On the Path : An Anthology on the Noble Eightfold Path drawn from the Pāli Canon

460 Pages·2017·2.1 MB·English

by  Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

On the Path
AN ANTHOLOGY
ON THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH
DRAWN FROM THE PĀLI CANON
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
(Geoffrey DeGraff)
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“These eight dhammas, Nandiya, when
developed & pursued, go to unbinding,
have unbinding as their final end &
consummation. Which eight? Right view,
right resolve, right speech, right action, right
livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, &
right concentration.” — SN 45:10
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Copyright 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. “Commercial” shall mean
any sale, whether for commercial or non-profit purposes or entities.
Questions about this book may be addressed to
Metta Forest Monastery
Valley Center, CA 92082-1409
U.S.A.
Additional resources
More Dhamma talks, books and translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu are
available to download in digital audio and various ebook formats at
dhammatalks.org.
Printed copy
A paperback copy of this book is available free of charge. To request one, write
to: Book Request, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA
92082 USA.
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Acknowledgements
This book has been several years in the making. It began as a set of readings
for a handful of people who were taking an introductory course on the Pāli
Canon, and who asked me to provide extra readings to supplement what they
were receiving from the teachers in charge of the course. From there, it grew into
a much larger selection of readings for the bi-monthly study course that we
provide here at the monastery. Only recently did I find the time to make the
selection even more comprehensive and to provide introductory explanations. My
aim is to provide a well-rounded picture of the noble eightfold path for people
who are interested in taking guidance from the earliest extant records of the
Buddha’s teachings on how to reach the end of suffering and stress.
I could not have completed this book without the help of many individuals. In
addition to the monks here at the monastery, I would like to thank Ven. Atulo
Bhikkhu, Anita Basu, Michael Barber, Geoffrey Galik, Addie Onsanit, Nathaniel
Osgood, Dale Schultz, and Isabella Trauttmansdorff for their valuable
suggestions for improving the manuscript. Isabella Trauttmansdorff also
provided the index. I would also like to thank all those who read earlier
incarnations of the reading selections for their questions and comments, which
helped to sharpen the focus of the explanations offered here.
Any mistakes, of course—in either the translations or the explanations—are
my own responsibility.
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
METTA FOREST MONASTERY
MAY, 2017
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INTRODUCTION
The Fire Escape
The Buddha’s teachings are like the instructions posted on a hotel room door,
telling you what to do when the hotel’s on fire:
— Heed the fire alarm. This corresponds to the Buddha’s teachings on
saṁvega, the sense that you’re enmeshed in a dangerous situation and
want to find a way out.
— Realize that your conduct will mean the difference between life and
death. This corresponds to heedfulness, the attitude underlying all skillful
behavior.
— Read the map, posted on the door, for finding the closest fire escape.
This corresponds to right view.
— Make up your mind to follow the map. This corresponds to right
resolve.
— Don’t abuse any of the other people in the hotel as you try to make
your escape. Don’t lie to them about the escape route, don’t claw your way
over them, and don’t cheat them out of their belongings. This corresponds
to right speech, right action, and right livelihood.
— Do your best to follow the instructions on the map, and resist the
temptation to stay in the comfort of your room or to wander down the
wrong corridors. This corresponds to right effort.
— Keep the map in mind at all times, and check your efforts to make
sure that they’re in line with it. This corresponds to right mindfulness.
— Keep calm and focused, so that your emotions don’t prevent you from
being clearly aware of what you’re doing and what needs to be done. This
corresponds to right concentration.
This analogy, of course, is far from perfect. After all, in the actual practice of
the Buddha’s teachings, the fire is already constantly burning inside your own
mind—in the form of the fires of passion, aversion, delusion, and suffering—and
the escape from these fires lies, not in leaving your mind, but in going deeper into
the mind to a dimension, nibbāna, where fire can’t reach. Also, because both the
fire and the escape lie within you, you can’t pull other people to safety. The most
you can do for them is to tell or show them the way to practice, which they will
have to manage for themselves.
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But still, the above analogy is useful for highlighting a number of important
features of the Buddha’s practice.
To begin with, the practice is essentially a practice, and not a theory to be idly
discussed. Even the theoretical or philosophical aspects of the Buddha’s teachings
are there to be used as tools in aiding in the escape from all suffering and stress.
It’s because of this fact that the Buddha’s primary metaphor for his teachings was
a path: the noble eightfold path, composed of all the “right” factors mentioned
above. It’s also why right view, the theory behind the path, is part of the path, and
doesn’t stand outside it.
Also, because right view serves as a guide to action, it doesn’t present a full
picture of reality, just as a fire-escape map posted on a hotel door doesn’t give
complete information about the construction of the hotel. If it did, you’d have
trouble figuring out which parts of the map would be useful in the event of a fire.
That, in turn, would actually prevent you from making a quick escape. It’s for this
reason that right view leaves unanswered many questions about the cosmos and
the self, and directs your attention to what needs to be done to escape from the
ravages of suffering.
At the same time, right view labels some attitudes about suffering and its end
as definitely wrong, just as certain wrong attitudes about fires and escapes would
leave you trapped in a burning hotel. Suppose, for instance, that you found
messages posted on the hotel room door saying that, in the case of a fire, there is
no escape, or that you should wait in your room until a heavenly being saved
you, that the fire won’t burn you if you accept and embrace it, or maybe fire isn’t
really fire. You’d be wise to distrust those messages, even if they were signed by
the hotel management. In the same way, if you’re heedful of the dangers of the
fires of the mind, you’d be wise not to fall for messages—even within the
Buddhist tradition—that are at odds with the message that it is possible to escape
from the suffering that the mind creates for itself, that you can reach this escape
through your own efforts, and that it’s the most worthwhile thing you can do in
life.
Unfortunately, we live in a time when, in the Buddha’s words, the concept of
True Dhamma has disappeared (SN 16:13). This doesn’t mean that the True
Dhamma—i.e., a Dhamma teaching a genuine escape from the fires of the mind—
isn’t available, simply that so many mutually exclusive versions of the Dhamma
have arisen over the centuries, each claiming to be true, that it’s impossible to
point to any one version of the Dhamma that everyone will agree to be true. Still,
there is only one version of the Dhamma that is fully in accordance with the
principle that the fires of suffering are real, that escape from them is possible, and
that you can achieve this escape for yourself. That’s the version available in the
suttas—discourses—of the Pāli Canon, along with whatever teachings are in
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accordance with the suttas.
Here again, though, there are many disagreements on what the suttas say,
largely because very few people have read them carefully and understood their
idiom. This is why I have collected this anthology of passages dealing with the
factors of the noble eightfold path, drawn from the suttas and Vinaya—
disciplinary rules—of the Pāli Canon, so that you can read the Canon’s teachings
on these topics for yourself. I have also provided introductions to the readings as
an aid in comprehending the idiom in which the suttas are written, so that you
can enter into the mindset of the compilers of the suttas and gain an intuitive feel
for what they’re getting at.
The title of this book, On the Path, can be taken in two ways, and both ways
are relevant here: (1) This book is about the path and (2) it’s for people who
would like to be on the path to the end of suffering. These two aspects of the book
correspond to the Buddha’s teaching that there are two sources for the arising of
right view: the voice of another and appropriate attention. The voice of another—
and this would include written as well as spoken words—is the external source.
Appropriate attention—your ability to frame your questions about the path in
terms that apply specifically to solve the problem of suffering and stress, and not
to any other purpose—is the internal source.
As the reader of this book, you have to supply the internal source if you’re to
get the most out of it. As the compiler, I’ve tried to be as faithful as possible in
selecting and translating the passages so that they’ll be of most use as the “voice
of another.” At the same time, because I am assuming appropriate attention on
your part, I have focused the introductory material on practical issues, and have
avoided the many academic controversies that have accreted on the topic of the
noble eightfold path over the centuries.
Still, not all the controversies about the factors of the path are purely
academic. Some have a practical bearing, and there is no getting around the need
to take positions on them in your practice of the path. Although I have, by and
large, avoided getting involved in polemics in the introductions to the various
chapters, I would like to state at the outset the positions I have taken with regard
to these practical controversies, based both on my training and on what I have
found in the suttas. Some of these positions may appear to belabor the obvious,
but many popular interpretations have lost sight of the obvious, so it’s necessary
to reaffirm that those obvious points are true.
First, with regard to the path as a whole:
• The path is a path. In other words, (1) it’s not the goal and (2) it’s not meant
to lead to any of its own factors. Instead, it’s meant to lead someplace beyond the
path. Although some interpreters have stated that the path leads to right view or
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right mindfulness, in actuality—when we regard these factors in terms of the
famous raft analogy (§§13–14)—they are part of the raft, and not the shore that
we’re using the raft to reach. And once we reach the shore, we don’t pick up the
twigs and branches of right view and right mindfulness to carry them on our
head.
• The path is an eightfold path. In other words, all eight factors of the path are
necessary for it to yield its intended results. This observation applies specifically
to the factor of right concentration. There are interpreters who maintain that the
Buddha actually taught two alternative paths—a sixfold path, which includes
right mindfulness but not right effort and right concentration—and a sevenfold
path, which includes right effort and right concentration but not right
mindfulness. This interpretation is based on a definition of right mindfulness that
is totally separate from and at odds with right effort and right concentration, but
this definition has no basis in the suttas, and can be forced on the suttas only by
squeezing them out of shape. As we will see, the suttas actually teach right
concentration in a way that includes right mindfulness, and right mindfulness in
a way that includes right effort. In this way, the factors of the path are mutually
penetrating and mutually reinforcing. In fact, they cannot complete their work
unless all eight factors mature together.
• The path is a noble path. In the Buddha’s terms, this means that it leads to a
goal that is unfabricated, and therefore free from change—with no aging, illness,
or death. Because the path is fabricated, the goal is not simply different from the
path, it is radically different—so different that the final act of the path, before
reaching the goal, is to abandon the path along with everything else. Although
some skills developed along the path remain for those who have completed the
path—their mindfulness, for instance, is constant—the calm, the pleasure, the
equanimity, and even the consciousness present in the goal are radically separate
from the calm, pleasure, equanimity, and consciousness developed on the path.
As for the controversies around the individual factors of the path, these tend
to focus on three of the factors: right view, right mindfulness, and right
concentration. The positions I have adopted on these factors are as follows:
• Right view is defined in terms of the four noble truths, rather than in terms of
the three characteristics of inconstancy, stress, and not-self. This point would
appear to be obvious when you look at the standard definition of right view, but
all too often the three characteristics, interpreted as metaphysical principles, are
taken as the underlying framework for right view, with the four noble truths
squeezed to fit into that framework. In other words, the starting assumption is
that all things are impermanent and stressful, and that therefore there’s no
permanent, separate self. Suffering is caused by the craving and clinging that
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arise when the “truth” of no self isn’t realized, because all suffering comes from
clinging to things that will change. However, when this “truth” is realized, the
mind will understand that there’s nothing lasting to cling to, and so—growing
equanimous to all things—will stop suffering.
However, as we will see, even though the Buddha often discussed the
suffering that comes from clinging to inconstant things (§123), he never said
that clinging entails suffering only when focused on things that are inconstant. In
MN 52 and AN 9:36 (§312), for instance, he notes that it’s possible to cling to
the unfabricated, and that that particular clinging has to be abandoned for
suffering to truly end. In other words, the suffering lies in the activity of the
clinging and not in the inconstancy of the object clung to. This may seem like a
subtle point, relevant only to the highest levels of the practice, but it’s actually
relevant to the beginning levels as well.
To begin with, the practice as a whole relies on the understanding that the
problem lies not with the mind’s objects, but with the mind’s activities in relation
to its objects. To focus on the question of when clinging is a worthwhile thing to
do, rather than on the metaphysical status of what objects are, helps to keep this
principle always in mind.
Also, if you’re alert to the fact that suffering comes from clinging more
directly than from any change in the object clung to, then when you encounter
anything in the practice that seems to be unchanging—such as a state of oneness
or all-pervasive luminosity—you’re forewarned about the danger of clinging to it.
In this way, you’re less likely to fall for any premature assumptions about having
reached awakening, and you’re equipped to work your way free from those
assumptions before they do harm.
Finally, by keeping the focus on the suffering inherent in all clinging, you can
keep your practice from getting sidetracked into fruitless metaphysical
arguments. Here it’s important to note that the Buddha never used the term
“characteristics” to describe inconstancy, stress, and not-self. Instead, he termed
them “perceptions” and taught that they be applied strategically for the purpose of
inducing dispassion, when and where needed, in line with the duties of the four
noble truths. Rather than being metaphysical positions—for example, that there
is no self—these perceptions are tools for comprehending suffering and stress,
abandoning their cause, and developing the path so as to realize the cessation of
suffering. At different stages of the path, they have to be applied selectively. Only
at the final stage are they applied to all objects. Then, when the goal is reached,
they—as perceptions—have to be abandoned, too.
By making the four noble truths the framework of right view, and having the
three perceptions function strategically within that framework, the Buddha was
able to make this point clear. In this way, he was also able to avoid the “thicket of
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