The Noble Eightfold Path

The Buddha’s practical instructions to reach the end of suffering.

– Walpola Sri Rahula 

Within the fourth noble truth is found the guide to the end of suffering: the noble eightfold path. The eight parts of the path to liberation are grouped into three essential elements of Buddhist practice—moral conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom. The Buddha taught the eightfold path in virtually all his discourses, and his directions are as clear and practical to his followers today as they were when he first gave them.

The Noble Eightfold Path

Right understanding (Samma ditthi)

Right thought (Samma sankappa)

Right speech (Samma vaca)

Right action (Samma kammanta)

Right livelihood (Samma ajiva)

Right effort (Samma vayama)

Right mindfulness (Samma sati)

Right concentration (Samma samadhi)

Practically the whole teaching of the Buddha, to which he devoted himself during 45 years, deals in some way or other with this path. He explained it in different ways and in different words to different people, according to the stage of their development and their capacity to understand and follow him. But the essence of those many thousand discourses scattered in the Buddhist scriptures is found in the noble eightfold path.

It should not be thought that the eight categories or divisions of the path should be followed and practiced one after the other in the numerical order as given in the usual list above. But they are to be developed more or less simultaneously, as far as possible according to the capacity of each individual. They are all linked together and each helps the cultivation of the others.

These eight factors aim at promoting and perfecting the three essentials of Buddhist training and discipline: namely: (a) ethical conduct (sila), (b) mental discipline (samadhi) and (c) wisdom (panna). It will therefore be more helpful for a coherent and better understanding of the eight divisions of the path if we group them and explain them according to these three heads.

ETHICAL CONDUCT

Ethical conduct (sila) is built on the vast conception of universal love and compassion for all living beings, on which the Buddha’s teaching is based. It is regrettable that many scholars forget this great ideal of the Buddha’s teaching, and indulge in only dry philosophical and metaphysical divagations when they talk and write about Buddhism. The Buddha gave his teaching “for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.”

According to Buddhism, for a man to be perfect there are two qualities that he should develop equally: compassion (karuna) on one side, and wisdom (panna) on the other. Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance, and such noble qualities on the emotional side, or qualities of the heart, while wisdom would stand for the intellectual side or the qualities of the mind. If one develops only the emotional, neglecting the intellectual, one may become a good-hearted fool; while to develop only the intellectual side [and] neglecting the emotional may turn one into a hard-hearted intellect without feeling for others. Therefore, to be perfect one has to develop both equally. That is the aim of the Buddhist way of life: in it wisdom and compassion are inseparably linked together, as we shall see later.

Now, in ethical conduct (sila), based on love and compassion, are included three factors of the noble eightfold path: namely, right speech, right action, and right livelihood.

Right Speech

Right speech means abstention (1) from telling lies, (2) from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, (3) from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, and abusive language, and (4) from idle, useless, and foolish babble and gossip. When one abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech one naturally has to speak the truth, has to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful, and useful. One should not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place. If one cannot say something useful, one should keep “noble silence.”

Right Action

Right action aims at promoting moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct. It admonishes us that we should abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and that we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way.

Right Livelihood

Right livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks or poisons, killing animals, cheating, etc., and should live by a profession which is honorable, blameless, and innocent of harm to others. One can clearly see here that Buddhism is strongly opposed to any kind of war, when it lays down that trade in arms and lethal weapons is an evil and unjust means of livelihood.

These three factors (right speech, right action, and right livelihood) of the eightfold path constitute ethical conduct. It should be realized that the Buddhist ethical and moral conduct aims at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This moral conduct is considered as the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral basis.

MENTAL DISCIPLINE

Next comes mental discipline, in which are included three other factors of the eightfold path: namely, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. (Nos. 6, 7 and 8 in the list).

Right Effort

Right effort is the energetic will (1) to prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising, and (2) to get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen within a man, and also (3) to produce, to cause to arise, good, and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen, and (4) to develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present in a man.

Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is to be diligently aware, mindful, and attentive with regard to (1) the activities of the body (kaya), (2) sensations or feelings (vedana), (3) the activities of the mind (citta) and (4) ideas, thoughts, conceptions, and things (dhamma).

The practice of concentration on breathing (anapanasati) is one of the well-known exercises, connected with the body, for mental development. There are several other ways of developing attentiveness in relation to the body as modes of meditation.

With regard to sensations and feelings, one should be clearly aware of all forms of feelings and sensations, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral, of how they appear and disappear within oneself. Concerning the activities of mind, one should be aware whether one’s mind is lustful or not, given to hatred or not, deluded or not, distracted or concentrated, etc. In this way one should be aware of all movements of mind, how they arise and disappear.

As regards ideas, thoughts, conceptions and things, one should know their nature, how they appear and disappear, how they are developed, how they are suppressed, destroyed, and so on.

These four forms of mental culture or meditation are treated in detail in the Satipatthana Sutta (Setting-up of Mindfulness).

Right Concentration

The third and last factor of mental discipline is right concentration, leading to the four stages of Dhyana, generally called trance or recueillement. In the first stage of Dhyana, passionate desires and certain unwholesome thoughts like sensuous lust, ill-will, languor, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt are discarded, and feelings of joy and happiness are maintained, along with certain mental activities. Then, in the second stage, all intellectual activities are suppressed, tranquillity, and “one-pointedness” of mind developed, and the feelings of joy and happiness are still retained. In the third stage, the feeling of joy, which is an active sensation, also disappears, while the disposition of happiness still remains in addition to mindful equanimity. Finally, in the fourth stage of Dhyana, all sensations, even of happiness and unhappiness, of joy and sorrow, disappear, only pure equanimity and awareness remaining.

Thus the mind is trained and disciplined and developed through right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

WISDOM

The remaining two factors, namely right thought and right understanding, constitute wisdom in the noble eightfold path.

Right Thought

Right thought denotes the thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts of love and thoughts of non-violence, which are extended to all beings. It is very interesting and important to note here that thoughts of selfless detachment, love and non-violence are grouped on the side of wisdom. This clearly shows that true wisdom is endowed with these noble qualities, and that all thoughts of selfish desire, ill-will, hatred, and violence are the result of a lack of wisdom in all spheres of life whether individual, social, or political.

Right Understanding

Right understanding is the understanding of things as they are, and it is the four noble truths that explain things as they really are. Right understanding therefore is ultimately reduced to the understanding of the four noble truths. This understanding is the highest wisdom which sees the Ultimate Reality. According to Buddhism there are two sorts of understanding. What we generally call “understanding” is knowledge, an accumulated memory, an intellectual grasping of a subject according to certain given data. This is called “knowing accordingly” (anubodha). It is not very deep. Real deep understanding or “penetration” (pativedha) is seeing a thing in its true nature, without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and is fully developed through meditation.

From this brief account of the noble eightfold path, one may see that it is a way of life to be followed, practiced and developed by each individual. It is self-discipline in body, word, and mind, self-development, and self-purification. It has nothing to do with belief, prayer, worship, or ceremony. In that sense, it has nothing which may popularly be called “religious.” It is a Path leading to the realization of Ultimate Reality, to complete freedom, happiness, and peace through moral, spiritual, and intellectual perfection.

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More on Wisdom

Envisioning and Dreaming a New World

—Practicing the five wisdoms to improve our lives and transform the world.

– Lama Padma Samten 

1. Mirror Like Wisdom

2. Wisdom of Equality

3. Wisdom of Discrimination

4. Wisdom of Causality

5. Wisdom of Dharmata

(These Five Wisdoms are from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition)

We are here in the world, so how can we better use our short and precious existence? What can we do to improve our life? The Buddha teaches us how to practice five wisdoms, or qualities, which we can encounter when we look inside and observe our minds. Derived from the Mahayana Buddhabhumisutra [Scripture on the Stage of Buddhahood], the five wisdoms are aspects of the enlightened mind that pervade every living being without exception, including ourselves. Veils of ignorance and disturbing emotions obscure these wisdoms. The goal of practice is to cultivate these five wisdoms until they shine forth without obstruction and transform our lives. 

The first, mirror-like wisdom, is our capacity to understand others in their own worlds. Others include people, animals, and minds in general, not just human minds or the minds of beings. For example, we can ask what would be good for the country, the state, the city, or beings a hundred years from now. We have the capacity to look at things more broadly. We can look at beings and see if they need support. H.H. the Dalai Lama says it is essential that everyone has security, food, water, protection, housing, and the other foundations of human dignity. This is the principal point. Nobody should be abandoned, not one person. When we look this way, we no longer focus on what I like or do not like. Our mind is capable of seeing what is happening with others. 

The second, the wisdom of equality, is quite essential. This is the ability to rejoice in what happens to others. Once, I heard Chagdud Rinpoche say that if we rejoice only in what happens to us, then we don’t have much of a chance for happiness in life. However, if we can rejoice when something goes well for others, we smile because we are happy for them. He also said that jealousy is useless. He pointed out that if a person has a competitive spirit, sometimes they win. But with jealousy, one always loses. 

The opposite of jealousy is our ability to look at others, understand their world, cooperate in their world, and rejoice in the good in their lives. We feel enriched. Because we look, contemplate, and rejoice with everyone, we do not need to pursue the cultural narrative of acquiring possessions for happiness. If we are too focused on accumulating things and our happiness comes only from what happens to us, we end up demanding too much of ourselves. But if we have the contemplative capacity to rejoice with plants, animals, the sky, rivers, oceans, and mountains, then we can live a less complicated life. This is a good thing! We don’t have to run around the world trying to obtain everything for ourselves. We engage others and rejoice with them.

The third is the wisdom of discrimination. When we sit in equilibrium, in silence, we delve into more profound internal phenomena. We escape from eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and touch and then look calmly and see how disturbances and outflow arise. Outflow is an impulse we have to follow things in a particular direction. Let’s say you study law. You may get a job and work toward a career in the private sector, public service, or politics. Wonderful! All of this is an outflow sequence. We go on, creating one thing, creating another thing, and this becomes our life. But this is not our life—it is a construction. When we calm ourselves and really see this, we say, “This is all artificial.” You can do this thing, but you can do other things. This wisdom can also be seen as the wisdom of lucidity—it clarifies the facts.

The fourth is the wisdom of causality. We act in a certain way, and this produces happiness or suffering. In short, all actions produce effects. So we must take great care of how we act because our actions will produce positive or negative consequences. Understanding this wisdom, we can practice four specific actions in any environment we find ourselves in. The first action is to avoid being disturbed by the appearances we encounter, which is not easy. The second is to seek to calm the environments we navigate, which can be challenging. Third, we try to improve the circumstances of whatever environments we are in. And fourth, we avoid negative actions, help others, and seek to support others in performing positive actions (and avoiding negative actions). 

The fifth is the wisdom of dharmata [the way things are], which is recognizing how all appearances are inseparable from our minds. There is a non-duality between what is seen and the mind that sees. This non-duality means that the seen and seer are not separate. In whichever direction I look, I practice the wisdom of dharmata by seeing non-duality. On the other hand, the mind manifests the creative aspect, which is luminosity. I have this luminosity that creates, and I have the natural freedom to create. For example, we can look at a little table and see it as a bench. In the same way, we can see a meditation bench as a place to set books. But, in principle, the meditation bench is not for books. It’s where we fold our legs and sit. We can also use a meditation bench as a little table! This creativity is the luminous aspect. 

We have the ability, in this generation, to imagine the world differently and construct new realities and mental categories for our planetary and ecological age.

We don’t need to change the object. We relate to the luminous aspect and not something else that would be inherent in the object. This way of relating with the world is luminous action. Our life will crucially depend on how we luminously construct the constellation of things we relate to. The base of our mind is free, allowing a variety and infinity of things to arise without limit. As we navigate the world, things look solid but are not really solid. They appear solid along with our mind, but our mind is free and can construct other things. 

When we see the difficulties in imagining a positive future in the face of environmental destruction and profound social and political crises, we can see this is simply our constructed mental categories appearing. These worlds that we live in are nothing but the mental creations of previous generations. We have the ability, in this generation, to imagine the world differently and construct new realities and mental categories for our planetary and ecological age. Many new possible directions are emerging simultaneously, and though we don’t know which directions have stability or are the best for our new world, the five wisdoms can serve as our basis.

When you practice the five wisdoms, you will discover energy, or lung in Tibetan Buddhism, arising within you. When we understand, support, and collaborate with others, there is a glow within us. This glow is a happiness not bound by attachments but a happiness that springs from the lucid perspective of the five wisdoms. When we understand things as they are and act in skillful ways, seeing everything deeply, an awareness shines within us. Cultivating the five wisdoms can bring about our happiness and collective flourishing for all beings in the world.

At the CEBB communities [a Buddhist network of retreat and study centers in Brazil], we practice the five wisdoms together as a form of social and ecological transformation. We invite people to sit down in a circle together, listen deeply to each other, and begin luminously visioning and dreaming new worlds. This collective visioning and dreaming is the practice of mandala. The mandala is the five wisdoms in action that bring together individual visions and create and build collective dreams. Through the self-organization of mandalas at CEBB, we have created a network of ten rural Buddhist villages, retreat centers, and many urban centers. We developed the Caminho do Meio (Middle Way) Institute, which works for human development, social transformation, and a culture of peace. Currently, the mandalas, which form the body of the Institute, operate three transformative schools and two agroecological test and education sites, support traditional communities, and undertake many other activities. We also supported the indigenous Mbyá-Guarani in their retaking of traditional lands. And now the Caminho do Meio Institute is affiliated with the United Nations, so we can bring our experiences to the global stage and translate what is happening globally back to our communities. Practicing the five wisdoms not only brings about our own happiness, but when we practice them with others, these wisdoms can be the basis for our collective flourishing.

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Lama Padma Samten is the founder of the Centro de Estudos Budistas Bodisatva (CEBB) [Buddhist Bodhisattva Study Center] network, including ten rural Buddhist villages, retreat centers, and numerous urban area centers across Brazil. Formerly a professor of physics and leader in the Brazilian environmental movement, Lama Samten was ordained by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche in 1996. 

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Five Pieces of Wisdom from Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön, one of the first Americans to be fully ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun, celebrates her 87th birthday in 2022. 

Advice on Knowing How to Fail 

“Sometimes you experience failed expectations as heartbreak and disappointment, and sometimes you feel rage. But at that time, instead of doing the habitual thing of labeling yourself a ‘failure’ or a ‘loser’ or thinking there is something wrong with you, you could get curious about what is going on… If there is a lot of ‘I am bad. I am terrible,’ simply notice that and soften up a bit. Instead say, ‘What am I feeling here? Maybe what is happening is not that I am failure—maybe I am just hurting.’”

How to Develop Genuine Compassion

“When taking care of ourselves is all about me, it never gets at the unshakable tenderness and confidence that we’ll need when everything falls apart. When we start to develop maitri for ourselves—unconditional acceptance of ourselves—then we’re really taking care of ourselves in a way that pays off. We feel more at home with our own bodies and minds and more at home in the world. As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.”

How to Live Beautifully with Uncertainty

“Anxiety makes us feel vulnerable, which we generally don’t like. Vulnerability comes in many guises. We may feel off balance, as if we don’t know what’s going on, don’t have a handle on things. We may feel lonely or depressed or angry. Most of us want to avoid emotions that make us feel vulnerable, so we’ll do almost anything to get away from them. But if instead of thinking of these feelings as bad, we could think of them as road signs or barometers that tell us we’re in touch with groundlessness, then we would see the feelings for what they really are: the gateway to liberation, an open doorway to freedom from suffering, the path to our deepest well-being and joy. We have a choice.”

Allowing Emotions to Move Through You

“Our emotions have a lot of mental conversation—and, in my experience, it is often hard to discern between what is the thought and what is the emotion. In any given sitting period, in any given half hour of our lives, there are a lot of things that come and go. But we don’t need to try so hard to sort it all out. We don’t have to attach so much meaning to what arises, and we also don’t have to identify with our emotions so strongly. All we need to do is allow ourselves to experience the energy—and in time it will move through you. It will. But we need to experience the emotion—not think about the emotion. It’s the same thing that I’ve been talking about with the breath: experiencing the breath going in and out, trying to find a way to breathe in and out without thinking about the breath or conceptualizing the breath or watching the breath.” 

The First Step in Pulling Ourselves Out of Despair

“The reason we often start to go downhill with losing heart is that we allow ourselves to get hooked by our emotions. When we get hooked—when we get really angry, resentful, fearful, or selfish—we start to go a little unconscious. We lose our payu—our awareness of what we’re doing with our body, speech, and mind. In this state, it’s all too easy to let ourselves spiral downward. The first step in pulling yourself up is to notice and acknowledge when you’re going unconscious. Without doing that, nothing can get better for you. How could you change anything if you’re not aware of what’s going on?”