Eightfold Path, which is part of the Four Noble Truths. In my last episode I covered

the Four Noble Truths so I'll put a link to that episode up here in case you missed it and you'd like to watch it now.

So I ended the previous episode talking about the Fourth

Noble Truth, which explains that if we want to reach enlightenment and be free of all

suffering we have to follow and practice the path called the Noble Eightfold Path, so in

effect there are eight things that we need to train in. The Noble Eightfold Path comprises of

eight different aspects about ourselves that we need to monitor, practice and perhaps change

to ensure that they're in line with our spiritual aspirations, which are presumably to lead

a moral life based on compassion and wisdom.

So the Buddha summarized the eight trainings in the Noble Eightfold Path. There are two

trainings in wisdom, three trainings in morality and three trainings in meditation. In the

Pali language these are known as panna, sila and samadhi.

The first of the eight is Right View. Right View, is also known as Right Understanding

and it comes first in the sequence of eight, because it acts like a core principle that

guides the seven other trainings. In the beginning Right View helps us to steer our behavior

towards cultivating wholesome actions which helps direct us towards peace and liberation,

rather than further from it. Then in the end Right View is representative of the wisdom that

we gain from our meditative realizations and this only comes as a result of having practiced

the seven other trainings. So Right View is important in the beginning, middle and end

of the path, all the way up to Enlightenment. Right View is perhaps the hardest for beginners

to understand and practice, so I will come back to it at the end of this video and go

over the seven other trainings first.

The second training of wisdom is the practice of Right Intention.

The Buddha explained Right Intention as having the intention of renunciation, the intention

of goodwill and the intention of harmlessness. Having an intention of renunciation...

one way we can look at this is that it means our intentions should be more selfless rather

than selfish, and so we're not motivated by personal greed so much, in fact, we're renouncing selfishness!

Practicing more selfless behavior helps us to move away from fortifying our

own egos and always coming from a place of self-centeredness. Instead we need to recognize

that everyone is the same boat as us, in wanting happiness and avoiding pain, so we should

try to live in a way that helps the majority instead of trying to secure the happiness

of just one being, you know, this separate self, this individual 'I'. The Buddha taught that we're all interconnected,

so renouncing selfishness and selfish pursuits and working towards the greater good is considered

more in line with true reality than what we might first realize or appreciate.

Intention of renunciation also means living a life more inclined towards peace and letting go.

Renunciation doesn't necessarily mean becoming monks and nun, and renouncing our

families and living in a cave to meditate. It could mean that but mostly it means renouncing

our greed, our anger, our jealousy and other harmful emotions.

The Buddha said that he who has renounced his impurities is called a renunciate. So

the impurities we are seeking to renounce are our mental impurities or defilements of

greed, aversion, pride and jealousy which all arise from ignorance and selfishness.

And why do we try to remove these? Why do we try to renounce these? Because they cause us so much pain for ourselves,

as well as others.

Intention of renunciation also means letting go of the belief that happiness is to be found

in things that are external to us. I mean, society tells us that happiness is to be found

in acquiring more and more things, yet the Buddha taught that happiness isn't found in

external objects and their acquisition, or through increasing our craving and desires,

but through finding the inner happiness that is within us instead. So having an intention

of renunciation means we slowly loosen the grasp of our craving and attachment to external

things so we can start to find the peace and happiness that lies within our minds,

which we can find through the practice of meditation and mindfulness.

Now the next one is Intention of Goodwill.

Having an intention of goodwill means we should act with the attitude of good-will and love

as opposed to ill-will and anger. Our actions of body, speech and mind should resonate with

the wish to help others and make them happy. Anger is something that affects us all, in

various degrees. If we do have anger or ill-will towards anyone then the Buddha prescribes

the meditation of loving-kindness to help us eradicate these tendencies of ill-will or anger.

It's said that our mind's true nature is one of love, peace and wishing

other's happiness, so it is this state that the Buddha wants us to tap back into.

The last part of Right Intention is the Intention of Harmlessness.

Having an intention of harmlessness means we should be motivated by compassion and not

wanting to cause or increase the suffering of others. This means we refrain from harming

others in any way, such as through physical violence, verbal abuse, mental manipulation

or power games. Actually this intention of harmless should be employed in anything

and everything that we set out to achieve. We should always carefully consider the ramification

of all our actions to ensure that it doesn't cause harm or suffering in any way to any living creature.

The next three trainings in the Noble Eightfold Path are the three trainings of

morality. These include the practice of Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood.

In essence, we try to practice these because it helps us to have a mind

that is kind, open and free of discursive thought, and this allows us to achieve deeper

levels of concentration when we meditate. We cannot become enlightened unless we meditate,

but we cannot meditate if we're constantly creating unease in our minds. So the three

trainings in morality help create a building block or stable foundation for our meditation

to be supported on and this in turn allows for realizations and greater wisdom to occur.

And remember these practices of morality are also motivated by Right Intention, the training

which came before these. So you will notice that these trainings of Right Speech, Right

Action and Right Livelihood are geared towards acting out of compassion and refraining from

causing harm towards others.

So the first is the practice of Right Speech. The Buddha advised us that Right Speech means

not lying, not engaging in slanderous or divisive speech, refraining from abusive or harsh speech

and refraining from idle gossip or chatter.

Instead our speech should be truthful, kind, beneficial and full of love. I actually want

to devote an entire video to Right Speech because it is such an important topic. I mean,

how often do we say things that we later regret, or wish we had some guidelines as to what

we should say and when? So I'll cover this topic in another video in the near future!

The next training in morality is the practice of Right Action.

Right Action means to avoid killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct basically

refers to being unfaithful to our partner or sleeping with someone else's partner. Although

these three trainings of killing, stealing and sexual misconduct are singled out in

this training, Right Action really means that we should avoid any behavior that harms others,

and instead we should perform virtuous deeds motivated by compassion, kindness and generosity, for instance.

Now the reason the Buddha brought our actions into the spotlight is because the Buddhist

path is a path of training our minds towards wholesome and virtuous habits. If we repeatedly

engage in killing and violence, stealing or being unfaithful in relationships, it's going to strengthen

these unwholesome mental factors or defilements in our mind until they become dominant and

natural patterns of our thought and behavior. Then in the future we will more easily do

non-virtuous things without giving it a second thought.

Now at the moment, we might not kill other sentient beings out of violence or wishing them harm,

but we do strengthen our disregard for the suffering of others every time we take the

life of another. And if we want to cultivate a mind of compassion and love, we have to

refrain from behavior that is antithetical to this. Taking another being's life is not

compassionate as it takes away the very thing all beings value most - which is their right

to live and breathe. The Buddha said:

In this matter the noble disciple reflects: 'Here am I, fond of my life, not wanting to die,

fond of pleasure and averse from pain. Suppose someone should deprive me of my life,

it would not be a thing pleasing or delightful to me. If I, in my turn, were to deprive of

his life one fond of life, not wanting to die, one fond of pleasure and averse from

pain, it would not be a thing pleasing or delightful to him. For that state which is

not pleasant or delightful to me must be not pleasant or delightful to another: and a state

undear and unpleasing to me, how could I inflict that upon another?' As a result of such reflection

he himself abstains from taking the life of creatures and he encourages others so to abstain,

and speaks in praise of so abstaining.

And in another sutra the Buddha said:

"The disciple, abstaining from the taking of life, dwells without stick or sword, conscientious,

full of sympathy, desirous of the welfare of all living beings."

In Buddhism we use the term 'sentient beings' quite a bit. Sentient beings are said to be

any living creature that has a consciousness and can feel and perceive. So in this we include

animals and even insects. For those of us who love animals, we can see that animals

have emotions, and they are worthy of our love and respect. But for some of us it might

be a bit harder to appreciate that insects have their own consciousness too. But why not?

If mean if we try to kill an insect they will try to run or fly away. So surely they

perceive danger, feel threatened and they react to this.

I remember when I was doing one of my retreats, and one day I walking up the hill, I saw this caterpillar that was rolling down the hill

and it was covered in bull ants which were biting it. And it looked to me like this caterpillar was writhing in

pain and really fighting for its life. I mean if it wasn't sentient, wouldn't it just lie

there and let the ants kill it and devour it? But even if we don't believe that insects

are sentient, can we really feel proud of our actions if we consciously take the lives

of those that are so much smaller and weaker and more vulnerable than ourselves?

The Buddha highly praised anyone who abstained from killing. He said:

"He who has renounced violence towards all living beings, weak or strong, who neither

kills nor causes others to kill - him do I call a holy man.

The Buddha really stressed the importance of living a life of non-violence and compassion.

Not only did he include not killing as part of the Noble Eightfold Path, but he also made

it the first Buddhist precept or vow taken by a lay person, or an ordained monk or nun.

Of course we cannot eliminate all killing, like the accidental killing of ants when we

walk. One of my teachers pointed out that we would need to be suspended in space if

we wanted to prevent all killing. But the most important thing is our attention and intention.

We need to examine how aware we are whenever we do things; like checking to see whether our

actions are possibly causing the death of another. And we should check to see what our intention was

if we did cause the death of another. Did they die as a result of our malice or because

of our desire for entertainment? What is important is that we consciously choose to refrain from

actions that cause suffering to others. If we want peace in the world, it has to start with

ourselves and our actions in the world.

The Buddha said that all beings have been our mother or our father in our past lives.

Now I can't verify that for myself, but I took this teaching and decided that every time

I came across an animal or insect, or even other humans beings, I would mentally name them, 'Mum'.

So I saw a spider, I'd mentally greet them, 'Hi, Mum!' If I saw a dog, I'd think

'Hi, Mum!' If I was served by someone at the local shops, I'd think, 'Thanks Mum'.

Now, the teachings don't just point out what we shouldn't do, but they also encourage us

to do the opposite. So in the case of taking life, we should practice the opposite and

save lives. So whenever I could I would save the lives of insects drowning in the toilet,

or caught in the spider's web. Or move them off a bike path before they got run over or

stepped on. And over the years, these two things, mentally

calling other beings Mum in my mind, and saving lives, has made it impossible for me to knowingly

take the life of another creature now.

No matter how much I might disdain ants when they invade our kitchen, or hate cockroaches

in the house, I won't kill them. I'll find an alternative to removing them. I literally

can't kill creatures with my own hands. And this didn't always used to be the case!

I used to kill insects, especially mosquitoes and spiders and I also used to go fishing. But

through mindfulness of my intentions, which came through meditating, I realized that I killed

insects out of fear and aversion, which I don't think is a just reason for killing something,

and I used to fish because I was drawn to the peace and serenity of being by the lake

and it was nice to share that space of peace and silence with the friends that I fished with.

But now I can get that same payoff when I meditate with others and no one has to come to any harm.

If we really want to walk the path of peace, we need to examine our relationship with

this idea of non-killing and compassion. But ultimately, whatever we do, the thing that

matters most in every situation is our intention. And this is just as important when it comes

to the next training, the training of Right Livelihood.

Right Livelihood makes up the last of the three trainings in morality. Because we spend