Hi everyone,
I'm Chris McDuffie,
The host of Spiritual Sobriety.
I've been away for a few weeks,
It's so great to be back talking to you all again.
My thanks to all of you for the support and positive feedback during these first two months on Insight Timer.
I am so excited to see the number of our followers growing with a global audience all supporting the mission of enhancing your spiritual sobriety.
Today's lesson will look deeper at the first of the eightfold path,
Wise View.
You will recall that the first two noble truths,
Wise View and Wise Intention,
Help us with our practice of cultivating wisdom.
We are protecting our spiritual sobriety when we choose to see every situation,
Past or present,
Through the lens of Wise View.
Notice that the complete title of Buddha's suggestion out of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path.
Why does the Buddha use the term noble?
Buddha teaches us that we are all nobly born and that each of us is innately wise,
Compassionate and kind.
Consider Buddha talking to the peasants in India 500 years before the birth of Christ,
Many of whom were the lowest caste members under Hinduism.
Now consider the impact that his teachings must have had on teachings that begin with the following opening statement,
O nobly born,
Do not forget the luminous nature of your own mind.
Trust it.
It is home.
Buddhist scholar and psychologist Jack Kornfield shares his insight on the concept of nobly born in his excellent work Bringing Home the Dharma,
Awakening Right Where You Are.
In that book Kornfield writes,
The wise heart directs the wise mind.
This is the culmination of the psychology of the wise heart.
We are the beauty we have been seeking all our lives.
We are consciousness knowing itself,
Empty and spacious,
Compassionate and joyful.
Our very peace and equanimity begin to transform the world around us.
Buddhist psychology helps us rediscover that freedom and joy are our original nature.
So Buddha's statements of nobly born is a very powerful introduction to his teachings.
Let me read his quote to you again.
O nobly born,
Do not forget the luminous nature of your own mind.
Trust it.
It is home.
The Buddha uses two images to illustrate his teachings here.
The first is the image of the diamond that represents,
Quote,
The luminous nature of our mind.
The clarity of a perfect diamond illustrates his proposition that each human mind is clear and wise.
The second image in this quote that Buddha often refers to is that of the refuge.
We see in the concept of nobly born,
Buddha's suggestion of trusting your own heart,
It is home.
When we think of the concept of the ideal home,
We think of safety and security.
This is why Buddha uses the concepts of taking refuge in the Noble Eightfold Path and his teachings.
So then,
You will often see in the images of Buddhism,
The diamond and the concept of taking refuge throughout Buddhist texts and teachings.
I was reading Alcoholics Anonymous' Daily Reflections the other day while reading and preparing for today's podcast.
That day's Daily Reflection suggested the following quote.
The circle stands for the whole world of AA and the triangle stands for AA's three legacies of recovery,
Unity,
And service.
But it was the final statement from the day's Daily Reflection that made me think about the critical importance of wise view.
The Daily Reflection went on to say,
Quote,
Within our wonderful new world,
We have found freedom from our fatal obsessions.
The term obsession may be defined as an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind.
Here we see the preoccupied or the unwise mind,
How quickly it can lead to reactive actions of using or relapsing on drugs or alcohol.
I see steps one through nine of the 12-step program as an exercise to help me see,
View,
And learn that my character defects and my shortcomings of the past do not define me,
Nor does the trauma that hurt me.
In particular,
Steps six and seven help me see from a spiritual perspective what Buddha calls the nobly born.
Practicing spiritual sobriety through spiritual pathways like 12-steps and Buddhism helped me see clearly that my fear-based ego is not the real perception of me.
When I see my true nature and see my healthy values,
Then I have cultivated wisdom,
Clarity,
And insight.
In Buddhism,
The suggestion is,
See the Buddha within,
And in Christianity,
The concept would be,
See the Christ within.
Both the 12-steps and Buddhism suggest that when I begin every response to every situation that presents itself with a clear view of my values,
My wise mind,
Or my 12-step principles,
Then I am more likely to respond to every memory or every current situation with love and compassion.
For those of us in recovery,
This means that we do not stay stuck in our fatal obsessions.
I hope that you found today's podcast on wise view informative and helpful.
Please be sure to send your thoughts and feedback on today's podcast.
May you all have a safe,
Sober day.
