THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
- Suffering arises: sorrow, dissatisfaction, stress, struggle, discontent.
- The causes of suffering are craving, aversion, jealousy, pride, and delusion.
- The end of suffering comes by letting go of the causes.
- The path to the end of suffering is the eightfold path.
THE EIGHTFOLD PATH
Right View: drsti: view, understanding, knowing how things are
- knowing the four noble truths: dissatisfaction exists; its origin is craving; struggle and suffering can end; there is a path leading to the end of suffering
- knowing that no thing or state is permanent, separate, or ultimately satisfying
- knowing the truth of karma: actions evolve into experienced results
Right Intention: samkalpa: thought, aim, resolve, aspiration, intention: renouncing the causes of suffering: clinging, ill-will, harming, etc.
Right Speech: refraining from lying, divisive speech, abusive speech, idle chatter
Right Action : karmanta: refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and other harmful actions.
Right Livelihood: abandoning dishonest livelihood and taking up right livelihood; refraining from trading in weapons, living beings, meat, intoxicants, and poison.
Right Effort abandoning the unskillful and unwholesome, cultivating the skillful and the wholesome.
Right Mindfulness: sati: remembering; awareness and clear comprehension; not clinging to sense-objects, aware, clearly comprehending the four aspects of experience:
- body (physical sensations)
- feeling-tones (like, dislike, indifference)
- mind and mental events (thoughts, emotions, images, memories, impulses)
- dharmas (objects, phenomena, the way things work)
Right Attention: samadhi: stable, non-reactive attention: cultivating stable clear attention and investigating experience deeply leads to joy, happiness, unification, and unshakeable equanimity, peace, power, and knowing-and-freedom.