The Eight-Fold Path

We can follow the Vipassana technique and use four materials (body, feelings, consciousness and Dhamma objects) to lay the foundations of mindfulness. The tool we use is the Eight-fold path. The Eight-fold path is: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

But the Eight-fold path is not really the path; the true path is just our own bodies and minds. Because we have bodies, we have to sit and stand and walk; because we have minds, we have to think and feel and we have to receive mental objects. That's why the body and mind become the path, become the way.

We start with right effort: making effort to observe the object of the mind in the present moment. Right mindfulness means that we try to separate ultimate truth from conventional truth. We try to see ultimate truth only. For example, when I make the effort to move my hand (referring to meditation exercise number ; see "How to Meditate"), that's right effort; I observe moving as the object of the mind. I pay attention to the moving, not to the hand; that is right mindfulness. The hand is conventional truth, but moving is ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is, "mindfulness observing Rupa (material phenomena; also, the object of the mind) and Nama (mental phenomena; mind) correctly in the present moment." When I continue sitting, standing, walking, and when I keep observing with moment to moment mindfulness, that is right concentration. Right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration complete Samadhi (concentration). If I continue to see each moment as it is arising and passing away, that is right understanding.

When the mind is mindful of arising and passing away, I will see: that phenomenon is impermanent; it is unstable or unsatisfactory. Moving is unstable; it cannot stay permanently as the hand does. We say that the hand is self or stable; but moving is unstable, unsatisfactory. Moving is non self. It doesn't belong to anyone. That is right thought. Right understanding and right thought complete Panna, which means wisdom. The Nama, or one who knows, is mind and knowledge. At each moment, mind and Rupa are passing away together all the time; that is wisdom arising to see the truth.

We have to separate ultimate truth from conventional truth, just as we separate moving from the hand or sitting from the body. When we can see the truth of Rupa and Nama, or body and mind, in the present, from moment to moment, that is correct practice. We are walking on the right path.

Right speech during meditation practice means talking mindfully; observing the physical movement of speech from moment to moment, the moving the jaw. Usually, when we practice mindfulness meditation during a retreat, we keep silent. Right action: when we're observing the body's activities - walking, moving, sitting, eating - that is right action.

Right livelihood means: living with mindfulness all the time, in every moment, in every activity: while going to the bathroom or brushing our teeth or eating; eating food slowly, observing chewing and swallowing, not attaching with a delicious taste or disliking a bad taste. We eat to live rather than live to eat. Right livelihood means using every daily action for practicing mindfulness; we do not just meditate while we are sitting on a cushion in the meditation hall. Right speech, right action and right livelihood complete Sila, which means morality.

When all of these eight factors come together in one moment, in that moment the Eight-fold path is complete, and we approve this way for ourselves, by ourselves. That is correct practice, from which we will get real happiness and continue to the end of suffering. This is why we try to find the right path; so that we can find ultimate happiness. That's why we have to practice mindfulness. That's why we practice the Middle Way. Happiness is in the middle. By following the Middle Way we exchange the attitude of the mind from suffering to happiness. The reason we cannot exchange the attitude of the mind from suffering to happiness is because the mind doesn't stay in the middle between good and bad. We are victims of the habit we have formed - the habit of not keeping the mind in the present, of letting it wander back to the past or forward into the future. Everyone has this same mental habit which causes un-ease, or dis-ease in the mind. The antidote for this disease is mindfulness; it is the tool with which we are able to resist becoming slaves to desire and aversion.

This is an excerpt from the Happiness is in the Middle talk which is presented in full in our Dhamma Talks and Essays pages.