As we have seen, the Buddha's method for liberation is called the Middle Way because it avoids extremes both in thinking (egoism and nihilism) and action (gluttony and asceticism). The Middle Way, however, should not be seen as some mushy intermediate practice between two unskillful extremes. Rather, the Middle Way is a dynamic and active path filled with constant adjustments and awareness in the way a tightrope walker maintains balance. This path does not conform with the stereotypical image of the Buddhist sage completely cut off from the world and abiding in a state of total neutrality in which nothing is done and so nothing bad happens. The path is rather a way of transforming activities in our daily lives and world which are caught in the tide of positive action and negative reaction. This transformation results in a livelihood rooted in natural harmony which benefits oneself and others through duty and freedom.
This sense of Middle Way brings up a critically important issue
in developing a vision and practical steps away from consumer
societies and towards societies which balance material development
and spiritual transformation. Thus far, I have made a rather strong
critique of the tendency of modern society to overemphasize material
solutions through scientific engineering. In developing a new
vision, we can create rather reactive solutions. Some call for
a total reliance on spiritual transformation as with the aforementioned
stereotypical Buddhist. Others, including many converted Western
Buddhists who still have not fundamentally changed their modernistic
view of the world, attempt to force spiritual resources to offer
structural answers or develop a whole series of structuralist
responses and gloss them over with spiritual labels. Yet penetrating
the Middle Way unfolds a process which does not discriminate between
material and spiritual, structural or human, thought or action
but rather fuses the two as an integrated whole. In the Noble
Eightfold Path, we see both components of mental development in
concentration (samadhi) and wisdom (panna)
and behavioral development in skillful conduct (sila).
The three have their distinct features but are incorporated into
a single, interpenetrating system. In transforming our societies,
we need to apply this same dynamic. We need indivbiduals to develop
in tandem spiritual and structural probem solving abilities. In
such a way, the dychomoties bteween structural and spiritual will
be trasncended. Ultimately, science an religion must learn to
complement one another and not antagonize one another.
As it is the intent of this paper to balance the mainstream proclivity
tiwards structural solutions with a spiritual perspective, the
ideas here will naturally have a dynamic of working from the inside
out. From Buddhist spiritual practices, we can begin to trace
ways of interacting among individuals, families and communities
and perhaps even develop a model of human interaction on a global
scale. In extending itself, Buddhist practice may give outlines
for how the structural aspects of a society can work so as to
be in harmony with spiritual truths. However, to expect or to
attempt to develop Buddhism as an all inclusive response to social
development falls into the same trap as our modernist experiment
which has posited science as the all inclusive response. To do
so is a Attitude and Behavioral Clinging (upadana). The
emergence of healthy societies is the intersection of all the
various fields of human endeavor. Like a healthy forest which
lives dynamically through the interplay of a wide diversity of
sentient forms, so our societies must incorporate a wide diversity
of ideas to live dynamically.
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH
Right Understanding--> WISDOM
ELEMENTS
Right Intention--> PANNA
Right Speech--> SKILLFUL CONDUCT ELEMENTS
Right Action--> SILA
Right Livelihood-->
Right Effort--> CONCENTRATION
ELEMENTS
Right Mindfulness--> SAMADHI
Right Concentration-->
As with the samudayavara and the nirodhavara, the path is taught as a sequential process of stages while essentially being dynamic, non-linear and interpenetrating.1 These components have been broken into three clumps to indicate a further interaction between them. Traditionally, the first and second factors are seen as training in wisdom (panna); the third, fourth and fifth as training in skillful conduct (sila); and the sixth, seventh, and eighth as training in concentration (samadhi). In this way, the practice is generally explained as a progression of sila-samadhi-panna. Practicing skillful conduct leads to proper concentration and awareness which leads to wisdom and ultimately liberation. As we can see, however, the path begins with the wisdom elements of Right Understanding and Right Intention. Yet as we have mentioned, this practice acts like paticca samuppada in that it feeds back into itself over minutes, days, years and over a lifetime. When the last factor of Right Concentration is cultivated, it leads into Right Understanding again. Right Understanding has been placed at the beginning, because as we have seen, it is the initial opening of critical awareness in saddha that begins the natural progression to Nirvana.
In this way, it may be of use to look at the Noble Eightfold Path
as another rendition of the nirodhavara . The nirodhavara
presents states which oppose the links of the samudayavara
. As the Eightfold Path is a set of practices to attain nirodha,
we can conceptualize it as a group of practices which enable us
to meet the samudayavara at its various points with concrete
methods to deconcoct it. Let us look then at these two systems
brought together:
AGING & DEATH (jaramarana)
- deconcocted by Right Understanding
THE MATURATION OF THE "SELF"
BIRTH (jati) & BECOMING (bhava)
- deconcocted by Right Understanding, Right Intention & sila
(Right Speech/Action/Livelihood)
CLINGING (upadana) - deconcocted by Right Intention &
sila
CRAVING (tanha) - deconcocted by sila &
Right Effort
FEELING (vedana) - deconcocted by Right Effort & Right
Mindfulness
FULL CONTACT (phassa) - deconcocted by Right Effort &
Right Mindfulness
MENTAL STEWING
SENSE EXPERIENCE (salayatana), MIND-BODY (namarupa),
CONSCIOUSNESS (vinnana), & CONCOCTING (sankhara)
- deconcocted by Right Concentration
IGNORANCE (avijja) - deconcocted by Right Understanding
As paticca samuppada concocts upwards from Ignorance to Aging & Death, so the Eightfold Path offers us concrete practices to deconcoct down towards the quenching of Ignorance. Right Understanding, Right Effort and Right Mindfulness are considered the three central factors of the practice.2 They in turn deconcoct the commonly held three critical practice points in the samudayavara Ignorance/Aging & Death, Full Contact and Craving. We will now begin an in depth look into these factors where this schematic will be more fully explored. As we continue to explore, it is important to not get lost in a big pile of classifications and systems and to constantly reflect on the interconnectedness and practicality of these systems.
I. WISDOM
ELEMENTS (PANNA)
II. SKILLFUL
CONDUCT ELEMENTS (SILA)
III. CONCENTRATION
ELEMENTS (SAMADHI)
NOTES:
1 Theravada Buddhism has taken the Four Noble Truths and many
other ideas of the Buddha and developed them into a very detailed
sequence of stages as seen in the Abhidhamma, a text which
systematizes all the Buddha's teachings. Later developments in
Mahayana Buddhism, especially Zen, have found such detailed structures
an anathema to spiritual practice. These stages it appears are
a form of expedient means to help one map out the landscape of
spiritual practice, yet as means and not ends, clinging to literal
understanding of them will cause difficulties. Theravada teachers
in general point to the usefulness of them but also recognize
that each individual follows a unique process of spiritual transformation
which may not accord with the stages exactly. For more on this
discussion, see Rothberg, Donald, "How Straight is the Spiritual
Path?" in ReVision Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer 1996, (Heldref
Publications : Washington D.C.)
2 Majjhima Nikaya, Mahacattarisaka Sutta; The Great Forty, 117:33
(III. 75).