In the Buddha's Words - Bhikkhu Bodhi [119]
The Noble Eightfold Path is the classical formulation of the way to liberation, as is already clear from the Buddha’s first sermon, in which he calls the Eightfold Path the way to the cessation of suffering. Text VII,2 gives formal definitions of the individual path factors but does not show concretely how their practice is to be integrated into the life of a disciple. The detailed application will be filled out later in this chapter and in chapters VIII and IX.
Text VII,3 throws a different spotlight on the path than we are accustomed to hear in standard Buddhist rhetoric. While we are often told that the practice of the Buddhist path depends entirely on personal effort, this sutta emphasizes the importance of spiritual friendship. The Buddha declares that spiritual friendship is not merely “half the spiritual life” but the whole of it, for the endeavor to attain spiritual perfection is not a purely solitary enterprise but occurs in dependence on close personal ties. Spiritual friendship gives the practice of the Dhamma an inescapably human dimension and welds the body of Buddhist practitioners into a community united both vertically by the relationship of teacher to students and horizontally by friendships among peers treading a shared path.
Contrary to a common assumption, the eight path factors are not steps to be followed in sequence, one after another. They are more appropriately described as components than as steps. Optimally, all eight factors should be present simultaneously, each making its own distinctive contribution, like eight interwoven strands of a cable that give the cable maximum strength. However, until that stage is reached, it is inevitable that the factors of the path exhibit some degree of sequence in their development. The eight factors are commonly distributed into three groups as follows:
1. the moral discipline group (sīlakkhandha), made up of right speech, right action, and right livelihood;
2. the concentration group (sam̄dhikkhandha), made up of right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration;
3. the wisdom group (paññākkhandha), made up of right view and right intention.
Within the Nikāyas, however, this correlation occurs only once (at MN 44; I 301), where it is ascribed to the nun Dhammadinnā, not to the Buddha himself. It might be said that the two wisdom factors are placed at the beginning because a preliminary right view and right intention are required at the outset of the path, right view providing the conceptual understanding of Buddhist principles that guides the development of the other path factors, right intention the proper motivation and direction for the development of the path.
In the Nikāyas, the Buddha often expounds the practice of the path as a gradual training (anupubbasikkhā) that unfolds in stages from the first step to the final goal. This gradual training is a finer subdivision of the threefold division of the path into moral discipline, concentration, and wisdom. Invariably in the suttas the exposition of the gradual training begins with the going forth into homelessness and the adoption of the lifestyle of a bhikkhu, a Buddhist monk. This immediately calls attention to the importance of the monastic life in the Buddha’s pragmatic vision. In principle the entire practice of the Noble Eightfold Path is open to people from any mode of life, monastic or lay, and the Buddha confirms that many among his lay followers were accomplished in the Dhamma and had attained the first three of the four stages of awakening, up to nonreturning (an̄ḡm̄; Theravāda commentators say that lay followers can also attain the fourth stage, arahantship, but they do so either on the verge of death or after attainment immediately seek the going forth). The fact remains, however, that the household life inevitably fosters a multitude of mundane concerns and personal attachments that impede the single-hearted quest for liberation. Thus when the Buddha set out on his own noble quest he did so by going into homelessness, and after his enlightenment, as