We have been going through Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend. We have seen that Nagarjuna, in writing this letter to a king, first, gives some general advice about the main points of the path and, then, presents the path, according to Mipham’s commentary, in terms of the six far-reaching attitudes.
One of the things that I think is quite interesting about this text is that, although one would like to classify it as a Mahayana text, the only reason, perhaps, for specifically classifying it as a Mahayana text are the very last verses that have a dedication that seems to be a dedication to enlightenment. But even that is a little bit questionable. Still, I think that it probably is because it mentions Amitabha in his Buddha-field. So, I think that indicates that it is being dedicated to enlightenment.
But there isn’t anything exclusively Mahayana that is discussed in this text. Even its discussion of voidness focuses on the voidness of persons, which could be understood purely in a Hinayana way. And when it speaks about the causes of the aggregates – although, according to one commentary, we could understand this as an analysis of the voidness of cause and effect – this, again, could be understood as saying that the aggregates come through the twelve links, given that that is the conclusion of the verse that discusses the causes of the aggregates. So, this text seems to fall into a general presentation of what is common between the Hinayana and Mahayana paths.
Now, the thirty-seven factors that one practices with the five pathway minds to reach enlightenment, starting with the four close placements of mindfulness and including what we will be discussing here, namely, the eightfold path, or eight branches of an arya pathway mind – all of that is practiced in common by shravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas, in other words, those following a Hinayana path to liberation or a Mahayana path to enlightenment. So, I think that this text falls in an earlier phase of the history of Buddhism in which, like in Theravada and many of the other traditions (these divisions of Hinayana), they do present a bodhisattva pathway to enlightenment, although they don’t outline very different practices for achieving either liberation or enlightenment. The difference between the path to liberation and the path to enlightenment is just a matter of how much positive force you build up.
I think that this text fits within the context of that general type of presentation also because the far-reaching attitudes is something that you have in Hinayana. Also, the four immeasurable attitudes – love, compassion, etc. – those as well, you have in Hinayana. There is nothing exclusively Mahayana here. And I think that that is a helpful thing to keep in mind – that, really, what differentiates the Hinayana from the Mahayana paths is bodhichitta.
What also differentiates it is the understanding of voidness. The understanding of voidness, according to the Prasangika presentation, is the same understanding both for gaining liberation and for gaining enlightenment. In Chittamatra or Svatantrika, it is not the same understanding. The understanding for gaining liberation or enlightenment in Hinayana is based on their own presentation of the absence of an impossible soul of a person, which can be either doctrinally based (a self that is static, monolithic, and separate from the aggregates) or automatically arising (a self-sufficiently knowable self that is separate from the aggregates – a body and mind – appearing). So, in Hinayana, that understanding is sufficient for gaining either liberation or enlightenment. It’s just that to gain enlightenment, you have to have more positive force. In Prasangika, on the other hand, you need to understand the absence of truly established existence the way that it’s defined in Prasangika, which is that the understanding of the absence of truly established existence applies both to persons and to all phenomena.
Anyway, we saw that the major part of the text, according to Mipham’s outline, can be divided according to the six far-reaching attitudes. The discussion of the far-reaching discriminating awareness presents that in terms of the three higher trainings. And the higher training of the discriminating awareness is presented on two levels. It speaks about the understanding needed for gaining liberation and the understanding needed for setting out toward enlightenment.
In the presentation of setting out toward enlightenment (although it is said like that in the outline, it doesn’t specify that in the text), what it does is to present the divisions of that, which are the true seeing pathway mind and the true accustoming pathway mind – in other words, a path of seeing and path of meditation. And it presents them in terms of what is asserted in common to achieve either liberation or enlightenment.
We have covered the presentation of the true seeing pathway mind, and you recall that that emphasized the twelve links of dependent arising.
In the verses that follow, we have the presentation of the true accustoming pathway mind (the path of meditation). This is covered in Verse 113.
Verse 113: The Eight Branches of an Accustoming Pathway Mind (the Eightfold Noble Path)
[113] Right view and livelihood and effort, mindfulness and absorbed concentration, speech and boundary of actions, and right thought are the eight branches of a pathway mind: you need to meditate on them for the sake of bringing yourself the peace (of nirvana).
So, that refers to liberation or enlightenment.
Now, the eight branches of an arya pathway mind, what is often called the “Eightfold Noble Path,” are eight aspects, or features, of an accustoming pathway mind (a path of meditation). That is the presentation of them. There is a presentation of them in terms of what ordinary beings could practice, but in Mahayana, that is not the emphasis at all. The emphasis is on these eight as part of the thirty-seven branches leading to a purified state of liberation or enlightenment. They refer to the accustoming pathway mind.
So, let’s go through these.
Right View
The first branch is right view. The focus here is on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and the selflessness, or voidness, of an impossible soul of persons who would understand that. If we do the Mahayana version of these, we would also include the voidness of all phenomena. So, this right view refers to a correct realization of these aspects, which an arya maintains during the subsequent attainment periods.
When we speak of arya… well, it is not just with arya pathway minds; it is also with the applying pathway of mind that we have this division between total absorption and subsequent attainment. That is called by Jeffrey Hopkins, “meditative equipoise” and “post meditation.” What does that refer to? It refers to states of mind that have combined shamatha and vipashyana. A stilled and settled state of mind – that’s shamatha. It’s with perfect concentration and is an exceptionally perceptive state of mind that has in addition to it the state of fitness of being able not just to focus on anything and to stay there but to understand anything in all details, to see very, very clearly.
With that state, when you attain that, you get the second pathway mind, the applying pathway mind. With the applying pathway mind, you can focus conceptually, and with the seeing, or accustoming pathway mind (the path of seeing or meditation), you can focus non-conceptually. So, what do you focus it on? You focus it on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and the voidness of the person meditating on them and the phenomena discussed in them.
So, either you have total absorption on these aspects, which is full concentration etc., or you have, subsequent to that (so, you may or may not still be in meditation) the subsequent attainment. When in total absorption, you are focusing on space-like voidness: no such thing as an impossible soul of persons or impossible ways of existing of phenomena, etc. And when in the subsequent attainment, you are seeing that everything is like an illusion.
Now, right view is what you have during the subsequent attainment. It is like a footprint, it is said, that is left by an arya’s previous non-conceptual cognition of these points with the total absorption of a seeing pathway mind. So, this gets confusing. Actually, this refers to what you have in the subsequent attainment phase when you are focusing on everything being like an illusion, or you are walking around just doing normal things. That is with the seeing pathway mind. What does it do? It cuts off indecisive wavering concerning these sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and the two types of voidness – that of persons and of phenomena. So, it cuts off all indecisive wavering.
Indecisive wavering only has a doctrinally based form. So, it is not talking about being indecisive about what I should have for supper or what I should wear today. It’s not that type of indecisive wavering, although one could understand it in that more general way. Here, the indecisive wavering is about voidness and about these sixteen aspects: “Is there a true suffering? Is there not a true suffering?” and so on. It is doctrinally based because it is based on teachings about these points that you haven’t understood. So, you’re wavering: is it true, is it not true; does it mean, this does it mean that? It is only doctrinally based; there isn’t an automatically arising form of this. And it is something that a seeing pathway mind gets rid of because the seeing pathway mind, which is when you have the first non-conceptual cognition of all of this, gets rid of the doctrinally based forms of all disturbing states of mind.
Right view is included in these eight branches, which are features of an accustoming pathway of mind, because it says… now, I’m following this in Tsongkhapa’s commentary on Abhisamayalamkara (Maitreya’s Filigree of Realizations), his text called A Golden Rosary of Excellent Explanations. In it, he explains that, with this right view, an arya gains the ability to develop an accustoming pathway mind. So, because of that, and although it is a seeing pathway mind, it is included in an aspect of accustoming pathway mind. Well, this is a big technical detail. However, if you want a thorough explanation of all of this, that’s it.
Participant: Does it mean that this path of seeing is just a very short period – that it’s just then that you get this direct perception of emptiness?
Dr. Berzin: Well, I don’t know, actually. I think there are different ways of going through these…
Participant: Then the accustoming starts.
Dr. Berzin: Right, then the accustoming pathway starts.
With the seeing pathway mind you first see these sixteen aspects non-conceptually. This seeing pathway is divided into sixteen phases through which you counter and eliminate the doctrinally based disturbing emotions.
These disturbing emotions are divided into two sets of eight:
- One set consists of the disturbing emotions that occur when your mind is on the plane of sensory desires.
- The other set consists of the disturbing emotions that occur when your mind is on one of the two higher planes — the plane of ethereal forms or the plane of formless beings.
The second set can occur even while your body remains on the plane of sensory desires, provided your mind is absorbed in one of the deep states of concentration known as the dhyānas. These are levels of concentration deeper than shamatha and can be attained only after shamatha has been achieved.
Uninterrupted Pathway Minds and Liberated Pathway Minds
Each set of eight phases contains four uninterrupted pathway minds and four liberated pathway minds. For each of the four noble truths there is a pair: one uninterrupted pathway mind and one liberated pathway mind. Thus there are four pairs of pathway minds for abandoning the doctrinally based disturbing states of mind associated with, or directed toward, the four noble truths — one pair for each truth.
The sixteen phases therefore consist first of the four pairs associated with the mind on the plane of sensory desires, and then the four pairs associated with the mind on the two higher planes. Four pairs make eight phases, and two sets of eight make sixteen.
Within each set, the four pairs occur sequentially. In each pair, the uninterrupted pathway mind applies the non-conceptual cognition of voidness to eliminating the disturbing states of mind connected with one of the noble truths; immediately thereafter, the liberated pathway mind in that pair is free of those disturbing states.
Now, whether, like a Buddha, you go through all of that in one sitting or whether it takes quite a while – for instance, one sitting for each – I don’t really know. I think there are certainly going to be differences as to how long this seeing pathway mind will take.
Anyway, one of the doctrinally based disturbing emotions that you would get rid of would be indecisive wavering – indecisive wavering about true suffering, true causes, the true stopping of them, and the true pathway minds that lead to them. So, you are unsure – “Is it this? Is it that? Does it really work? Is this really the true cause of suffering?” etc. And you would have that with a mind that is on the plane of sensory desires or a mind that is involved in very, very deep states of concentration, one that is on the higher planes of ethereal forms or of formless beings. And the disturbing emotions that would occur in the minds on these planes are ones that are based on something that you have studied because you had to have studied either these sixteen aspects or voidness.
Now, the uninterrupted pathway mind and the liberated pathway mind – those are when you’re in total absorption. So, in the subsequent attainment, you are out of those, and you focus on everything being like an illusion if you have been doing a voidness meditation. And you can do that while still sitting in meditation. For instance, you could be meditating on bodhichitta. So, it could be something other than this total absorption on the four noble truths. More broadly, it could also be when you’re walking around and engaged in ordinary activities. So, why “post meditation” is a little bit misleading is because you can still be in meditation but meditating on other things.
And in that subsequent attainment phase, this right view has cut off all these doubts completely. So, presumably, it refers to while you are in this phase you confirm that you have cut off all these doubts by looking around, I suppose. I don’t know; I have not experienced this. But you confirm by looking around that, “Yes, I have no more doubts about it.” And this has the power for you to be able to develop the accustoming pathway mind, which is what you have when you have accustomed yourself to what you have seen non-conceptually and which allows you to start getting rid of the automatically arising disturbing emotions.
So, that is the right view.
Right Thought
Then we have right thought. Right thought is the motivating thought of an arya who wishes to explain Buddhist texts to others in accord with the right view that he or she has gained. This refers to Buddhist texts that present these sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and the two types of lack of an impossible soul, the voidness of persons and of all phenomena. Right thought also occurs during periods of subsequent attainment. So, it is the thought to teach, to explain, in accordance with that right view that you have understood.
Right Thought and Right Speech – The Branch That Thoroughly Cuts Off and the Branch That Brings Understanding
Now, right view is known as the branch that thoroughly cuts off. This is in another text that has a presentation of the eight branches as four branches. This is in Differentiating the Middle from the Extremes, by Maitreya – another one of Maitreya’s five texts. It is called “the branch that thoroughly cuts off” because an arya cuts off all indecisive wavering concerning the four noble truths and the lack of these two kinds of impossible soul. Right thought is known as “the branch that brings understanding” because, with it, an arya brings to others an understanding of the right view that he or she has realized. Well, that’s just a classification. Alright?
Right Speech
Right speech refers either to the speech of an arya that correctly explains the right view or, alternatively, to the speech of an arya that purifies away karmic impulses for destructive verbal acts such as lying.
One point needs to be clarified. Vasubandhu, Asanga, and Maitreya’s texts predate Dharmakirti and it was Dharmakirti who asserted that the deluded view of a transitory network, which grasps at the aggregates as being “me” or “mine,” accompanies both constructive and disturbing emotions, and is a type of ignorance or “misknowing.” Thus, both constructive and destructive karmic impulses are based on ignorance and need to be purified away in order to attain liberation or enlightenment. Before Dharmakirti, only destructive karmic impulses were thought to drive rebirth and prevent liberation.
So, when Maitreya’s texts explain that when you achieve liberation or enlightenment, you are purified of all karmic aftermath, that means only the destructive karmic impulses. So, you haven’t gotten rid of all of them with a seeing pathway mind. With the accustoming pathway mind, you get rid of the destructive karmic impulses so that they don’t arise again. So, here, right speech is speech that either correctly explains this right view or that purifies away karmic impulses for destructive verbal acts, which are lying, using divisive language, speaking cruel and harsh language, and idle chatter.
Right Boundary of Actions
Right boundary of actions refers to the actions of an arya to refrain from committing destructive physical acts or, alternatively, to purify away karmic impulses for destructive physical acts such as killing. So, those are similar. Either it is just refraining from committing destructive actions, or it is purifying away the karmic impulses to act destructively.
Actually, right speech, right actions and the next one, right livelihood, are not really referring to the speech or actions or livelihood. What they refer to are states of realized awareness. These are the mental states of an arya that have a strong intention to keep pure ethical discipline in terms of speech, physical actions, and a livelihood. So, they don’t actually refer to the speech itself; instead, they refer to the realized awareness – so, the mind that has the strong intention to refrain from destructive speech, destructive physical actions, and wrong livelihoods.
But then one wonders, why right speech, right actions and right livelihood are with an accustoming pathway of mind? Therefore, the explanation in Abhisamayalamkara, which is what Tsongkhapa has – namely, that they purify away the karmic impulses for these destructive things – makes a little bit better sense because by having the understanding that you have with this state of mind (the reason it is called a “realized awareness“), you get rid of the automatically arising disturbing emotions that would trigger these karmic impulses. So, it’s referring to that.
Right Livelihood
Right livelihood refers to the ways in which an arya procures the necessities of life, such as food and clothing – ways that are free from being a wrong means of livelihood. Again, this actually refers to the realized awareness that accompanies the ways in which an arya goes about procuring those things. Or as Tsongkhapa explains it, it refers to “ways of gaining a livelihood,” referring to the mind that accompanies that and “that purifies away the karmic impulses for such physical and verbal actions as are involved with a wrong livelihood.”
So, what are the wrong livelihoods? These are livelihoods that are gained by dishonest or devious means. There are five major types. They primarily refer to when monks or nuns go around seeking alms – begging for alms or donations. So, the means for getting somebody to put food in your begging bowl is primarily what it’s referring to.
- The first one is a contrived manner – which is pretending to be so holy, holy, and good when you are not. So, it is being hypocritical.
- The second means is using flattery. You say, “Oh, how nice you are. You are such a kind person” – things like that. So, you flatter them in order to give you something.
- The third way is hinting – so, giving a hint that you need something, or telling them, “Well, you gave me something before, and you were so kind before,” so, hinting that they should give you again. It’s like somebody giving you a donation once and then sending them a donation card over and over again.
- The fourth one is blackmail or extortion – “If you don’t give, I am going to tell something nasty about you,” and so on.
- Then the fifth one is bribery – giving something small to gain something larger in return. “I’ll give you a blessing string,” a protection cord or something like that, “if you give me a big donation.”
These are the five types of wrong livelihood as explained in the text. Obviously, they are motivated by disturbing emotions – greed, deception, pretense and so on. So, right livelihood refers to ways of gaining a livelihood that will purify away the karmic impulses for these wrong types of physical or verbal actions. That’s according to Tsongkhapa’s explanation.
When these three practices are done by ordinary beings (which is in the explanation of these in Differentiating the Middle from the Extremes, the eightfold path), they refer to actual physical and verbal actions and means of livelihood. But here, it is branches of a pathway mind. And a pathway mind, especially according to the Svatantrika explanation, which is the type of explanation that is given in Abhisamayalamkara (the Filigree of Realizations), is always a state of mind.
Right Speech, Right Boundary, and Right Livelihood – The Branches That Generate Confidence
Right speech, right boundary of actions, and right livelihood are known as the branches that generate confidence in others. This is going back to that text, Differentiating the Middle from the Extremes. “When others witness these three branches in aryas, it generates in them confidence in the purity of the arya’s right view,” because it explains correctly, their ethical discipline, so, they see the arya restraining from destructive behavior “and the arya’s honesty and lack of greed in procuring the necessities of life.” So, it inspires confidence in others.
Right Effort
Then we have right effort. Right effort to stay awake? No! Right effort refers to meditation on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and on the lack of the two kinds of impossible souls (of persons and of phenomena). So we are back to meditation, but it is meditation over a long period of time as an antidote to rid the mind of what an accustoming pathway mind gets rid of. In other words, it works to rid the mind of the unfavorable conditions of having the automatically arising disturbing emotions and attitudes and, if we are doing the Mahayana path, the cognitive obscurations.
So this is basically the effort that you make over long periods of time in meditation (so, this now is referring to the total absorptions). You put in a great deal of effort into that with an accustoming pathway of mind, and that acts as an antidote for the mind to get rid of whatever that accustoming pathway of mind is going to get rid of, which are the automatically arising disturbing emotions and, according to Mahayana, the cognitive obscurations as well.
Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness refers to meditation on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and on the lack of the two kinds of impossible souls as an antidote to the obscurations that prevent a joined pair of shamatha and vipashyana from being continuously manifest because of automatically arising flightiness of mind or mental dullness.
Shamatha here is referring to shamatha combined with exceptionally perceptive state of mind focused on these sixteen aspects of the four noble truths, etc. Of course, that state of mind is free of mental dullness and flightiness of mind – the mind wandering all over the place because of desire, falling asleep, getting dull or things being unclear. It’s part of the definition of a state of shamatha. However, obviously, these two main obstacles – dullness and flightiness of mind – are going to recur.
You get rid of the doctrinally based form of these with a seeing pathway of mind; so now you have to get rid of the automatically arising form of them. So, continuing to meditate over and over again on the sixteen aspects, etc. with an accustoming pathway of mind acts as an antidote for getting rid of the automatically arising mental dullness and flightiness of mind.
Such mindfulness is attained through not forgetting the reasons for having shamatha, through acceptance of one’s open admission of meditation faults, and through emotional equilibrium. So, you have to accept. “Acceptance” (rab-tu ‘dzin-pa) is the word that is used. I didn’t find an explanation for it. I could only find an explanation in the dictionaries that acceptance is this thing in a monastic assembly when the monks make confession, this open admission of their faults – that it is accepted by the assembly. So, I would assume that this means accepting – in other words, not hiding – that you have these faults of dullness and so on and of forgetting the reasons for having emotional equilibrium. Emotional equilibrium means no attachment, aversion, or indifference concerning these faults; it allows the mind to be open and fresh.
So, you think of the benefits and the reasons for attaining shamatha and having it all the time – no dullness, no flightiness of mind. “I will honestly admit when I have these faults and not be attached, like by trying too hard, not be really disgusted and put off (aversion) by this, and not be indifferent but, instead, to continue in a state of equilibrium (so, very open and so on). By continuing through this meditation, I will rid myself of the automatically arising subsidiary disturbing emotions that include dullness and flightiness. That will allow me to achieve this combined state, this joined state, of shamatha and vipashyana all the time.”
So that is right mindfulness.
Right Absorbed Concentration
Then the last one is right absorbed concentration. That refers to meditation on, again, the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths and the lack of the two kinds of impossible souls as an antidote to the obscurations that prevent the attainment of special good qualities such as the six types of advanced awareness. That’s extrasensory perception. I couldn’t find what that specifically refers to, what it specifically is that prevents the attainment of these types of advanced awareness, or extrasensory perception. You attain it in a state even slightly more concentrated than shamatha.
Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration – The Branches That Serve as Antidotes
Now, these three – right effort, right mindfulness, and right absorbed concentration – are known as the antidote branches.
- Right effort serves as an antidote to rid the mind of the disturbing emotions and attitudes that an accustoming pathway mind gets rid of, namely, the automatically arising ones. So, that is referring to the automatically arising root disturbing emotions.
- Then right mindfulness serves as an antidote to rid the mind of the auxiliary disturbing emotions and attitudes such as flightiness of mind and mental dullness that an accustoming pathway mind gets rid of. That is referring to the automatically arising form of these.
- Right absorbed concentration serves as an antidote to rid the mind of obscurations regarding total absorption. That’s a term that I could not find in any dictionary or in Tsongkhapa’s text, but His Holiness used that to explain these eight. And this is a type of obscuration, His Holiness explained, that is not included as either an emotional obscuration or a cognitive obscuration, but it would be implicitly included as a cognitive obscuration because it interferes with the attainment of omniscience. Emotional obscurations are the disturbing states of mind, and the cognitive obscurations are what prevents you from being an omniscient Buddha. So, these obstacles that prevent extra sensory perception implicitly would fall into the obscurations preventing omniscience.
So, that is the explanation of this eightfold noble path, the eight branches of an arya pathway mind (referring to the specific Mahayana explanation of them), in conjunction with an accustoming pathway mind.
The Eight Branches as Practiced by Ordinary Beings
Now, these eight can also be explained as practices for ordinary beings that are similar in nature to these eight features of an accustoming pathway of mind. They are classified in the context of the three higher trainings.
By the way, are there any questions about what I have explained so far? It is fairly technical, but that’s what it really is referring to – these eight.
More frequently, you get the explanation of the eight with reference to ordinary beings, particularly in Theravada, they put a big emphasis on that. But in Theravada as well, the eight are part of the thirty-seven facets leading to liberation, and that would be their primary meaning. But they seem to emphasize this way of explaining much more in Hinayana in terms of practices for ordinary beings and explaining the eight in terms of that.
So, what does this refer to?
Right View and Right Thought Are Part of the Training in Higher Discriminating Awareness
Right view and right thought are part of the training in higher discriminating awareness. So, right view… I am following here His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s explanation; this is not in Tsongkhapa’s text. Right view is having an understanding that is similar to the understanding of the four noble truths – in other words, an understanding of problems and suffering, of their causes, of the states of mind and modes of behavior that will eliminate them, and understanding that there’s the potential to attain liberation from them. In other words, you don’t have to have a perfect state of combined shamatha and vipashyana to focus on these four.
So, we think of our problems – whatever level of problem they might be. We understand that their causes are our unawareness and disturbing emotions, etc. We have confidence that what’ll get rid of those things are having a correct understanding of voidness, getting rid of the disturbing emotions and understanding that it is actually possible to do so. That would be a right view of an ordinary person.
Right thought is cultivating good intentions marked by benevolence (that’s the state of mind of wishing to help others, to benefit others), not being cruel (that’s what is usually translated as “nonviolence” or “non-cruelty”), and emotional equilibrium – what we had before: good intentions to help others without wanting something from somebody, rejecting them or being indifferent to them, ignoring them. So that is right thought. These two are included in the training of higher discriminating awareness.
Right Speech, Right Boundary of Actions, Right Livelihood Are Part of the Training in Higher Ethical Discipline
Included as part of the training in higher ethical discipline are right speech, right boundaries of action, and right livelihood.
Right speech is speaking while refraining from the four destructive verbal actions: lying, speaking divisively, using harsh language, and speaking idle words. So, it’s basically restraining from the four destructive actions of speech. It can also entail what is considered constructive speech.
Constructive speech would be just refraining from these because you see the disadvantages, and refraining from it when you want to do it – so, when you want to lie, you think, “No, no. That will cause suffering,” and you don’t lie. But also, there are the special constructive actions, which are more positive formulations. This would be to speak honestly rather than lying, to speak in a manner that fosters harmony rather than make division, to speak gently and kindly rather than with harsh words and cruel words, and to speak at the proper time and the proper measure and meaningfully rather than engaging in idle chatter that interrupts everybody, etc.
Right boundaries of action are actions of the body of refraining from the three destructive physical actions: taking life, taking what it has not been given, and inappropriate sexual behavior.
I have been really working very hard on the term that we want to use for destructive sexual behavior. Usually, it is called “sexual misconduct.” I sometimes was translating it as “unwise sexual behavior.” The literal term is “distorted sexual behavior,” which you could horribly translate as “perverted sexual behavior.” This is no good. It’s “unorthodox sexual behavior” and hinders the attainment of liberation. All sexual behavior, as was drummed into me this summer when I was asking questions about it in India, is destructive because it is based on the disturbing emotion of desire. Even if it is not causally motivated by desire – like showing love to somebody or whatever – contemporaneously (at the actual time of doing it), there is longing desire; otherwise, you couldn’t be able to do it. So, it is destructive.
Now, when you want to gain liberation from samsara, you have to get rid of all longing desire, which means you have to get rid of biology and sexual behavior. That’s why you have novice and full monk and nuns’ vows. So, if you are on the way to that and you want to start exercising self-control over your sexual behavior, you would refrain from what are called inappropriate types of sexual behavior. The way it is defined is simply as what is considered “orthodox” sexual behavior the missionary position with your heterosexual spouse – period. Now, that could be rather a large boundary for many people because it excludes homosexuality, it excludes masturbation, it excludes oral sex, it excludes all sorts of things. It even excludes sex during the day.
Now, to speak about lay vows – one of the lay vows is to give up all unorthodox sexual behavior because it’s not conducive for gaining liberation. So, either you take the full vow, or you don’t take the vow at all. Nobody is forcing you to take the vow. You can take four of the five vows; you don’t have to take all five vows. And if you want to set a boundary for yourself that is a little bit looser than the vow – that’s great. The point is to start setting some boundaries, to start exercising some self-control, so that you don’t just act on any impulse of sexual desire.
According to the Vaibhashika presentation of vows as non-revealing forms, which are these subtle vibrations on your mental continuum, there are the what are called “vows” to do something constructive, which actually means to restrain yourself from doing something negative – so, a vow is a vowed restraint; and there is what is called an avowed non-restraint,“ which is like an anti-vow” in that you vow not to avoid something that is destructive, like joining the slaughters’ guild and vowing to kill sheep, or you enter the army and vow that you are going to shoot to kill. Or you join a band of thieves, vowing that you are going to go out and steal. So, this is like an anti-vow.
Then there is something that is in between, which is a strong intention to refrain from things, such as refraining from certain forms of unorthodox sexual behavior but not all of them. This is what was explained to me by Geshe Tenzin Zangpo and Geshe Wangchen as being a solution for those who are not ready to take the full lay vow concerning unorthodox sexual behavior. And that’s perfectly fine. I think that like that, one can sit comfortably with the explanations that are given in all the texts of what is unorthodox sexual behavior.
So constructive physical behavior includes preserving life rather than taking life, safeguarding others’ possessions rather than stealing them, and engaging only in orthodox sexual behavior.
Right livelihood refers to earning a living with an occupation that does not entail harming others. Harmful livelihoods include manufacturing or dealing in weapons, slaughtering animals, fishing, hunting, making or selling alcohol or intoxicating substances, operating a gambling casino, and so forth. So, being a bartender is out. And by contrast, right livelihoods entail occupations that are honest and that benefit society.
Participant: Fishing?
Dr. Berzin: Fishing? Well, that kills things.
So, what benefits society? Being a doctor, I suppose being a farmer (even though inevitably it entails killing insects), being a social worker, and engaging in regular commerce in a fair and honest way.
So, those are part of the training in higher ethical discipline.
Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Absorbed Concentration Are Part of the Training in Higher Absorbed Concentration
Then, finally, included as part of the training in higher absorbed concentration are right effort, right mindfulness, and right absorbed concentration.
Right effort is effort to direct your energies away from harmful destructive thoughts and to direct them instead toward the development of beneficial qualities. So, rather than using your energies to do something destructive, something that is harmful, you use your energies to develop beneficial, positive qualities.
Right mindfulness refers to the four close placements of mindfulness on the body, feelings of levels of happiness, the mind, and phenomena. We had a long explanation of that before, but basically it is to be aware in a Mahayana sense of:
[1] The body as true suffering
[2] Feeling levels of happiness as an example of the true causes of suffering because, as explained with the twelve links, craving not to be parted from the feeling of happiness and craving to be separated from suffering and pain is what starts to activate throwing karma. So, feeling levels of happiness is something that you need to keep mindfulness of, to watch out not to crave after them, because they function as causes for craving to arise and so are a cause for the suffering of recurring rebirth.
[3] The mind because, in its natural state, it has true cessation, a true stopping, of disturbing emotions; it is not stained by nature.
[4] All phenomena as the true pathway mind. This refers to the various mental states and so on that we need to gain discriminating awareness.
Then right absorbed concentration involves gradually developing meditative abilities through daily meditation practice.
So, all of these refer to things that we as ordinary people can do to try to be aware of the four noble truths as best as we can
- To understand the various problems that we have in life, to look at their causes, to be aware that we can get rid of them and to see what we would need to get rid of them
- To cultivate good intentions to be kind and helpful, to be benevolent
- To refrain from destructive verbal actions
- To refrain from destructive physical actions
- Not to earn dishonest ways of livelihood, livelihoods that cause harm
- To direct our energies toward developing beneficial qualities
- To be aware of the body, feelings, etc. as examples of true sufferings and their causes, etc.
- To try, through having a daily meditation practice, to develop meditative abilities
That outlines what is standard type of practice for Buddhists in general, although it is not the major presentation of the eightfold noble path in Mahayana. “Noble path” – that’s the path of aryas; so, it is quite clear from its name that it refers to a pathway mind of an arya, specifically the accustoming pathway of mind. Nevertheless, the explanation of them for ordinary beings is very, very helpful for daily practice.
That finishes the presentation of the eight branches, which, in our outline, concerns the true accustoming pathway mind, the essence of that pathway mind – namely. the eight-branch pathway mind.
That leaves us with how that constitutes the pathway mind and their importance. We can just do that very briefly – Verses 114 and 115:
Verses 114 and 115: Summary – The Eightfold Path Is the Means to Liberation, the Four Noble Truths Are the Essence of the Path
[114] This rebirth is suffering; that which is called craving is the wide-ranging originator of that; the stopping of this is liberation; and the pathway mind for the attainment of that is eightfold: those branches of an arya’s pathway mind.
[115] With it being like that, you need always to strive for the sake of seeing the four truths of the aryas.
This is what I was just explaining in terms of the four close placements of mindfulness. Rebirth is suffering – the body that we attain with rebirth is an example of suffering. Craving is the originator of that suffering, the craving associated with the various feelings. Stopping of this is liberation – the mind in its pure state is pure of all of the disturbing emotions and karmic impulses. And the pathway mind that leads to it are these branches, the eight branches that we discussed. So, we always need to strive to understand the four truths – so, basically the four noble truths of the aryas. This is the main topic. If we want to speak about what we work on in common to attain liberation or enlightenment, it is the four noble truths.
That finishes the main part of the text. Next time, I think, we can finish the text since all that’s left is the encouragement for putting the above points into practice and then the dedication.
Any questions? Good.