Hi everyone,
Welcome to this week's discussion on Spiritual Sobriety.
I'm your host Chris McDuffie.
Today we will begin exploring Buddha's Fourth Noble Truth.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the pathway of practices suggested by Buddha to lead us to our awakening and to the end of our suffering.
The Fourth Noble Truth is also called the Eightfold Path or the Middle Way.
Remember that Buddhism is a spiritual pathway out of suffering and toward joy and happiness.
According to the Buddha,
This is accomplished when we cultivate the Eightfold Practices.
To be clear,
The Buddha suggests that we practice three objectives simultaneously throughout each day,
Living an ethical lifestyle,
Training the mind,
And cultivating wisdom.
We will spend the next several podcasts exploring each of Buddha's suggestions for ethical living found in the Eightfold Path.
Today's podcast will serve as an introduction to the Middle Path.
You may want to follow along with today's podcast using a pen and paper or,
As many of you have now done,
Devote a notebook to spiritual sobriety so that you may reflect,
Journal,
And contemplate on what you have learned.
Let's begin today's contemplative activity by drawing a balanced seesaw in the middle of your page.
Now that you have a drawn horizontal line with a triangle as the fulcrum below the middle of the line,
You now have what appears to be a balanced seesaw.
For our purposes,
Let's consider this image as grounded,
Balanced,
A state of emotional homeostasis,
Or feeling neutral.
Next,
Above the left end of the horizontal line,
Would you please write the words hedonism and attachments?
And above the right end of the line,
Would you please write the words austerity and aversions?
Before Siddhartha Gautama became enlightened 500 years before the birth of Christ,
He practiced all of the local religions and spiritual practices that were available to him with one aim,
To identify the causes of human suffering.
Gautama mastered all of these austere physically and mentally punishing practices that were based largely on starvation and likely self-flagellation.
The purposes of these spiritual practices in India were to help one master the pain of self-inflicted suffering,
To break through the pain,
Then master the pain to then rid themselves of suffering.
It is said that these austere and physically punishing practices nearly killed Gautama as he fell ill and almost starved to death.
In short,
Austerity did not lead him to any real understanding of the causes of suffering.
Let's now look at the opposite of austerity,
Hedonism and gluttony.
For those of us in recovery from addiction,
I think we can all attest that gluttony certainly did not help us end our suffering.
This is why the Buddha calls his suggestions the middle way.
He identified that neither extreme,
Austerity or hedonism brought about the end of human suffering.
Please now write the words the middle path or the eightfold path at the midpoint of your drawing directly above the fulcrum.
The eight suggestions that I will enumerate today are the Buddha's list of actions that help cultivate loving awareness and loving kindness.
To help explain these,
I'd like you to now draw an ox cart wagon wheel with its eight spokes.
Be sure to leave an open circle in the middle of the space where the axle would normally fit.
The Buddha used the wagon wheel as his metaphor and teaching aid.
Let's now number each spoke one through eight starting at the twelve o'clock or noon position going clockwise.
Write view,
Write intention,
Write speech,
Write action,
Write livelihood,
Write effort,
Write concentration and write mindfulness.
You now have a list of all eight in front of you.
The ox cart and the ship's helm with its eight handles are the two metaphors that Buddha used to teach the illiterate masses roughly 500 years before the birth of Christ.
Every farmer and every fisherman could easily remember this lesson.
The Buddha's lessons were first passed on by oral tradition and later written into the canon of Buddha's teachings that we call the sutras.
As Joseph Goldstein says,
The wheel of Buddha's teachings has been rolling for thousands of years.
I explain in some detail each of the middle way's eightfold paths in the upcoming podcasts.
I'd like to first spend a few minutes reviewing the image of the wagon wheel or the ship's helm.
You may remember that in Pali the term for suffering is dukkha and the term for peace and serenity is sukkha.
Like Buddha's teachings of the dog running in circles tied to a post not getting liberated,
So too the rolling ox cart signifies the rounds of suffering lives that we endure in this and previous lifetimes.
Remember that Buddhism grew out of Hinduism and kept the belief of reincarnation.
In Pali,
Buddha's wheel of suffering is called samsara.
Samsara may be defined as,
Quote,
The suffering-laden continuous cycle of life,
Death,
And rebirth without any beginning or end.
Whether you think of our dukkha as the running dog in circles only digging a deeper rut with each turn,
Or consider the image of living the harried rat race lifestyle,
Or when we feel like the mouse running on a treadmill yet getting nowhere,
Or we think of our daily suffering when we were mindlessly lost in our act of addictions,
We need to end this cycle of suffering.
Buddha suggests that we place ourselves in the void or the center of the axle,
Or for that matter standing outside of the image of the ox cart wagon wheel.
Either one is fine,
Providing that we take ourselves off the hedonic treadmill of the wheel of samsara.
Now I invite you to take a few minutes to contemplate the following.
First,
Contemplate on each of the eight full path objectives of ethical behavior that you wrote on your paper.
Consider for a moment what each right or wise suggestion means to you personally.
Second,
Contemplate the importance of using Buddha's teachings of the middle path to practice three objectives simultaneously each day,
Living an ethical lifestyle,
Training the mind,
And cultivating wisdom.
Third,
Reflect for a moment how willing you were to use these practices when you were attached to your addiction and generally creating your own suffering,
Your own dukkha.
Finally,
Consider how willing you now are to use the suggested principles of Buddha's eight full path and or the twelve steps throughout each day to end your suffering and the suffering of others.
You may wish to pause today's podcast for five minutes and write your thoughts and your spiritual sobriety journal.
Okay,
Welcome back.
For today's last contemplative activity,
I'd like you to now go back to today's first written activity and write the following words above where you wrote the words the middle path.
These words are Step 10,
Step 11,
And Step 12.
As you stand back and look at your image,
This model suggests the overlap and synergy that I believe both Buddhism and the twelve-step spiritual programs have to help us.
In our manifestation of spiritual sobriety,
We are using daily actions to manifest joy and happiness for ourselves and others that we may begin to become friends with personal balance,
Self-care,
And equanimity.
I look forward to continuing our discussion on each of the Buddha's eight full path in greater detail over the next few upcoming podcasts.
I always look forward to reading your thoughts and comments on each podcast.
May you have a healthy,
Happy,
Safe,
And peaceful sober day.
