The Bare Bones of the Buddha's Teaching

PROGRAM NOTE -- As of January 2008, Victor is re-writing and updating his book, starting with "The Introduction," and he invites you to be part of this process. We will indicate which chapters are new, so stay tuned.

A paragraph from each chapter is excerpted here. Click the PDF (in the right column or below) to open and read the entire chapter.

We sit on the cushion and aspire to improve, which is to say that we want to gain more peace and insight into ourselves, but we don’t really believe that we have within our own minds the capacity for complete and radical change. How many of us sit to end all delusion, to find the ultimate goal that the Buddha literally guaranteed to each of us as our birthright: the unshakable deliverance of the heart? (new)

INTRODUCTION

We are going to study what is perhaps the most complete blueprint for building a spiritual laboratory ever recorded in human history. It is called the Eightfold Path, and it is a major theme of the extraordinary dharma symphony heard by the Buddha that sacred night of his illumination. The blueprint of the Eightfold Path is so comprehensive that it does not require you to be a Buddhist: It allows you to be a Jew, a Christian, or an atheist. It speaks not only to the progeny of those people in India who sat near the Buddha, basking in the light of his truth; it also speaks across the ages to a Western culture that has developed in a profoundly different psychological direction.

The Buddha’s first insight is what he called the Noble Truth of Dukkha, or the Noble Truth of Suffering. Dukkha is also translated as “dissatisfaction” by many teachers, “pain” by others, and some translate this Pali word as “anxiety.”

The truth of the Buddha-dharma begins with a shattering insight: Suffering is as familiar to us as our heart beat. The Buddha places this truth of dukkha in front of us like an enormous boulder, and not for a moment does he try to couch his message in soft lights. This affair is a matter of life and death. (new)

THE FIRST NOBLE TRUTH

The Buddha’s first insight was his complete opening to the reality of suffering. He saw with the clear vision-eye of Dharma that suffering is not caused by some aberration of birth or circumstances. It is not caused by bad karma, nor is it something from which we can escape if we just play our cards carefully. Dukkha is hard-wired into our brains. The Buddha’s followers called this the First Noble Truth. After this first insight, he looked into the cause of suffering. We suffer because we desire - pure and simple. This became known as the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth. (new)

Theravada Buddhism elegantly lays out the progressive stages of Insight that each meditator must experience on her journey from the unreal to the Real. It is a fascinating blueprint of mental development, leading to a pivotal moment in the process of transformation: The mind begins to see. What an anticlimactic sentence! The mind begins to see Truth – things as they really are. It sees what it has relentlessly denied for so long: Every experience is impermanent; every experience occurs without a “me” in it; and every experience is ultimately unsatisfactory. (new)

THE MONK AND THE PSYCHOLOGIST

The Buddha said:

Hence, the purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring alms, honor, or fame, nor in gaining morality, concentration, or the eye of knowledge. That unshakable deliverance of the heart: that, verily, is the object of the Holy Life, that is the essence, that is the goal.

The message of the Third Noble Truth is a promise that the Buddha made to each of us at the dawning of his illumination. It is the same promise uttered by thousands of seekers who found their way home to Truth since the beginning of recorded history. Those who have opened their eyes to reality – dharma – tell us one thing over and over: Illumination is what you already are; it is your true nature. No one, not the most enlightened teacher on earth, not some great guru capable of astonishing feats, thrilling thousands of listeners and, perhaps most difficult for us to accept, not even a Divine being can give you what you already possess. Waking up is an inside job. A mother hen may try to help break through the shell from the outside, but it is indeed the little chick that has to do most of the work of breaking out. This is a dividing line between Buddhism and most of the world religions, and it can be, initially, a hard message to swallow:

No one saves us, but ourselves.
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path,
Buddhas merely teach the way.
(Paul Carus) (new)

CHAPTER FIVE -- THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH

Translated into English the Pali words describe the Fourth Noble Truth as a path (magga) of eight aspects, folds or steps…There is something mystical, even magical, about the word “path.” One might think of Robert Frost’s lovely poem The Road Not Taken. From the yellow brick road to the Tao, our hearts are lifted when we hear of a path that can lead us out of the dark forest. Even if we are not able to see it, it gives us hope when we hear that somewhere in this thicket we call “life” exists a path that will lead us to safety. (new)

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH

Zen Master Shoushan held up a bamboo stick and said, “If you call it a bamboo stick, you are clinging. If you do not call it a bamboo stick, you are ignoring.” This is the typical Zen conundrum. If our heads are stuck in discriminating consciousness - the Zen guys call it having our heads stuck in a bowl of glue - we are unable to see with our hearts. We see with the intellect. We name a thing, drop it into the memory bank, and dismiss it. The teacher says, “What is this?” and if the student says, “It’s a bamboo stick,” he may get a whack on his head from that same stick. But if the student is silent, he may also get a whack on the head. (new)

In the dawn of his illumination, the Buddha saw something about our human existence that was utterly shattering but at the same time incredibly hopeful. He saw that we live in a world governed by mechanical, impersonal processes, where everything is dependent on everything else; our thoughts, feelings and actions are not independent actions but predictable dependent reactions. One thing leads to another. It is a deeply disturbing vision of humanity proceeding through life like robots, trapped within the matrix of brain washed minds. The joke, if something so horrible can be called a joke, is that we consider ourselves relatively free and independent. We regard our interesting thoughts, feelings and theories as the original creations of our interesting minds. We dream that we are awake, and are constantly shocked by the inhumanity, war and misery of the world around us.

The matrix in our minds is the twelve nidanas. They are, in every sense of the word, a computer program that constantly functions beneath the surface of our awareness. We go to sleep each night, hopefully to recover some of the enormous energy that we blew throughout the day. Then we wake up and start the same restless cycle again. (new)

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT UNDERSTANDING - THE TWELVE NIDANAS (OVERVIEW)

What the Illumined One saw in the Twelve Nidanas was a mechanistic (not human) process that controls every living form, from an amoeba to Mozart. It is a shattering vision of humans who live like robots trapped within a matrix. We dream that we are awake, but the dream is only a delusion, and as we will shortly see, this core delusion covers consciousness as completely as a thick fog blocks out the sun’s bright rays on a gray misty morning.

Understanding avijja can be a tremendous relief to someone (like myself) who thinks that Buddhist insight depends on “being smart.” Intellect is not worth a dime in the realm of truth, but an insight into what avijja really is, can profoundly open the heart of your understanding.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT UNDERSTANDING - NIDANAS #2 to #8

Let’s review tanha’s lineage. From the “I am” sense of vinnana, which was already dipped in the dark well of avijja and shaped by the karma formation of sankhara, came this mind-body combination called nama-rupa. The mind-body developed the six sense doors (salayatana) and a capacity to make contact with the environment (phassa). Contact elicited thousands of feelings (vedana), a veritable thicket of feelings. And we got lost in that thicket. Each path we took (greed, hatred, and delusion) led us to where we now stand, at the eighth nidana of craving. In the absence of awareness, this is one hell of a mess!

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT UNDERSTANDING - NIDANAS #2 to #8

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT UNDERSTANDING - NIDANAS #9 to #12

The law of anicca teaches us that all composites (things made up of separate parts) are impermanent. For instance, “car” describes a composite of doors, windows, wheels, an engine, etc. Those parts combine to create something called “car.” The human body is made up of legs, arms, heart, lungs, brain, etc., but each of these parts, containing millions of cells, are also composites. Even the cells are composites. It goes on and on. Like a car, this vehicle called “body” is subject to the law of anicca and according to the Buddha, all composites will eventually crumble and fall apart. {This chapter also includes the Five Skandhas.}

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT THOUGHT

Focusing on the content of our thoughts and, more importantly, noticing how those thoughts literally affect our feelings - or in reverse, how our feelings affect our thoughts - can begin a sea change in psychological work. We begin to contemplate a revolutionary idea: Human beings need to take responsibility for what they think and feel. This is a radical point of view and sad to say the jury is still out on whether or not our species will survive long enough to climb onto this next rung of the evolutionary ladder. Will the universe patiently wait long enough for us to grow up and take responsibility for the world we create – the world that exists between our own two ears?

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT THOUGHT

It makes perfect sense that the Buddha made Right Speech the third step of the Eightfold Path. It is the next step in an outward movement that takes us away from ourselves. If wrong speech is the main exit off the mindfulness highway, right speech keeps us on the road. Impeccable (right) speech is a brilliant way to practice mindfulness.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT SPEECH

The foundation of Right Action and Right Livelihood sits upon the ancient ground of ahimsa, the Dharma of nonviolence. Do no harm. Ahimsa is like a touchstone. Rubbing against its fine grain reveals the gold within. Every question that we have about Right Action or Right Livelihood, at least from the Buddhist perspective, must be rubbed against ahimsa. This is not to say that a deep commitment to ahimsa will provide us with simple answers to extraordinary situations, but at least we will find ourselves pointed in the right direction.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH - RIGHT ACTION & RIGHT LIVELIHOOD

As we study the Eightfold Path, we must continually remember that we are learning a new language. Thus we begin with an attitude of humility. Instead of skipping over difficult concepts such as non-duality, anatta, anicca, dukkha or the twelve nidanas, we must work with our resistance. We must admit that our Right Understanding is only skin deep and that these truths have yet to flower and whisper their secrets to us. Thank goodness we are enduring. Now it is time to learn the language!

The Buddha’s message of freedom from suffering is “Tough Love,” pure and simple. In the seventh step of the Eightfold Path, Right Sati, he gets down to business, to the basic techniques that we need in order to move out of the content and into the process of living.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH -
RIGHT MINDFULNESS (SATI)

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH -
RIGHT CONCENTRATION (SAMADHI)

Samadhi is not an exclusively Buddhist experience any more than it belongs to the Hindu religion. It is a universal “religious,” mystical, human experience. In samadhi, some shift of consciousness occurs that takes us completely out of our normal waking experience of “me watching a world that exists outside of me.” In a state of samadhi, the separation of “me and not me” vanishes and, for a blessed moment, we experience a state of unity with the Vast. For as long as we have walked on this planet, from Stonehenge to Egypt, people have experienced samadhi. I suspect children know it intimately, that is until they are taught to believe in the outside as the only reality, or, as someone told me recently, “before the portal closes.” From then on, we begin a process of “mislaying” ourselves, as Nisargadatta puts it.

THE FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH - THE EIGHTFOLD PATH -
RIGHT CONCENTRATION (SAMADHI)

Life seems to fly by at an increasingly frenetic pace as we enter the twenty-first century. We careen through the obstacle course of our busy lives and grab whatever synopsis is available to help us “bottom line” difficult or dense material. But there is no short cut to listening to a Mozart Symphony and there are no quick and easy “Buddhist Cliff Notes” that will open us to the essence of the Buddha-dharma. One can stand back and admire a beautiful flower, but there is only one way to experience its subtle fragrance: up close and personal. Either we dedicate our time and attention to the Buddha-dharma, with an open mind and tender heart, or we do not.

CONCLUSION