Eightfold Path And Meditation

The Buddha very simply talked about the EightFold Path.

The EightFold Path includes:

1. Right View. It’s the right point of view, right knowledge of practice.
2. Right Thought. It’s profound thinking of life, of Dharma, of right practice. It’s thanks to Right View.
3. Right Speech. It’s right and good talk. It’s thanks to Right Thought. Buddhists’ speeches need to be nice, and bring benefit and happiness to people, to life.
4. Right Action. It means everything we do we do it rightly and create blessing for ourselves and for people, help to prosperously spread Dharma all over. 
5. Right Livelihood. It means our work for living should not be cheating, not create bad karma. And thanks to Right Speech and Right Action, righteous careers will give people a good living.
6. Right Effort. It’s a durable and diligent practice, so that practitioners can prepare for going to Right Concentration. After accumulating blessing, and having stable living, practitioners should determine to practice to get the good result.
7. Right Mindfulness. It’s conscious mind. Practitioners’ minds must be kept conscious in every moment of everyday.
8. Right Concentration. It’s the stage that practitioners’ minds go deep into concentration, and they can attain the assurance of each stage in meditation.

The process of the EightFold Path is set up very simply by the Buddha. This is reasonable, profound and practical. Although the whole world can be changed, and no matter how great the world will be developed, nobody dares to change anything in the EightFold Path. It’s because the EightFold Path is the Truth.

The order of EightFold Path is remarkable that the former Right always supports the latter Right. And the latter strengthens the former. When we think of the true doctrines, we can have more ideas that can back up and strengthen our previous knowledge.

The first practice is Right View. If we have right view of practice, then we can think deeply of Buddha-Dharma and have knowledge of life. The significant point is Right Livelihood. The righteous jobs can help people live comfortably and avoid creating bad karma. When we have a good condition of living, we can feel free to focus on effortful practice. This is Right Effort. Next, we can continue to go deep in spiritual stage. This is Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Right View is the first stage of practice, then Right Concentration is the final stage, the good result of practice. When we go deep into Right Concentration, we will fully understand all the first theories. This is Right View.

For example, previously, we study the Prajna (Wisdom) Sutra that is said, “Form is emptiness, the immaterial is the material.” Which really confuses us. We may think the meaning is that everything existing is only nothing. However, if we go deep into concentration, then we can be suddenly awakened to the deeper meaning in the moment of our mind’s complete concentration.

If Right Speech talks about doing charity, then Right Action is what that encourages us to do charity. Or if Right Speech talks about practice of chanting Buddha’s name and meditation, then Right Action is what we will practice everyday.

The prior Rights are the way to help us create blessing, so that we will get a comfortable life, and then we can devote our effort to practice each stage until we attain Enlightenment. As we know, creating blessing is the first basic necessity for our practice. The value of people is based on their blessing. It is because if people have blessing too little, they can hardly get success in life. All poverty or wealth, failure or success is dependent on blessing that people have.

If we deeply contemplate the EightFold Path, we can see how remarkable its content is. It is the ideal for seeking for the Truth, and the ideal aspiration for attaining Enlightenment. This aspiration for the Truth makes us diligently practice to get Right View, think of moral doctrines, talk about Dharma, and create blessing. This aspiration is not like Right Effort. This belongs to feeling, to noble sentiment, and to strength of our heart, which help us strive to practice. This feeling and sentiment come from our good karma being created from our past lives. This was our paying deep honour to the Saints. And now, we get the best result that we are seeking for the Truth of Nirvana.

With heartiness of Buddhists and sincere seeking for the Truth, we make a vow to pay deep honor to our Buddha and all the Saints for our whole life.

Please refer to:

• Mindfulness meditation retreat
• Mindfulness meditation