Bhikkhu Cintita

Category: Dharma

  • Uposatha Day Teaching

    Noble Eightfold Path: Right Action

    In the last episode we considered Right Speech, the first of the Ethical Conduct Group of the Noble Eightfold Path. Today we take up Right Action. The most common of the alternative formulations of Buddhist ethical conduct is the Five Precepts:

    1. Not to kill living beings.
    2. Not to take what is not given.
    3. Not to involve oneself in sexual misconduct.
    4. Not to speak falsely.
    5. Not to intoxicate oneself.

    Here (1) – (3) most directly relate to Right Action and (4) to Right Speech. (5) relates indirectly to Right Speech and Right Action, since in the intentional haze of intoxication Speech and Action occur that are typically later regretted., but more directly to Right Effort, which we have not discussed yet, basically purification of the mind. Notice that all of these are abstentions. These do have implicit positive counterparts, such as to promote or cultivate or care for life, to be generous, to keep others properly informed, and so on. In fact, Precepts are generally a bottom line, much like the oath “Do No Harm” in medicine; but in fact we can do so much of benefit above that bottom line. However the positive forms would be more difficult to formulate, since they are open-ended; We understand out obligation to not killing, for instance, but unclear is the extent or direction of our obligation to promote life. Still the positive forms of the Precepts are already implicit in Right Resolve, in Renunciation, Goodwill and Harmlessness or compassion.

    Through Right Action and Right Speech we not only make the world, we also make ourselves. Virtue gives rise to virtue. Every action has two kinds of consequences, first, out there in the world, and second, in shaping our own character, or own future. Simply put, the more you steal the more you become a thief, the more you kill the more you become a killer, the more you gossip the more you become a gossip. Actions become habits and habits become character. So action is very important in the process of perfecting character. The potter’s skills grow in exactly the same way. The more fine pots the potter throws the finer potter he becomes. The more he throws pots with thin elegantly tapered sides, the more skillful the becomes at that. This is the heart of karma, and the way we learn a skill.

    Let’s look a little more closely at how this works. The Sanskrit word for action is Karma. Properly the Buddha analyzed Karma into two components, Intention and Action, why you do something, and what it is you actually do. The intention is critical: If no intention is present, for instance in the case of killing a bug accidentally, there is no Right Action and no Wrong Action. It matters to the world, but not generally to the character. But if intention is present, then that particular intention is reinforced in the action. There is a great assortment of intentions, but we must give special attention to avoid the unskillful roots: Greed, Hatred and Delusion, because actions that have these as intentional components (1) are likely to hurt others, (2) tend to make us greedy, hateful and deluded and (3) bring us personal suffering. The relation between (2) and (3) might not seem obvious, until you consider the state of happiness or well-being of greedy, hateful and deluded people. It turns out the Virtue Is its Own Reward; this is the Law of Karma. The explanation for this has to do with the origin of suffering, in clinging.

    Fortunately, we can take care in our actions with regard to our intentions. First, the intention precedes the physical action that it gives rise to. This provides an opportunity to abort an unskillful intention by not acting on it. For instance, when anger arises I do not yell, I do not throw things, I don’t do anything, until the anger subsides, which it will. Second, we improve the quality of the intentions that do arise by controlling their conditions. For instance, if I avoid stressful activities, anger is less likely to arise. If I avoid the company of people who are drinking alcohol, I am less likely to have the impulse to do so. Through the cultivation of mind, the topic of the last three folds of the Noble Eightfold Path, our capacity for caring for our intentions becomes quite refined. Through such care, skillful habit patterns develop, and the character is moved in a more skillful direction. This is a simple transparent theory of human skill acquisition, with karma, intentional action, as its basis.

    Often the word karma is assumed to refer to something more interesting, something like fate. Let’s take a minute to look at how a sense like this has arisen, and also how it is a bit, but not really, accurate. Often the word karma is used by extension (metonymously) to refer to cumulative consequences of intentional action, much as the words “wear” or “worn” can refer to the result of wearing shoes, say, over and over. So it is used to refer to the character itself, or other factors that are often assumed to impinge on the life of the acting agent for good and bad, as cumulative results of karmic acts. This meaning takes on particular significance in the light of rebirth. Rebirth greatly extends the lifespan of cumulative karma. The science is still out on the issue of rebirth, but rebirth as even a working assumption puts the project of perfecting character in a useful context. Perfection is rarely achieved in one lifetime, rebirth makes sense of heading in that direction inexorably and without frustration. Looking the other way rebirth allows a karmic basis in the distant past for much of our current character. Still, the principle of karma as a basis for acquiring skill remains the same; we work with karma moment by moment only in the present, seeking what it skillful, and shaping our character into something ever more virtuous.

    Karma is the key to the entire path and should be understood and practiced , as the Buddha says, “seeing danger in the slightest fault.” We might extend this to seeing benefit in the slightest virtue. Often the development of character through Right Action are clearer than the immediate affects of Right Action in the world. For instance, the First Precept above is one that we easily become fuzzy around; we are not really convinced that the Buddha meant cockroaches and scorpions, snakes and slugs, when he referred to “living beings.” Yet if we uphold the Precept rigorously (catch pests and place them carefully outside) we observe a remarkable change in ourselves: We become kinder, more tender in our feelings not only for all the little creatures but for people as well. Try it! Your Virtue will grow, and that in turn will improve the tendencies of our future actions in the world. You will also find yourself more and more joyful in disposition.

    Throughout this Uposatha Day of the First Quarter Moon, think about your actions. Am I violating one of the Five Precepts? What are my intentions, is there a hint, or maybe a lot, of greed or hatred behind my actions?

  • Uposatha Day Teaching

    Noble Eightfold Path: Right Resolve

    For new readers: Each quarter moon, on Uposatha Day, I am posting a short Buddhist teaching. The present posting is the third in the series on the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha’s master checklist for practice, the practice of perfecting character. We have been using the metaphor of the potter to describe the elements of this practice.

    Last week we considered the first element of the Eightfold Path, Right View. Right View is what we need to know about the mind and the world in order skillfully to craft our character, just as a potter needs to know certain things in order to skillfully craft a bowl. This week we consider the second element of the Eightfold Path, Right Resolve, also sometimes called Right Intention or Right Thought.. Right View and Right Resolve together form the Wisdom Group or Training in Wisdom within the Eightfold Path. The remaining six elements form the Training in Conduct and Training in Cultivation of Mind.

    A potter in crafting a bowl not only needs to know about clay and glaze and potter’s wheel, he also needs to have an idea of what he hopes to produce. This is Right Resolve. For the potter Right Resolve might be to make a bowls of exquisite elegance and beauty and at the same time of practical functionality. For the Buddhist Right Resolve is to craft a character of highest Virtue, one that embodies Renunciation, Good Will and Harmlessness. Right Resolve is in the Wisdom Group because it requires wise reflection to fully understand. Renunciation, Goodwill and Harmlessness are not, for most people, an obvious set of qualities to put here. For instance, you might think that the Perfected Character is wealthy, attractive, popular, fun-loving, sporty, and ever young, .. and, oh, enlightened. Or you’ve come to Buddhist practice because of inner pain; your resolve is to fix yourself. No doubt the reader has resolved to be this way or that way at various times—New Year’s Day is the traditional American occasion for this—and almost certainly it has not lead to satisfactory results. The Buddha advises us to resolve ourselves to live lives , and establish the virtues, of Renunciation, Good Will and Harmlessness as a step in his path. With a mind open to his every suggestion, we can see how that works out in our lives.

    Right Resolve in short means this:

    Make everything you do a Gift.

    Can you do this? This means you set out on the Buddha’s eightfold path as a Gift. It means you work and relax as a Gift. It means you watch the news as a Gift, you eat as a Gift. It means you choose your livelihood as a Gift. It means you meditate and develop Right View as a gift. This sounds saintly. Buddhism aims at nothing less, … but it also recognizes that few will quite get there, which is OK too. Nevertheless this is our constant resolve.

    Renunciation takes the “Me First” out of Gift giving. Any true Gift involves renunciation, otherwise it is not quite a Gift; otherwise I give it because I expect to get something in return. The full virtue of Renunciation is not easy to see: Our common sense tells us that happiness comes from grasping after things, but in fact it comes from letting go. This is one of the reasons we have monastics in Buddhism, professional renunciates, to remind us over and over that this is the case, to gently steer us in that direction. It is also completely cool, that that that which enables pure giving to others is also the greatest source of personal happiness. In other words giving is a Gift to yourself, and receiving a Gift is a Gift to another. You can’t get cooler than that. Once you fully recognize this, Right Resolve is not such a difficult thing to develop.

    Goodwill and Harmlessness, or loving-kindness and compassion, drive the act of Gift giving. With the “Me First” out of the equation the wish for the benefit of all and the recognition of the enormous suffering of the world extends without limit, even to those we once thought we did not like or were deserving of their pain. It is for all of them that we undertake to take the Noble Eightfold Path to the production of a character of exquisite elegance and beauty and at the same time of practical functionality.

    On this Uposatha Day, I suggest that you consider, first, What is it that brought me to Buddhist practice, that is, to walk the Noble Eightfold Path? and second, How is my practice a Gift to the World? Can the two answers be reconciled?

  • Uposatha Day Teaching

    Noble Eightfold Path, Right View

    In order to craft a ceramic object a potter needs to understand his materials and tools: the varieties of clay, how much water to add to the clay, how the clay behaves under pressure, what conditions will cause a pot to crack or explode in the kiln, what happens to clay at different baking temperatures, various types and properties of glaze, etc. In order to craft a life in the Dharma the Buddhist practitioner also must understand his materials and tools: the body, the mind, the nature of the world we are embedded in, how thoughts are triggered, how actions are triggered, how our habit patterns evolve.

    Right View is seeing things as they really are. It is not accepting an orthodox set of unexamined beliefs. This gives Buddhism one of its startling properties. The skilled potter has to work with the conditions at hand: he must not pretend he has clay when he is out of it, he must not pretend his clay is other than it is or that the temperature of his kiln is not five degrees above what the knob says. Pretending will lead to unanticipated results. So it is with the Buddhist practitioner. This gets Buddhism into trouble with the outside world, where it has gained a reputation as pessimistic, focusing on such things as suffering, on sickness, old age and death. The Buddha even recommended the practice of observing corpses in various stages of decay. These are all the things we prefer to turn away from, yet these are realities, and it is advisable not to fashion a life out of what is not real.

    This is not to say Buddhism has no doctrine. Buddhism provides many pointers and many observations that highlight particular things as they are and makes many statements about what you should discover there. Buddhism points to impermanence, suffering and absence of self as characteristics of existence and correlates suffering with clinging or aversion. Clinging and aversion arise from false views, particularly a false conception of the self, which then cannot keep pace with an ever-changing world. Tendencies to clinging, aversion, wrong view, and hence suffering are unskillful aspects of a personality that can be mitigated and eventually disappear altogether through skillful action in the present. Skillful action is related to the purity of one’s intentions. Buddhism also introduces the notion, often controversial in the West, that the process of shaping one’s life continues right past the end of this life an into another. These all become objects for contemplation and personal observation.

    In the beginning many Buddhist views are obscure and complex, and therefore not immediately verified in one’s own experience. Although verification in one’s own experience is always encouraged, i.e., blind faith is discouraged, and verification leads to greater confidence in Right View, it is important from the beginning that one be ready to accept Buddhist views with and open mind and an open heart, as working assumptions. Too much skepticism will inhibit coming to terms with the parts of things as they are that Buddhist doctrine points to. A degree of faith is necessary in this and in all aspects of life, because of the incessant gap between the little we know and the great deal that we need to know just to function in the world. Even in the training of a scientist one taught particular viewpoints, but then invited to challenge these viewpoints if they seem untenable. So it is in Buddhism. Right View comes right at the beginning of the Eightfold Path because we need to begin our practice within the framework of Buddhist understanding. However we never step beyond Right View as a critical concern for the Buddhist practitioner. Right View will deepen with the remaining practices of the Eightfold Path, and in fact deep penetrating insight into the way things are is often regarded as the culmination of the Eightfold Path.

    So far I’ve been presenting Right View as a doctrinal or conceptual understanding. That does not go far enough. First of all a conceptual understanding has a way of staying in our heads without really changing our attitudes and behaviors. Think of the physicist who during the day inhabits a world in which nothing is substantial, everything is strings or particles that can instantaneously disappear from one place and appear in another, then goes home to play with the kids and the dog as if it were not the same reality; nothing has carried over. Sometimes we experience an “Aha!” moment in which our already clear conceptual understanding moves into something deeper, a recognition that this really IS the Way Things Are. The word collectively had such a moment of insight when one of the astronauts in the Apollo 8 mission to orbit around the moon took a picture of a half-earth against a lunar foreground. We all knew what to expect, but what we viewed was surprising anyway, we were surprised that what we already knew really was true! Buddhism encourages this kind of deepening of insight.

    But Right View goes even deeper; eventually extending beyond the limits of conceptual understanding., the limits of what we can wrap actual words around. Consider that most of the knowledge of a good potter comes from actually working with the clay, it is in his fingers not in his head. An apprentice potter does well to listen carefully to his master, to remember what he says about the variety of clays, what happens to clay at different baking temperatures and so on. But the apprentice will continue to gain insight, often inexpressible insight, far beyond those instructions. So it is with the Buddhist practitioner. The genius of Zen Buddhism is that it has a language, partly poetic, partly conceptual, but also comfortable with the contradictions that arise between the concepts, that can accompany the Buddhist apprentice a bit further in gaining insight into how things really are.

    I suggest that, on this Uposatha Day, this day of the new moon, you do a little Web surfing. Follow some of the links I’ve put at the bottom of the Dhamma page and get an idea of the range of Buddhist teachings. These Upodatha Day postings are of course themselves intended as an entry into those teachings.

    For extra credit, consider this question: Do moon Buddhists have an Uposatha Day at the same time that Earth Buddhists do, if moon Buddhists use the phases of the Earth as the determinant? (Warning: trick answer)


  • Uposatha Day Teaching

    Noble Eightfold Path, Introduction

    Recall that every Uposatha Day, traditionally a day for connecting with Buddhist practice, I am posting a short teaching, and that today I begin a series of short teachings on the Noble Eightfold Path.

    Buddhism is about the Perfection of Character. The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddha’s instructions or how to do this. According to the earliest accounts it was the very first thing the Buddha taught after attaining Enlightenment.

    Actually in declaring perfection of character as the function of the Noble Eightfold Path I am being a little vaguer than the Buddha. The Buddha, after unfolding the Eightfold Path then embedded it as the last of the Four Noble Truths: (1) There is suffering (dissatisfaction). (2) Suffering is caused by clinging. (3) This means there is a means to free ourselves from suffering. (4) The Noble Eightfold Path is that means. The Buddha was a master at matching his words to his audience. The problem is that most Westerners are initially perplexed by the Four Noble Truths and particularly have trouble finding any possible relevance of (4) to (1)-(3). For instance, (4) makes no mention of suffering or clinging. So let me try some different words.

    “Perfection of Character” is deliberately vague, but think of it as being a joyful and benevolent presence in the world. It is good to leave it vague at this point because our idea of what a perfected character is will change as we travel the highly introspective Eightfold Path. But let me now describe it as a kind of craft, the skill of living one’s life joyfully and benevolently. This provides apt analogies with other crafts.

    Take the craft of making pottery and imagine that you are with a group of people, each of which is given a big lump of clay and access to the tools of the craft, the potter’s wheel, a kiln and other tools. Chances are you will be able to craft something, an off-center plate, a snake with a frog and a mouse in different stages of digestion, a teapot whose lid does not fit, etc., but you will probably not be satisfied with the results. You might look around and cannot find anyone else who seems to have a better idea of what they are doing, so you get frustrated and look for distractions,  start a clay fights or so on. Someone might come in and sell you more or better clay as if that were the root of your dissatisfaction, but that just gives you more material to be dissatisfied about. If you are really lucky you will be near someone who happens to be skilled in this medium, providing a good example or even instructions. You will then improve your skills and produce more satisfying results. Your skills will be found (1) in what you understand, for instance, about the properties of clay, about your tools and about what are desirable results; (2) in what you do, for instance, the sequence of steps you have learned in the process and the technique for centering clay on the potter’s wheel; and (3) in what mental factors you bring to bear on the task, for instance, mindfulness and concentration (maybe you will have learned that you cannot watch TV while crafting an urn). Significantly, as you become more atuned to the medium and the task, your sense of what the perfect pot might be will become more refined.

    What we do in Buddhism is the same as what the potter does, except it is our characters, our lives that we are shaping. Uninstructed and without a good example you don’t have a clear idea what to do with this lump of life. You try different things and end up distracted. The Buddha once described good spiritual friends (kalyanamitta) as the “Whole of the spiritual life.” From them you learn that life is a matter of skill and we begin to pick up the skill involved. Notice how normative this all is. Before we talk about skill we are already assuming that there is such thing as a Right Result and a Wrong Result, that there is a Right Way to do things and a Wrong Way. This is not the way many people in the West think of Buddhism (“You’re just being like dualistic, man.”) In fact Buddhism is profoundly ethical at every stage, but ethics is not a matter of some invisible forces of Good and Evil, it is a matter of what is skillful (kusala) and unskillful(akusala) and those are within yourself and trainable. The Master List of skills in the Buddhist path is the Noble Eightfold Path:

    1. Right View,
    2. Right Intention,
    3. Right Action,
    4. Right Speech,
    5. Right Livelihood,
    6. Right Effort,
    7. RightMindfulness and
    8. Right Concentration.

    In each case “Right” expresses the normative nature of a skill.  And, as for the potter, these skills fall in three main groups; these define what we call the Three Trainings. First, Wisdom (pannya) is what the Buddhist practioner understands, and it consists of
    Right View and Right Intention. Second, Conduct (sila) is what the Buddhist does, and it consists of Right Action, Right Speech and Right Livelihood. Third, Cultivation of Mind is the set of mental factors brought to bear in life’s tasks, and it consists of Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

    I suggest that, on this Uposatha Day, this day of the last quarter moon, you reflect on this lump of life before you. What is its shape and what shape would you like to give it? What do you know about the nature of character, what forces are at play? How do you conduct your life, beneficially for yourself and others? Where is your mind at, is it unwieldy, scattered, or is it a precise instrument ready to fulfil its purpose. What would it take to craft something exquisite of your life?

  • Uposatha Dhamma

    Uposatha, a Pali word,  is often translated as “Sabbath.” In Buddhist lands this traditionally follows the phases of the moon such that every time the moon is either full, empty (new), or half way in between (first or last quarter) we get an uposatha day. That is pretty cool in itself, but wait til you hear what Uposatha days are for! Anyway, they are generally seven days apart but sometimes six or eight.

    Uposatha days are normally in Asia times for special Buddhist observances. Lay people will often spend the day at a monastery communing with monks or nuns, meditating, chanting,generally listening to a Dharma talk, offering to the Buddha or to the Sangha, and will also take eight or so monastic-style precepts for the day. Monks and nuns recite the Patimokkha every other Uposatha day, on full and new moon days, the hundreds of rules that they follow every day. This is pretty cool, but wait til you hear what you get to do on Uposatha days! Anyway, in Burma Uposatha days are like weekends; people do not have to go to work so that they are free for Buddhist observances.

    On Uposatha days I am going to start making a regular posting to this blog, called Uposatha Dhamma. Each of these short postings will briefly discuss some aspect of Buddhist practice that you can touch in your daily life. These will not be essays (most of this site is devoted to essays), but enough words to inspire reflection throughout the week. And discussion… you are invited to post comments with questions, elaborations, personal experiences, and so on. And who are you? You are either a neophyte or a master. Starting simple, I hope the discussion then acquires some depth.

    I intend to start with the folds of the Noble Eightfold Path (Right View, Right Intention, Right Action, Right Speech, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness. Right Concentration). In the future we might take up the Refuges (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha), the Brahmaviharas (Lovingkindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity), and so on. Like walking on a misty day, you should quickly find yourself saturated with the Buddha’s teaching, … except maybe in a year, it will take longer than a day.

    For each of the topics I thought I would find some short optional reading, on-line. Here is the first text: The Noble Eightfold Path by Bhikkhu Bodhi. I’ll try not to depend on the text too strictly.

    The teachings will be what, as far as anyone can tell, original teachings of the Buddha. The two great inspirations in my own Buddhist career have been the Buddha and Thirteenth Century Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dogen. Of the two, the Buddha is clearly the more approachable, and the more systematic. Dogen can be quite inspiring and profound but also more than a bit obscure. I will also steer clear of Nagarjuna, the Mahayana Sutras and the Abhidharma. Just straight Buddha.

    I invite people to comment freely, starting with this post. What would you like from this blog? (As of now there are only nine subscribers, so the comments may be sparse for a while. Subscribe!)