Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [44]
THE EIGHT-FOLD PATH,
ONE STEP AT A TIME
Best among paths is the Eight-Fold Path.
—THE BUDDHA
The eight steps to enlightenment on the Noble Eight-Fold Path are as follows:
WISDOM TRAINING
Step 1. Right View Step
2. Right Intentions
ETHICS TRAINING
Step 3. Right Speech Step
4. Right Action Step
5. Right Livelihood
MEDITATION TRAINING
Step 6. Right Effort Step
7. Right Mindfulness Step
8. Right Concentration
Although these are listed in numerical order, the Buddha’s intent was that they were to be thought of as a circle, or an eightspoked wheel with interconnected links directed at helping you develop the three essential values of Buddhism: wisdom, ethics, meditative awareness.
Wisdom, ethics, and meditative awareness are known as the Three Higher or Enlightenment Trainings. Inseparable, they support each other, like a tripod or three facets of a single, luminous jewel. Waking your inner Buddha depends upon actualizing these qualities in your life.
WISDOM
TRAINING
Seeing Things As
They Are
In order to swim one takes off all one’s clothes—in order to aspire to the truth one must undress in a far more inward sense, divest oneself of all one’s inward clothes, of thoughts, conceptions, selfishness, etc., before one is sufficiently naked.
—SÖREN KIERKEGAARD
Right View and Right Intentions are the two steps on the Eight-Fold Path that focus on wisdom. The Sanskrit word for wisdom is prajna, which reminds us to see the truth by cultivating enlightened awareness and self-knowledge.
Outwardly, we find wisdom functioning in life very practically as sagacity and even as uncommon common sense. Wise people are usually discerning about many things, not just about one narrow, specialized field. Rather, they are wise in the ways of this world and, perhaps, “other worlds” as well. People who are wise seem to be able to deal with life—and the reality of death.
Inwardly, wisdom shows up as sanity, centeredness, and equanimity. Men and women who are wise seem fulfilled and radiate a sense of inner peace—at home with self and others. With wisdom comes joy, warmth, kindness, connectedness, integrity, and love. We can all cultivate this; we can all plumb the deep inner well and heal ourselves.
Innately, another form of wisdom—gnosis, transcendence, and wise unselfishness—is within us all. The ultimate form of wisdom is not something we do; it is our true nature and being. It isn’t just information or intellectual learning. Wisdom may sound like knowledge, but it is more like our luminous pure authentic inner being. Can we tune into that? Can we trust that? That awareness is transcendental wisdom. We may or may not have a formal religious or spiritual affiliation. Most religious groups have only been around a few thousand years. But being itself—that mystical sacrament, that mysterious and sacred space, or infinite expanse of spirit—has been around much longer. Primordial being is what we call it in the Dzogchen tradition. Authentic primordial being is Pure Presence, or Rigpa. Buddha-mind. Dharmakaya, the invisible body of truth. This is true wisdom.
Right View or Authentic Vision comes first on the Dharma path of wisdom and enlightenment, because your worldview determines the direction your life will take. Right Intentions, the second step, helps us direct our sights to that goal.
STEP ONE
RIGHT VIEW
The Wisdom of Clear Vision
The Radiant Buddha said:
Regard this fleeting world like this:
Like stars fading and vanishing at dawn,
like bubbles on a fast moving stream,
like morning dewdrops evaporating on blades
of grass, like a candle flickering in a strong wind, echos, mirages, and phantoms, hallucinations, and like a dream.
—THE EIGHT SIMILES OF ILLUSION,
FROM THE PRAJNA PARAMITA
SUTRAS
Many Buddhist teachers, including myself, often chant these eight similes of illusion, particularly at the beginning or end of certain meditation sessions. I love these poetic similes and find them useful as a meditative reflection