Wednesday, November 09, 2005

The Eightfold Path

As I mentioned a few days ago, I've been in a bit of an emotional funk lately. I'm feeling quite a bit better now, and revisiting some thoughts brought up a few weeks ago at a Zen meditation class was very helpful. Specifically, it deals with the Eightfold Path of Buddhism. To quote a web site, The Eightfold Path "is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things." Freeing the individual from attachments and delusions? That's exactly what I need.

The eight aspects of the path are:

I. Right View
II. Right Intention or Thought
III. Right Speech
IV. Right Behavior or Action
V. Right Livelihood
VI. Right Effort
VII. Right Mindfulness
VIII. Right Concentration

While I could comment on each of the above aspects, I would end up mostly just copying words that others had written, so instead, I will just point out this source for a more detailed description of the above. If you are at all interested, I'd highly recommend reading more about this.