Eight Fold Path

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Tom Smith, modified 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 1:17 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 1:17 PM

Eight Fold Path

Posts: 140 Join Date: 2/17/10 Recent Posts
I'm reading over the Eightfold path in Goldstein's "The Experience of Insight". I'm having lots of thoughts and questions about this. I'll start with just one.

Why does Mindfulness(7) come before Concentration(8). Normally it is talked about the other way around. Is the order of the steps in the Eightfold path significant?
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Eran G, modified 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 2:33 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 2:33 PM

RE: Eight Fold Path

Posts: 182 Join Date: 1/5/10 Recent Posts
Hey Tom,

Check out what Bikkhu Bodhi has to say about the Eightfold path, you might find this helpful:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/waytoend.html

Eran.
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Tom Smith, modified 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 3:40 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 3:40 PM

RE: Eight Fold Path

Posts: 140 Join Date: 2/17/10 Recent Posts
Thanks for the link. Bikkhu Bodhi says:

The eight factors of the Noble Eightfold Path are not steps to be followed in sequence, one after another. They can be more aptly described as components rather than as steps, comparable to the intertwining strands of a single cable that requires the contributions of all the strands for maximum strength.


So that answers one of my questions.
J Adam G, modified 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 4:53 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 4:53 PM

RE: Eight Fold Path

Posts: 286 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
Every element assists in the development of every other one.

Mindfulness is essential to concentration. Why? You need to be mindful of what your attention is doing. If you want to do shamatha practice, but your mind is wandering away from the breath because of distracting thoughts, then you're experiencing one of the normal stages in the development of shamatha proficiency. However, to progress past this stage, your mindfulness must build to the point where it sees the thoughts happening and realizes that they are undesirable before they take you too far off track. You'll then be able to redirect the attention onto the breath. As mindfulness grows stronger, it can see the stirring of the mind that occurs right before you have a distracting thought, and the process can be halted then.
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Eran G, modified 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 4:54 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 3/15/10 4:54 PM

RE: Eight Fold Path

Posts: 182 Join Date: 1/5/10 Recent Posts
Right concentration has as its support right mindfulness and right effort (and also most or all the other components of the path), I guess that could be one reason why right mindfulness precedes right concentration in the path.

"Now what, monks, is noble right concentration with its supports & requisite conditions? Any singleness of mind equipped with these seven factors — right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, & right mindfulness — is called noble right concentration with its supports & requisite conditions." MN 117

Also in the suttas it seems that insight usually comes from attaining jhana which is a part of right concentration. That would seem to imply that right concentration contains in it the way to reach the end of the path so it would make sense to place it last. Of course the end result of right concentration is Wisdom (right view and right intention) so it seems that those two should be at the end of the path, right? But right view and right intention at _some_ level are required to even get started and so they are placed right at the beginning of the path even though they are what we gain from right concentration.

PS. the above is my current understandings and readings and is not based on the personal experience of one who has attained right view.

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