The Eightfold Path, Introduction

I have a tendency to overcomplicate things (sound familiar?). I think I have said in this blog before that this excessive complication is a way of making myself feel important: since I am such a deep, complex, multifaceted being, the explanations of my behaviors and instructions for the way to happiness in my life must be correspondingly complex, n'est-ce pas?

But when I go back to the Buddha's teachings, what I find again and again is the fact that the Buddha was very clear about the fact that he was teaching only two things: suffering and the end of suffering. Furthermore, all of the complicated ritual, commentary and intricacy (not to mention the divisions, schools, and disagreements) of what has become modern Buddhism is entirely the invention of us complicated humans believing that we must make of a simple message something far more intellectually rigorous and meritorious than was even intended by the man who taught it.

Because what the Buddha said was this and nothing else (all the rest is only further explanation, elucidation or, often, obfuscation): suffering is an outgrowth of our experience as filtered through expectations and suppositions. It is possible to end suffering. The way to end suffering is to follow a simple path. This path is known as the Noble Eightfold Path, though I tend to the opinion that the Noble part is another complication, a way of making us feel self-important as we follow it. So let's just call it the Eightfold Path.

Just as with the rest of the teachings, the Eightfold Path is unambiguous. Which is not to say it is not open to interpretation, but it does not allow for deviations; it says what it says. One may choose not to follow the path, but to circumvent it and claim to still be on it is a form of dishonesty with oneself. At the risk of being redundant, I will say again (if only because I need to hear it) that this is the path to the end of suffering and there is no other.

It's important to remember that the Buddha was not prescriptive ("thou shalt") in his teachings but descriptive ("thus have I seen"). He did not think one ought to follow the Eightfold Path. He merely said that it was possible to reach the end of suffering and that this was the way he had found. He believed (or so it seems to me) that all beings who have reached the end of suffering have in some way or another found this same path, not because they all thought about it really hard and came to the same conclusions (this won't work, so you might as well give up now), but because it is as natural as the opening of a flower and, given the correct conditions, just as inevitable.

So I want to go back to basics and take another look at the Eightfold Path to see where exactly it directs me. For the moment I want to drop all the ornamentation of the lotus and see the lotus itself for what it is, to the best of my ability.

By the way, I will be using as my reference for this exploration the wonderful book In This Very Life, by Sayadaw U Pandita. Well worth a read if you are curious about the basis of Buddhist teaching and thought.

The next part of this discussion is here.