Gothic BC

The Eightfold Path is a Buddhist way of dealing with things.  It operates on a

'Don't take my word for it, test it out for yourself' sort of approach.

1. Right Understanding: 

Understanding the way things are in life.  You're here because you were born, type of thing.  Very basic.  When things don't go the way we want them to, we struggle with that.  We suffer.  The flip sided coin of desire and aversion; either wanting things to be other than how they are in some way, or wanting a problem to go away when it won't.  Suffering is in the way we react to things.  As good or bad things happen, we learn to go through the experience, accepting it.  Say you lose your job or your partner or something...it can be a very small thing, too.  In fact, it often is.  Desire and aversion to what happens makes us suffer.  So, when we start to pay attention to that process, we begin to wake up.  We realise that we have a choice.  We may experience pain or unpleasantness, but we don't have to get caught up in it.

2. Right Thought.

The idea being that what comes to pass physically or verbally begins in the mind, usually operating out of desire or aversion to what we experience around us.  We can learn to be skilful over our thought creations...realising that they do eventually manifest.

3.  Right Speech.

This is refraining from speech that is harmful or adds to the suffering of ourselves and others; lying, gossip, harsh words etc.

4.  Right Action.

This is like right speech, but deals with the physical aspects and seeing what they lead to...stealing, killing and so on.  Are our thoughts, words and actions in harmony with us and others, or not?

5.  Right Livelihood.

The work we do is a refelection of our thoughts words and deeds...so if we're engaged in a livelihood that involves wrong action, we can see what we are creating.

6. Right Concentration.

7. Right Effort.

8.  Right Mind.

These last three relate to meditation...and I'll put up a different posting on that...but you get the gist of the Eightfold Path, anyway.