lot of the things a potter does. For instance, if you are cutting potatoes that can be a mindfulness opportunity. Keep you mind on the cutting and nothing else for the few minutes you are engaged in this task. In fact, make the task a little more challenging: try to cut the potatoes into pieces of equal size; if you drop your mindfulness the sizes will drop their uniformity.

Mindfulness becomes difficult when there is too much going on at once: when the kids are barking at you, the dog needs a ride to his piano lesson, the TV is trying to sell you something that is whiter than white, your cell phone is ringing and you don’t know how you are going to pay the mortgage. So, we cultivate simplicity wherever we can. This tends to reduce potential distractions. One way we can do this is by actually simplifying our lives: don’t make too many commitments, don’t live beyond our means (don’t have debt), don’t own a lot of things that just clutter up our living spaces, and require cleaning and maintenance. Another way is to make a habit of doing one thing at a time; yes you can give up your addiction to multitasking. If you are working in the kitchen, DON’T listen to the radio. DON’T leave the TV on all the time. DON’T talk on the phone while driving. The basis of Soto Zen meditation is shikan, “just.” Shikantaza, for instance is meditation, just sitting, and in fact in this technique we simply let go of everything that arises that is not sitting, even the breath. For many a daily task X we can practice shikan-X: just walking, just chopping potatoes, just brushing teeth, even just driving when you get good at mindfulness. This is great mindfulness practice.

Another way to create opportunities for mindfulness is to have something to be mindful of. Mindfulness is remembering what we are doing, so it is important to be able to define exactly what it is we are doing. We actually spend a lot of time not knowing what we are doing and hoping something important will come to snatch us away from it. Instead, ritualize your activities. Religious rituals are very good for mindfulness practice, that is probably their main function: in a religious ritual there is no doubt about what you should be doing when (unless you have not learned the ritual functions, in which case you are on the spot because you know others have no doubt about what you should be doing when). However everyday activities can be ritualized: Get up at the same time, do the morning things in exactly the same order every morning, etc. A blanket rule is often taught in Japanese Zen: Leave No Trace. This means, if you cook, then you have to clean up. If you sit down to write letters then you have to put your things away before you move on to the next things. This creates automatic clarity about what your task is, and how thoroughly you should perform that task: NO trace. Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, as many Christians are aware. Why? Because it gives a great opportunity to cultivate mindfulness. If you finish sleeping, it is time to make the bed. At the completion of every task, check to make sure it is really complete. This means that if you open a door, walk through it and close the door, you should make sure the door is really securely closed. You can use your own imagination to find ways to ritualize your day.

We live in a culture that actually discourages mindfulness. We love to multitask and think that life is boring if a lot of things are not going on at once. We get addicted to the dispersed mind. This is not a Buddhist way of being, which is to relish simplicity. We love to drink alcohol, which disperses the mind so much we forget our cares, often while fostering new ones. Most of what we call modern conveniences are actually just ways to avoid being mindful. For instance, we have different buzzers that go off to remind us of something we would otherwise have had to be mindful about, such as fastening a seat belt. We think ritual is boring in our culture. When we walk through a door our minds are already on the other side before we even touch the door. Where did our task go?

One of the most important of the Buddha’s teachings is the Foundations of Mindfulness Sutta, which is the basis of Insight Meditation or Vipassana. In this the Buddha recommends the cultivation of mindfulness in attending to specific objects of meditation that foster penetrating insight into the nature of reality, that is a direct experience of Right View. These include mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of elements, of skandhas, of states of consciousness, of phenomena and so on, particuarly with regard to arising and falling.

Noble Eightfold Path: Right Effort

An Uposatha Day teaching for the First Quarter Moon.

We don’t like to think Buddhist practice takes effort. Buddhism abounds with metaphors that might suggest it doesn’t, some traditional images and some new marketing slogans such as being already enlightened, realizing your own nature. It is true that our characters are bursting with possibilities many of which come forth when left alone. Our task is like that of a gardener, one pulls out the unskillful weeds and waters the skillful flowers, shrubs, vegetables and herbs and thereby give the desired shape to the garden. Right Resolve and Right Effort are the bookends to the Ethical Conduct Group. Right Resolve is the outline of how we conduct ourselves in the world, selflessly, with kindness and with compassion. Right Speech, Action and Livelihood are our proper verbal and physical activities. Right Effort drops down to the level of intention, the mental qualities we bring into our activities. These mental factors, like the actions they may give rise to, are sorted in terms of skillful and unskillful.

We have seen that actions of body and Speech fall under the term Karma. We need to learn a bit more about karma, in particular that there are purely mental actions as well. Karma comes in three flavors, those of Body, Speech and Mind. Actions of mind do not directly work on the world, but always work on shaping character. For instance, you might be angry at someone, so you daydream of all the ways you can gain revenge, through malicious gossip, by stealing their cell phone, and so on. Even if you do not put these things into verbal or bodily action, these thoughts are Karma and have karmic consequences for the shaping of your character. You can turn yourself into a vengeful person simply by entertaining such thoughts if you do so habitually enough. Right Effort is itself manifested in Karma, in weeding and cultivating the mind, mental actions which have intentions behind them.

What are the skillful and unskillful mental factors? How do we recognize the weeds? The answer is in the roots: The unskillful mental factors are those rooted in Greed, Hatred or Delusion, the infamous Three Poisons in Buddhist doctrine. However, you don’t need to take the Buddha’s word for this, in fact you shouldn’t. It is important to study the various mental factors that arise in the mind until you understand why the Buddha classified them in this way. The fact is, in many cases you will almost certainly disagree at first, and maybe never fully agree. For instance, Anger falls under the category of Hatred. Most people think of Anger as necessary as a motivator to fix what needs fixing (Where’s the Outrage? Alright, no more Mr. Nice Guy.). Consider this, because it is not the view of the Buddha or of untold generations of Buddhist practitioners throughout the centuries. Or lust, including for instance sexual or culinary delight, falls under Greed. Most people think of lust as the spice of life, as necessary to keep life from being dull. The Buddha himself reported that it was particularly difficult for him to see the downside of sensual pleasures, yet he finally came to regard these too as unskillful. Basically, when you look at these things, and this is a matter of developing Right View, consider two things. First, when the mental factor arises, is there suffering around it, that is, does stress or anxiety arise inseparably with the mental factor. You will be surprised how ubiquitous suffering is when you start looking, even when you think you are having fun. Second, when you allow that mental factor to give rise to an action of body or mind, are the consequences of that action desirable? How does the action play out in the world, is anyone hurt? How does it feel to yourself? Do you regret the action, does it feel right? Become an ardent student of these issues! Italian opera is a particularly useful resource in examining the unskillful qualities of lust. Unless you are a monk or nun you will probably set your own parameters around the range of Right Effort then focus on those unskillful mental factors that are particularly vexing in your life and on those skillful mental factors that you value when you see them in others.

Right Effort provides the energy of practice. Every time there is resistance to Right Anything, then Right Effort is called for. If it is time to meditate and you are just to lazy, laziness is to be weeded out and ardency needs to be watered. If you really want to eat Ted’s cookie and are about to snatch it when he is not looking, greed is to be weeded, contentment watered. Often the effort required is enormous; you may be dealing with ingrained habits or natural instinctive behaviors. There are some standard mental techniques involved in Right Effort, but you will probably discover some of your own, from substituting another thought for the one you are entertaining, to deconstructing your present thought, from changing your perspective or conceptualization of the situation, to bringing the thought into the focus of attention until it dissipates of itself. By the way, Guilt is always considered unskillful in Buddhism; Shame is OK, but Guilt is a form of Hatred. Don’t be guilty about what arises in your mind, but do recognize if for what it is and try to move it in a more skillful direction.

Right Effort is the first member of the Mental Cultivation Group of the Noble Eightfold Path. The other members of this group are Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Each of these folds is best practiced in seated meditation, walking meditation or one of the recognized postures of meditation. You can think of each of these postures as a laboratory for working with mental factors in a pure state, free from most worldly concerns and from the demands of verbal and bodily actions. In fact if you can embed this little laboratory in a remote and quite setting where you can dwell for days, weeks or months, perhaps with other meditators, that is ideal. However, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration are also practices you can engage in throughout your day. This is particularly important for Right Effort, since the everyday activities and interactions present abundant situations in which factors such as anger, lust, deluded views, fear, stress, envy, jealousy, spite, restlessness, anxiety, arrogance, pride, and on and on, will arise. At the same time, Right Effort is the basis of the Mental Cultivation Group and of seated meditation. Meditation is often hindered by out thoughts of lust and anger, by sloth and torpor, by restlessness and be moments of doubt in the efficacy of practice. All of these are unskillful factors that call for some light weeding as one settles into meditation.

On this First Quarter Moon day, take a few minutes, sit down in a quiet spot and close your eyes. What thoughts come up? Is there anger, anxiety, restlessness? Is there an unsatisfied longing? Is there joy, appreciation, kindness? See if you can catch one of these thoughts and hold it for a moment. Does it feel painful or unsatisfying? Is this thought asking anything of you? Then try to catch another and another, answer the same questions.

Uposatha Day Teaching

Noble Eightfold Path: Right Livelihood

We are now at the fifth fold of the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha’s master checklist for mastering the skill of life. The Ethical Conduct Group of the Noble Eightfold Path consists of Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood. We will finish the Ethical Conduct group with this post and its comments.

We have seen that Right Speech and Right Action are karmic, that is, they are intentional, something done by choice. We might think of our lives as a long series of densely packed choice points, in each of which we try freely to pick the most skillful alternative: “Speak falsely or tell the truth, I think I’ll, um, … tell the truth… Take what is not given or be satisfied with what I have, I think I’ll grab what I want while no one is looking, …” However, for most of us it does not generally feel like we live life so deliberately. If we pay attention we recognize that there are choice points, but we seem to skip right through the on automatic pilot almost every time: “Mmmm, chips, grab, gobble. Yikes, there’s that jerk, must avoid. Beautiful woman, hubba hubba, straighten tie and smile, …” The reason lies in our habit patterns. These are like the ruts worn in a path over which ox carts have passed for many years. At any point we could veer to the right or to the left, but we don’t. And when we don’t, the currently operative habit pattern becomes even deeper. These habit patters are the stuff of our character. Those grounded in seeking personal advantage tend to be our natural overriding concern. Ethical Conduct is the practice of changing our habit patterns with respect to actions of body and speech to those that are more skillful. Ethical precepts, such as “Do not take that which is not offered,” define points at which we become more deliberate in our choices,; they are clearly defined opportunities to get out of the rut. Developing the resolve toward loving-kindness apply a more general pressure toward deliberation.

There are other concerns besides existing habit patters and our practice vows that may form future habit patterns and ultimately character. Each of us is embedded in a network of relations, and prominent among these are societal relations, which entail obligations to do certain things or behave in certain ways. These can take the ox cart out of old ruts, and lead to the creation of new ruts. Prominent among these is our livelihood. Now, once we choose our livelihood we might not have much choice left about the actions we preform while engaged in that livelihood. Nevertheless the karmic effects of those actions will be as before: Performing those actions will have harm or benefit as before and will shape one’s character as before. Therefore, it is important that one choose one’s livelihood with care. For the aspiring master potter Right Livelihood would be to actually make a living as a potter, especially with a customer base with a great appreciation of fine workmanship. This would afford the greatest opprortunity to develop skillful habit patterns indeed. It is so with the skills of life: Right Livelihood would be that which allows full expression of selflessness, goodwill and compassion without compromise.

So, when is a particular livelihood Right? Just look at the job description. Is each task mentioned consistent with Right Speech and Right Action? Does it involve deceit? Does it involve killing or otherwise harming living beings? Does it entail taking what is not given freely? Does it involve or encourage misuse of sexuality? The Buddha specifically points out the following red flags in assessing livelihood: deceit, treachery, soothsaying, trickery, and usury. It is a challenge to find Right Livelihood in sales or marketing, or in banking or investing that fall under Right Livelihood. The Buddha also specifically recommends against jobs that deal in weapons, in living beings (such as raising animals for meat production or facilitating prostitution), in meat production, in poisons, and in intoxicants. So you should not be a soldier or arms dealer, a butcher or corporate farmer, a pesticide producer (or presumably a farmer if this means using pesticides), or a liquor store proprietor (or even a Benedictine monk if this involves brewing beer). In modern times is that it is probably particularly difficult to find a job that is Right Livelihood. Before I was a monk I used to work in software R&D, artificial intelligence, for companies that had contracts with defense contractors, which I decided was clearly Wrong Livelihood. But how about working as a cashier for a retail store that happens to sell liquor? We often have little choice of livelihood simply because the economy offers few choices.

What is considered a respectable livelihood in our society may be quite a bit different from what is Right Livelihood in the Buddhist sense. Being a soldier, or a banker, investing in real estate, exterminating insects and pests or stretching the truth a little to make a sale might all be completely acceptable a particular culture or subculture. However, the mechanisms of Karma will shape the character in pretty much the same way regardless of the approbation of the society. In other words, Buddhist ethical thinking rests primarily on observable causes and effects rather than on social norms (though social norms do determine what constitutes harsh speech or otherwise might lead to disharmony). If a livelihood forces one to act habitually with greedy or cruel intentions, the character will develop to become more greedy or cruel. Consider that when you take on employment, your boss generally predetermines many of your choices from that point on. This means that your character will come more and more to resemble that of your boss.

We may further reduce our options by taking on various obligations. If we have debt or a family to feed, or own property or possessions that must be maintained and insured, we are forced into earning a certain level of income, possibly forcing us into a Wrong Livelihood. A monastic has the great benefit of what might be called the ideal livelihood. First, in order to be ordained into the Sangha one must be quite free of conventional societal obligations: no wealth, no debt, no family to speak of. Second, one has no livelihood at all in the conventional sense: One is entirely outside of the exchange economy, there is almost nothing one can do on one’s own behalf. As a monastic, one is subject to a large number of precepts, many of which are in fact societal obligations. However, each of these obligations is of benefit to others and consistent with the harmony of the community. In fact, monastics take on the greatest societal obligation of all: they are the designated caretakers of the Buddha’s teachings and responsible for its perpetuation.

Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood constitute the Conduct or Virtue or Morality Group of the Noble Eightfold Path. Broadly speaking Buddhist virtue is presented in different terms, in Precepts, that is, specific rules of conduct; in the principle of Karma, and in Right Resolve, the resolve to be selfless, kind and compassionate. In fact, every step in the Eightfold Path reinforces this thrust.

On this New Moon Day, consider your Livelihood or the Livelihood you aspire to have. And what of your other obligations? How are these of benefit, how of harm? How do you feel about what you do all day? This is not to encourage guilt—Right Livelihood I fear is the exception and we all have to eat—but to take stock and maybe to encourage some slow disentanglement from factors that you can control. If you are fortunate, your livelihood is blameless.

Uposatha Day Teaching

Noble Eightfold Path: Right Action

In the last episode we considered Right Speech, the first of the Ethical Conduct Group of the Noble Eightfold Path. Today we take up Right Action. The most common of the alternative formulations of Buddhist ethical conduct is the Five Precepts:

1. Not to kill living beings.
2. Not to take what is not given.
3. Not to involve oneself in sexual misconduct.
4. Not to speak falsely.
5. Not to intoxicate oneself.

Here (1) – (3) most directly relate to Right Action and (4) to Right Speech. (5) relates indirectly to Right Speech and Right Action, since in the intentional haze of intoxication Speech and Action occur that are typically later regretted., but more directly to Right Effort, which we have not discussed yet, basically purification of the mind. Notice that all of these are abstentions. These do have implicit positive counterparts, such as to promote or cultivate or care for life, to be generous, to keep others properly informed, and so on. In fact, Precepts are generally a bottom line, much like the oath “Do No Harm” in medicine; but in fact we can do so much of benefit above that bottom line. However the positive forms would be more difficult to formulate, since they are open-ended; We understand out obligation to not killing, for instance, but unclear is the extent or direction of our obligation to promote life. Still the positive forms of the Precepts are already implicit in Right Resolve, in Renunciation, Goodwill and Harmlessness or compassion.

Through Right Action and Right Speech we not only make the world, we also make ourselves. Virtue gives rise to virtue. Every action has two kinds of consequences, first, out there in the world, and second, in shaping our own character, or own future. Simply put, the more you steal the more you become a thief, the more you kill the more you become a killer, the more you gossip the more you become a gossip. Actions become habits and habits become character. So action is very important in the process of perfecting character. The potter’s skills grow in exactly the same way. The more fine pots the potter throws the finer potter he becomes. The more he throws pots with thin elegantly tapered sides, the more skillful the becomes at that. This is the heart of karma, and the way we learn a skill.

Let’s look a little more closely at how this works. The Sanskrit word for action is Karma. Properly the Buddha analyzed Karma into two components, Intention and Action, why you do something, and what it is you actually do. The intention is critical: If no intention is present, for instance in the case of killing a bug accidentally, there is no Right Action and no Wrong Action. It matters to the world, but not generally to the character. But if intention is present, then that particular intention is reinforced in the action. There is a great assortment of intentions, but we must give special attention to avoid the unskillful roots: Greed, Hatred and Delusion, because actions that have these as intentional components (1) are likely to hurt others, (2) tend to make us greedy, hateful and deluded and (3) bring us personal suffering. The relation between (2) and (3) might not seem obvious, until you consider the state of happiness or well-being of greedy, hateful and deluded people. It turns out the Virtue Is its Own Reward; this is the Law of Karma. The explanation for this has to do with the origin of suffering, in clinging.

Fortunately, we can take care in our actions with regard to our intentions. First, the intention precedes the physical action that it gives rise to. This provides an opportunity to abort an unskillful intention by not acting on it. For instance, when anger arises I do not yell, I do not throw things, I don’t do anything, until the anger subsides, which it will. Second, we improve the quality of the intentions that do arise by controlling their conditions. For instance, if I avoid stressful activities, anger is less likely to arise. If I avoid the company of people who are drinking alcohol, I am less likely to have the impulse to do so. Through the cultivation of mind, the topic of the last three folds of the Noble Eightfold Path, our capacity for caring for our intentions becomes quite refined. Through such care, skillful habit patterns develop, and the character is moved in a more skillful direction. This is a simple transparent theory of human skill acquisition, with karma, intentional action, as its basis.

Often the word karma is assumed to refer to something more interesting, something like fate. Let’s take a minute to look at how a sense like this has arisen, and also how it is a bit, but not really, accurate. Often the word karma is used by extension (metonymously) to refer to cumulative consequences of intentional action, much as the words “wear” or “worn” can refer to the result of wearing shoes, say, over and over. So it is used to refer to the character itself, or other factors that are often assumed to impinge on the life of the acting agent for good and bad, as cumulative results of karmic acts. This meaning takes on particular significance in the light of rebirth. Rebirth greatly extends the lifespan of cumulative karma. The science is still out on the issue of rebirth, but rebirth as even a working assumption puts the project of perfecting character in a useful context. Perfection is rarely achieved in one lifetime, rebirth makes sense of heading in that direction inexorably and without frustration. Looking the other way rebirth allows a karmic basis in the distant past for much of our current character. Still, the principle of karma as a basis for acquiring skill remains the same; we work with karma moment by moment only in the present, seeking what it skillful, and shaping our character into something ever more virtuous.

Karma is the key to the entire path and should be understood and practiced , as the Buddha says, “seeing danger in the slightest fault.” We might extend this to seeing benefit in the slightest virtue. Often the development of character through Right Action are clearer than the immediate affects of Right Action in the world. For instance, the First Precept above is one that we easily become fuzzy around; we are not really convinced that the Buddha meant cockroaches and scorpions, snakes and slugs, when he referred to “living beings.” Yet if we uphold the Precept rigorously (catch pests and place them carefully outside) we observe a remarkable change in ourselves: We become kinder, more tender in our feelings not only for all the little creatures but for people as well. Try it! Your Virtue will grow, and that in turn will improve the tendencies of our future actions in the world. You will also find yourself more and more joyful in disposition.

Throughout this Uposatha Day of the First Quarter Moon, think about your actions. Am I violating one of the Five Precepts? What are my intentions, is there a hint, or maybe a lot, of greed or hatred behind my actions?

Uposatha Day Teaching

Noble Eightfold Path: Right Speech

To bring the new reader up to date, the Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s master checklist on the path to the perfection of character. The eight folds fall into three groups or trainings, the Wisdom Group, the Ethical Conduct Group and the Cultivation of Mind Group. In the past two posts I have described the Wisdom Group, and today I will begin the Ethical Conduct Group.

On the Noble Eightfold Path we are acquiring skills, the skills to live a virtuous life. In analogy, a potter also needs certain skills. Among these are the actual actions to take in making a pot, for instance, shaping the pot on the potter’s wheel, adding an ornamental handle, firing, putting on the glaze, and there are skilled ways of doing these things and unskillful ways. These are like the Buddhist Ethical Conduct Group

In the last episode we discussed Right Resolve. Right Resolve is the factor of Wisdom that gives the character its basic shape. It is a character of Virtue, that is, of Renunciation, of Goodwill and of Harmlessness. This is one’s resolve. Ethical Conduct, also called the training in Virtue or Morality, is the steps one takes in actually fashioning the shape of one’s character, through Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood.

Under Right Speech one undertakes:

• not to lies,
• not to slander,
• not to speak harshly and
• not to chatter idly.

These are stated as abstentions. This is typical in teachings on Buddhist Ethical Conduct, but instead, out of kindness and compassion one tells the truth when someone needs to know it, one speaks well of others, one uses kind words, and one observes Noble Silence otherwise..

The Conduct Group presents in outline form a moral code. It should be understood that morality in Buddhism has a different foundation than morality in the Abrahamic religions, in which morality comes down from God, for instance, through the Ten Commandments given to Moses. In Buddhism morality is always a personal choice, it is a matter of vow. There is a recognition that one will continue to suffer and cause suffering for others to the extent that one’s character has yet to be perfected. But morality is not something imposed, but rather is a matter of personal commitment, and that is where the focus is, on one’s own actions, not on others’, which you cannot really control in any case. The world is not a battleground of Good and Evil, it is people doing what they can. Every person has the potential to be skillful or to be unskillful in conduct. If my resolve is to be a person of Renunciation, Goodwill and Harmlessness, then Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood are how I manifest this. In practice this is surprisingly effective in producing virtuous behavior even without God or Santa Claus watching one’s every move: Buddhist counties tend to have very low crime rates. In Burma I was impressed by how safe you and your possessions are. There is very little violent crime, for instance, providing you don’t get in the government’s way. It is relatively safe to leave a bicycle unlocked, and that in a desperately poor country with little police presence.

It is important to appreciate how much emphasis he Buddha places on Right Speech: a lot. This is true in many of the Suttas and in the Vinaya, and this is probably why it comes as the very first in the Conduct Group. In is easy to think that speech is relatively harmless when compared to actions. We all know expressions like, “Sticks and Stones may Break my Bones but Words will Never Hurt me,” and “Actions Speak Louder than Words,” But consider that racism, sexism, nationalism and eventually war and ethnic cleansing are all driven by many acts of Wrong Speech. We use speech as vengeance, to turn one person or group against another, to deceive and manipulate, and get people to buy things. Lying in particular undermines our trust in each other, which a society requires to function. In this modern Communication Age Right Speech has become even more critical as it finds expression through so many media and the speech of each of us can easily reach mass audiences. Given a few advances in technology since the Buddha’s day, “Speech” now includes the written word, blogs, videos, radio broadcasts and maybe even pantomime. Speech can also be passive; watching talk shows generally constitutes being a party to idle chatter.

Unfortunately Right Speech in the Communication Age seems to be rarer than it should be. Lies, often quite blatant, distortions and exaggeration, slander and character assassination, harsh speech and insult, frivolous chatter and gossip are matters of daily consumption. There is a simple principle if you want to live in an environment of Right Speech: Turn It Off!

Throughout this uposatha day, the day of the full moon, I suggest you pay attention to your speech and the speech of others. If you are like most people you will begin to catch yourself speaking badly of others, really for no productive reason and with a bit of anger or hatred, or at least as an reflection of the endless chatter of a very busy mind.

Uposatha Day Teaching

Noble Eightfold Path: Right Resolve

For new readers: Each quarter moon, on Uposatha Day, I am posting a short Buddhist teaching. The present posting is the third in the series on the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha’s master checklist for practice, the practice of perfecting character. We have been using the metaphor of the potter to describe the elements of this practice.

Last week we considered the first element of the Eightfold Path, Right View. Right View is what we need to know about the mind and the world in order skillfully to craft our character, just as a potter needs to know certain things in order to skillfully craft a bowl. This week we consider the second element of the Eightfold Path, Right Resolve, also sometimes called Right Intention or Right Thought.. Right View and Right Resolve together form the Wisdom Group or Training in Wisdom within the Eightfold Path. The remaining six elements form the Training in Conduct and Training in Cultivation of Mind.

A potter in crafting a bowl not only needs to know about clay and glaze and potter’s wheel, he also needs to have an idea of what he hopes to produce. This is Right Resolve. For the potter Right Resolve might be to make a bowls of exquisite elegance and beauty and at the same time of practical functionality. For the Buddhist Right Resolve is to craft a character of highest Virtue, one that embodies Renunciation, Good Will and Harmlessness. Right Resolve is in the Wisdom Group because it requires wise reflection to fully understand. Renunciation, Goodwill and Harmlessness are not, for most people, an obvious set of qualities to put here. For instance, you might think that the Perfected Character is wealthy, attractive, popular, fun-loving, sporty, and ever young, .. and, oh, enlightened. Or you’ve come to Buddhist practice because of inner pain; your resolve is to fix yourself. No doubt the reader has resolved to be this way or that way at various times—New Year’s Day is the traditional American occasion for this—and almost certainly it has not lead to satisfactory results. The Buddha advises us to resolve ourselves to live lives , and establish the virtues, of Renunciation, Good Will and Harmlessness as a step in his path. With a mind open to his every suggestion, we can see how that works out in our lives.

Right Resolve in short means this:

Make everything you do a Gift.

Can you do this? This means you set out on the Buddha’s eightfold path as a Gift. It means you work and relax as a Gift. It means you watch the news as a Gift, you eat as a Gift. It means you choose your livelihood as a Gift. It means you meditate and develop Right View as a gift. This sounds saintly. Buddhism aims at nothing less, … but it also recognizes that few will quite get there, which is OK too. Nevertheless this is our constant resolve.

Renunciation takes the “Me First” out of Gift giving. Any true Gift involves renunciation, otherwise it is not quite a Gift; otherwise I give it because I expect to get something in return. The full virtue of Renunciation is not easy to see: Our common sense tells us that happiness comes from grasping after things, but in fact it comes from letting go. This is one of the reasons we have monastics in Buddhism, professional renunciates, to remind us over and over that this is the case, to gently steer us in that direction. It is also completely cool, that that that which enables pure giving to others is also the greatest source of personal happiness. In other words giving is a Gift to yourself, and receiving a Gift is a Gift to another. You can’t get cooler than that. Once you fully recognize this, Right Resolve is not such a difficult thing to develop.

Goodwill and Harmlessness, or loving-kindness and compassion, drive the act of Gift giving. With the “Me First” out of the equation the wish for the benefit of all and the recognition of the enormous suffering of the world extends without limit, even to those we once thought we did not like or were deserving of their pain. It is for all of them that we undertake to take the Noble Eightfold Path to the production of a character of exquisite elegance and beauty and at the same time of practical functionality.

On this Uposatha Day, I suggest that you consider, first, What is it that brought me to Buddhist practice, that is, to walk the Noble Eightfold Path? and second, How is my practice a Gift to the World? Can the two answers be reconciled?

Uposatha Day Teaching

Noble Eightfold Path, Right View

In order to craft a ceramic object a potter needs to understand his materials and tools: the varieties of clay, how much water to add to the clay, how the clay behaves under pressure, what conditions will cause a pot to crack or explode in the kiln, what happens to clay at different baking temperatures, various types and properties of glaze, etc. In order to craft a life in the Dharma the Buddhist practitioner also must understand his materials and tools: the body, the mind, the nature of the world we are embedded in, how thoughts are triggered, how actions are triggered, how our habit patterns evolve.

Right View is seeing things as they really are. It is not accepting an orthodox set of unexamined beliefs. This gives Buddhism one of its startling properties. The skilled potter has to work with the conditions at hand: he must not pretend he has clay when he is out of it, he must not pretend his clay is other than it is or that the temperature of his kiln is not five degrees above what the knob says. Pretending will lead to unanticipated results. So it is with the Buddhist practitioner. This gets Buddhism into trouble with the outside world, where it has gained a reputation as pessimistic, focusing on such things as suffering, on sickness, old age and death. The Buddha even recommended the practice of observing corpses in various stages of decay. These are all the things we prefer to turn away from, yet these are realities, and it is advisable not to fashion a life out of what is not real.

This is not to say Buddhism has no doctrine. Buddhism provides many pointers and many observations that highlight particular things as they are and makes many statements about what you should discover there. Buddhism points to impermanence, suffering and absence of self as characteristics of existence and correlates suffering with clinging or aversion. Clinging and aversion arise from false views, particularly a false conception of the self, which then cannot keep pace with an ever-changing world. Tendencies to clinging, aversion, wrong view, and hence suffering are unskillful aspects of a personality that can be mitigated and eventually disappear altogether through skillful action in the present. Skillful action is related to the purity of one’s intentions. Buddhism also introduces the notion, often controversial in the West, that the process of shaping one’s life continues right past the end of this life an into another. These all become objects for contemplation and personal observation.

In the beginning many Buddhist views are obscure and complex, and therefore not immediately verified in one’s own experience. Although verification in one’s own experience is always encouraged, i.e., blind faith is discouraged, and verification leads to greater confidence in Right View, it is important from the beginning that one be ready to accept Buddhist views with and open mind and an open heart, as working assumptions. Too much skepticism will inhibit coming to terms with the parts of things as they are that Buddhist doctrine points to. A degree of faith is necessary in this and in all aspects of life, because of the incessant gap between the little we know and the great deal that we need to know just to function in the world. Even in the training of a scientist one taught particular viewpoints, but then invited to challenge these viewpoints if they seem untenable. So it is in Buddhism. Right View comes right at the beginning of the Eightfold Path because we need to begin our practice within the framework of Buddhist understanding. However we never step beyond Right View as a critical concern for the Buddhist practitioner. Right View will deepen with the remaining practices of the Eightfold Path, and in fact deep penetrating insight into the way things are is often regarded as the culmination of the Eightfold Path.

So far I’ve been presenting Right View as a doctrinal or conceptual understanding. That does not go far enough. First of all a conceptual understanding has a way of staying in our heads without really changing our attitudes and behaviors. Think of the physicist who during the day inhabits a world in which nothing is substantial, everything is strings or particles that can instantaneously disappear from one place and appear in another, then goes home to play with the kids and the dog as if it were not the same reality; nothing has carried over. Sometimes we experience an “Aha!” moment in which our already clear conceptual understanding moves into something deeper, a recognition that this really IS the Way Things Are. The word collectively had such a moment of insight when one of the astronauts in the Apollo 8 mission to orbit around the moon took a picture of a half-earth against a lunar foreground. We all knew what to expect, but what we viewed was surprising anyway, we were surprised that what we already knew really was true! Buddhism encourages this kind of deepening of insight.

But Right View goes even deeper; eventually extending beyond the limits of conceptual understanding., the limits of what we can wrap actual words around. Consider that most of the knowledge of a good potter comes from actually working with the clay, it is in his fingers not in his head. An apprentice potter does well to listen carefully to his master, to remember what he says about the variety of clays, what happens to clay at different baking temperatures and so on. But the apprentice will continue to gain insight, often inexpressible insight, far beyond those instructions. So it is with the Buddhist practitioner. The genius of Zen Buddhism is that it has a language, partly poetic, partly conceptual, but also comfortable with the contradictions that arise between the concepts, that can accompany the Buddhist apprentice a bit further in gaining insight into how things really are.

I suggest that, on this Uposatha Day, this day of the new moon, you do a little Web surfing. Follow some of the links I’ve put at the bottom of the Dhamma page and get an idea of the range of Buddhist teachings. These Upodatha Day postings are of course themselves intended as an entry into those teachings.

For extra credit, consider this question: Do moon Buddhists have an Uposatha Day at the same time that Earth Buddhists do, if moon Buddhists use the phases of the Earth as the determinant? (Warning: trick answer)

Uposatha Day Teaching

Noble Eightfold Path, Introduction

Recall that every Uposatha Day, traditionally a day for connecting with Buddhist practice, I am posting a short teaching, and that today I begin a series of short teachings on the Noble Eightfold Path.

Buddhism is about the Perfection of Character. The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s instructions or how to do this. According to the earliest accounts it was the very first thing the Buddha taught after attaining Enlightenment.

Actually in declaring perfection of character as the function of the Noble Eightfold Path I am being a little vaguer than the Buddha. The Buddha, after unfolding the Eightfold Path then embedded it as the last of the Four Noble Truths: (1) There is suffering (dissatisfaction). (2) Suffering is caused by clinging. (3) This means there is a means to free ourselves from suffering. (4) The Noble Eightfold Path is that means. The Buddha was a master at matching his words to his audience. The problem is that most Westerners are initially perplexed by the Four Noble Truths and particularly have trouble finding any possible relevance of (4) to (1)-(3). For instance, (4) makes no mention of suffering or clinging. So let me try some different words.

“Perfection of Character” is deliberately vague, but think of it as being a joyful and benevolent presence in the world. It is good to leave it vague at this point because our idea of what a perfected character is will change as we travel the highly introspective Eightfold Path. But let me now describe it as a kind of craft, the skill of living one’s life joyfully and benevolently. This provides apt analogies with other crafts.

Take the craft of making pottery and imagine that you are with a group of people, each of which is given a big lump of clay and access to the tools of the craft, the potter’s wheel, a kiln and other tools. Chances are you will be able to craft something, an off-center plate, a snake with a frog and a mouse in different stages of digestion, a teapot whose lid does not fit, etc., but you will probably not be satisfied with the results. You might look around and cannot find anyone else who seems to have a better idea of what they are doing, so you get frustrated and look for distractions,  start a clay fights or so on. Someone might come in and sell you more or better clay as if that were the root of your dissatisfaction, but that just gives you more material to be dissatisfied about. If you are really lucky you will be near someone who happens to be skilled in this medium, providing a good example or even instructions. You will then improve your skills and produce more satisfying results. Your skills will be found (1) in what you understand, for instance, about the properties of clay, about your tools and about what are desirable results; (2) in what you do, for instance, the sequence of steps you have learned in the process and the technique for centering clay on the potter’s wheel; and (3) in what mental factors you bring to bear on the task, for instance, mindfulness and concentration (maybe you will have learned that you cannot watch TV while crafting an urn). Significantly, as you become more atuned to the medium and the task, your sense of what the perfect pot might be will become more refined.

What we do in Buddhism is the same as what the potter does, except it is our characters, our lives that we are shaping. Uninstructed and without a good example you don’t have a clear idea what to do with this lump of life. You try different things and end up distracted. The Buddha once described good spiritual friends (kalyanamitta) as the “Whole of the spiritual life.” From them you learn that life is a matter of skill and we begin to pick up the skill involved. Notice how normative this all is. Before we talk about skill we are already assuming that there is such thing as a Right Result and a Wrong Result, that there is a Right Way to do things and a Wrong Way. This is not the way many people in the West think of Buddhism (“You’re just being like dualistic, man.”) In fact Buddhism is profoundly ethical at every stage, but ethics is not a matter of some invisible forces of Good and Evil, it is a matter of what is skillful (kusala) and unskillful(akusala) and those are within yourself and trainable. The Master List of skills in the Buddhist path is the Noble Eightfold Path:

1. Right View,
2. Right Intention,
3. Right Action,
4. Right Speech,
5. Right Livelihood,
6. Right Effort,
7. RightMindfulness and
8. Right Concentration.

In each case “Right” expresses the normative nature of a skill.  And, as for the potter, these skills fall in three main groups; these define what we call the Three Trainings. First, Wisdom (pannya) is what the Buddhist practioner understands, and it consists of
Right View and Right Intention. Second, Conduct (sila) is what the Buddhist does, and it consists of Right Action, Right Speech and Right Livelihood. Third, Cultivation of Mind is the set of mental factors brought to bear in life’s tasks, and it consists of Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

I suggest that, on this Uposatha Day, this day of the last quarter moon, you reflect on this lump of life before you. What is its shape and what shape would you like to give it? What do you know about the nature of character, what forces are at play? How do you conduct your life, beneficially for yourself and others? Where is your mind at, is it unwieldy, scattered, or is it a precise instrument ready to fulfil its purpose. What would it take to craft something exquisite of your life?