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To review: Buddhism is a path to happiness. It is not the only path but it is proven, efficient, and effective. And it is based on four simple truths:
1. Life is suffering. We all know that. When we are born, the universe is ours. In this society, we cry and get food or cuddled or both. Someone else takes care of our excrement. We don’t even have to dress ourselves. The problem is that it goes downhill from there. We go to school only to be beaten up by the school bully or if we are the school bully we can find ourselves locked away at the ripe old age of six. Even if we are good at things like music, art, math or reading, we’re never good enough. There is always that B grade that could have been an A. Later we mate and no matter how happy we are, there is always that red haired girl or boy, just beyond our grasp. And I’m not even going to bother to go into all the illness, the aging, and, finally, the dying we each need to do. Life is suffering.
2. Life is suffering because we grasp and we crave. It starts young and it never ends. One of my first memories is our kitchen in Cincinnati, Ohio. My mother had just given me my favorite sandwich in the whole world—peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on white bread. I was thrilled until I noticed that my sister had the same sandwich, only she also had banana slices in hers. From happy to miserable in less than two seconds. We grasp at money, stuff, jobs, people, experiences. And it makes us miserable.
3. There’s a way out of the mess.
4. The way out is the Eightfold path, a path of moral living, aided by energetic effort, concentration and wisdom.
Every single dharma talk, sutra, chant and teaching in the Buddhist tradition relates back to these four truths.
Back to the path. It can start anywhere. I’ll pick Right Understanding. At its most succinct it says, “This is this because that is that.” With Right Understanding there is an absence of denial. We can see things exactly as they are and we can see the interconnections between everything. Next is Right Thought. This is about erasing the unkind thoughts from our brains before they do us in.
Right Speech is about honesty. It is also about knowing when to speak. About a week ago I was in Ann Arbor for the beginning of the college semester. It meant huge traffic back-ups. Think in terms of hours. I got stuck. Behind me was a young woman in a truck, also stuck, who was screaming curses at everyone who walked by or was within hearing distance. The young man in her passenger seat just kept sinking farther and farther down in his seat with each curse. An older man happened to be walking past the line up. Hearing her he stopped, and said something like, “That’s not going to help.” She went ballistic. Watching all of this in my rear view mirror, I honestly thought that I was going to have to break up a fight. Just as I was unhooking my seatbelt, the traffic started to move and we were all saved. While the man was telling the truth about the situation, his timing wasn’t great. Timing matters.
Right Action comes next. In every single situation in our lives, what action best helps the situation? Sometimes Right Action is about doing nothing. My brother has an autistic son, Adam. Now twelve, Adam’s favorite thing is to throw things into the pool in his backyard. When I last visited that meant that the bottom of the pool looked like someone’s messy closet. Shoes. Plates. Clothing. A toaster, maybe. His parents just watch him toss the things. They don’t yell, don’t stop him, don’t make fun of him….and they don’t retrieve the pile until after he is in bed. It makes for a lighthearted, stress free home life where things could otherwise get pretty crazy. Right action.
Right Livelihood is about making a living in a way that doesn’t harm people, animals, plants and the earth. When we look, there are thousands of possibilities here. Right Effort is about energy, about putting everything we’ve got into everything we do. The opposite of laziness, once we get used to it, right effort is seductive. We are energized by it, and less prone to stress and downright crankiness.
Right Mindfulness is about paying attention. A few days ago I bought a book at Borders for my dharma brother, Koho, and asked if it could be wrapped. The young woman behind the counter took great care to center the book, make sure the tape didn’t show, neaten the edges. It was like watching a tea ceremony. When I mentioned that to her she just smiled and said she had a dream that she should take special care whenever she had something to wrap and that it would make her feel good. And it did. I almost bought a second book for a replay.
Finally there is Right Concentration. When we put energy behind our mindfulness, concentration happens. We make fewer mistakes, are less clumsy, are more sensitive to our world.
The combination of the eight factors makes for a terrific life on planet earth. Each of us can be responsible for own awakening. Walking the path changes lives. I see it every day. Step by step we wake up and the world benefits.
Bodhi svaha!
