The Buddha Was a Psychologist by Arnold Kozak

Author:Arnold Kozak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LEXINGTON BOOKS

Chapter 6

The Fourth Ennobling Praxis

Resolving the Problem

The Buddha declared his fourth proposition: “The Truth of the Path: This, O Monks, is the Truth of the Path (Magga) which leads to the cessation of suffering. It is this Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of (1) Right View, (2) Right Resolve, (3) Right Speech, (4), Right Action, (5) Right Livelihood, (6) Right Effort, (7) Right Mindfulness, (8) Right Meditation” (Keown 1996, 54).

For our patient to be cured, she must follow a treatment plan; she must take her medicine as prescribed. This therapeutic is provided by the fourth ennobling praxis: “The Eightfold1 Path is thus a path of self-transformation: an intellectual, emotional, and moral restructuring in which a person is reoriented from selfish, limited objectives towards a horizon of possibilities and opportunities for fulfillment” (Keown 1996, 56). Three categories comprise the path: wisdom (prajna), morality/ethics (sila), and meditation (samahdi). Each category supports and is necessary for the other like a three-legged stool. The Eightfold Path can be viewed synergistically with each component interacting with every other; they are not discreet and independent (Batchelor 2015).

The eight items of the fourth ennobling praxis are all preceded with the term samma—traditionally translated as “right.” Analayo (2018a) suggests that “toward one point” or “connected in one” might be more accurate translations. “True” can also work in the sense that a wheel that is true is not bent, which works nicely with the broken axle or bad wheel of the Buddha’s dukkha metaphor. While preferable to “right,” “true” has epistemological connotations that might be distracting. Batchelor translates samma as “complete,” which has fewer moral implications. The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English dictionary defines samma as “harmony or completeness.” Sammata, which is derived from samma, can refer to “correctness” or “rightness.” This is, perhaps, the source of the confusion. Whatever the preferred term, each of these eight elements requires mastery. Perhaps, then, “integral” might be preferable since “right” connotes right and wrong, whereas integral has a more pragmatic feel. Similarly, I prefer a sense of “wholeheartedness” toward each of them, which seems consistent with Batchelor’s “complete.”

For the Buddha, there was skillfulness or unskillfulness and instances of the latter were occasions for self-improvement rather than condemnation: “For he who acknowledges his transgression as such and confesses it for the betterment in the future will grow in the noble (ariyan) discipline” (Batchelor 2015, 227). The response to unskillfulness is not shaming oneself, penitence, or other deprivation but, rather, learning, accommodation, and betterment in the context of commitment to the path.

In short, 1) wisdom entails understanding the three marks of existence—dukkha, impermanence, and not self (view) and 2) a commitment to working on integrating that intellectual understanding so that it is experiential (resolve). To be resolved requires not only cultivating clear understanding of how things works but dedicating oneself to behaving in a conducive manner (speech, action, livelihood) and devoting some of those behaviors to systematic and disciplined introspective study of oneself (effort, mindfulness, concentration). Wisdom facilitates ethics because one knows that acting unskillfully is futile.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.