Course XXXIV - Teaching 12: The Eightfold Path

Gautama Buddha’s doctrine moves the man away from a purely rational field and points to him certain liberation method as a practical realization: the Path. He must stick to certain attitude for life. Gautama Buddha set up four fundamental postulates or verities –a whole plan of living based on them. The four postulates are as follows:
To know the existence of suffering.
To know that desire is cause of suffering.
To know that suffering is only removed by annihilating desire.
To know the path to stop suffering through annihilation of desire.
The said path is divided into eight aspects; thence, it is called eightfold path.
Gautama Buddha rejects always extremes; so he is against sensuality and self-mortification at the same time. His path is the mean path.
The first of the eight aspects is RIGHT KNOWLEDGE.
According to it, one must know evil in order to understand the root of evil, and one must know good in order to know the root of good.
The following decalogue sums up evil: Injuring or Killing; Taking away property which has not been given; Wrong conduct in sexual pleasures; False speech; Tale-bearing; Harsh talk; Useless chatter; Covetousness; Cruelty; and Harmful judgment.
Here is the root of evil: desire, wrath and disappointment.
He defines good as abstention of the said ten actions, and the root of good as absence of desire, wrath and disappointment.
One achieves Right Knowledge after understanding suffering and its cause, and after understanding cessation of suffering and the path leading to it.
But when Gautama Buddha introduces this first step of Right Knowledge, he reduces its range at once, to such an extent that it also might be called Right Faith instead of Right Knowledge.
He states that rational knowledge and any speculations about transcendence, ego and other aspects are useless, so, he makes use of his classical example of a man hurt by an arrow, and how useless would be for him to know name, status and physical aspect of the physician before being attended.
Later he poses the karmic law and the conclusive need to overcome it with acts in order to get rid from chain reincarnations.
The second stage is RIGHT INTENTION.
It comprises: the idea of giving up to worldly habits.
The idea of having no evil will, and the idea of abstaining from cruelty.
The third stage is RIGHT WORD.
It comprises: Abstaining from lies in favor of oneself or others.
Abstaining from backbiting, so as to avoid disagreements and contribute to harmony among men.
Abstaining from rude words, so as to avoid rancor and hatred, and instead of it, disseminating love, sweetness and cordiality.
Abstaining from useless conversation. One should speak properly, briefly and clearly.
The fourth stage is RIGHT ACTION.
It comprises: Abstaining from murder. It is against the use of weapons and harmful elements. Man has to be filled with understanding, affection and compassion, practicing mercy with his neighbors.
Abstaining from theft. One only can take that which is given. No desires of somebody else’s things, so as to purify our heart.
Abstaining from fornication. No flesh desires by overcoming barriers between both sexes.
The fifth stage is RIGHT LIVELIHOOD.
One should put aside reprehensible practices to earn a living, by sticking to strict ethics. It specially points those that are source of suffering and direct misery, such as those of butchers, hunters, fishermen and military men. And those that are cause of indirect suffering, for instance, dealing in intoxicating liquors, poisons, weapons and human beings. Also, divination, usury, conjuring, and so on.
The sixth stage is RIGHT EFFORT.
It comprises: Elimination Effort. It consists in having sensations under control, by removing them with efforts of our will so that they do not produce desires, appetites and bad trends.
Self-control Effort. It consists in strengthening one’s will so as to confront any desire, wrath and disappointment, removing it from our mind by means of our will. In order to achieve this purpose we have to replace a bad idea with a good one; to reflect about misery of these evil thoughts; to examine part by part our evil thoughts; and to suffocate all our evil thoughts so that they vanish and dissolve. The seventh stage is RIGHT ATTENTION.
Here the disciple observes himself and observes others. He observes body, mind and inner phenomena, after having his desires under control. He observes breath-in and breath-out, and deduces the existence of something –the body– which however is just a man in relation to the four elements and its inherent properties: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, form, sound, taste, et cetera.
So consciousness of five aspects of the existence is born, particularly mental aspects: sensations, perceptions, volition, consciousness, and material aspect; but instead of there being actually a creature, there are just five aspects which are dependent on certain causes. The disciple observes all movements of the body and is clearly and totally conscious of what happens around. He observes and knows every detail in his body. He observes births and death, and as Gautama Buddha said, comes to the conclusion that “there are only bodies there”.
He who gets this knowledge, controls dissatisfaction, fear, heat, cold, hunger and thirst, and controls and stands any trouble with patience and meekness.
Also, the disciple observes sensations, and understands that, in absolute sense, no individual can try sensation. “I feel” is just a verbal expression.
Likewise, he observes inner phenomena and comes to the conclusion that there are phenomena, but with no evidence of the reality.
The eight and last stage is RIGHT CONCENTRATION.
Gautama Buddha calls mental acuteness concentration. One has to rely on Right Efforts in order to get concentration.
The practitioner has to be clean of concupiscence, wrath, weakness, unrest and doubt.
Far from sensations and evil, he gets the first step. Now he got rid of the above-mentioned stumbling blocks, but reasoning, reflection, enjoyment, happiness and concentration still remain.
On the second step, he gets mental unity by removing reasoning and reflection.
On the third step, enjoyment disappears, and just happiness and concentration remain.
On the fourth step, just equanimity and concentration remain.
But however high the flight of the spirit may be, one cannot reach Nirvana as long as the least sensation and the subtlest desire remain, and as long as we did not come beyond the formless kingdom. Just by annihilating desires and overcoming any sensations, and through perfect renunciation, one soul can reach this state of divine consciousness, when the individual being has reincarnation and human suffering under control after leaving behind any desires.