So we've been looking at the Four Noble Truths and the way I presented them was from a slightly deeper perspective than the common interpretation of these Four Truths.
The common understanding is that there's suffering in the world and that there's a cause and the cause is craving.
And so we let go of craving using these eight steps.
But the way that it's expressed in the ancient tradition is one understands suffering and one understands the arising of suffering and one understands the ceasing of suffering.
And the fourth statement is that this is the practice leading to this ceasing of suffering.
The practice that leads out of suffering.
And as I've been pointing to it's the practice of seeing the arising and the ceasing.
It's the clarity of just seeing things coming and going and leaving them alone.
Just seeing them come and go without getting involved.
And because of the challenge of letting go deeply and experiencing this freedom there's a path.
There's this set of practices that a person can do that sets up the condition for kind of clearing the field and helping the mind develop its capacity to see deeper into what's going on.
So as we look at these path factors the first is wise view.
And I'd like you to consider as we reflect on this first step and we'll kind of go more deeply into it on Tuesday of next week.
That we that how our view like how our view is closely related to the meaning we ascribe to it.
Like it's so close.
So I can say you know I can look at the sunset as it mingles with the storm clouds.
And the way that the light touches the mountains.
And I can say oh there's my mom.
Or I see my mom in this.
Or just categorizing it as beautiful.
Or categorizing it as ominous.
Just then just right there.
There's meaning.
Our view of the direct experience is imbued with the meaning that we give it.
It's interesting to see ourselves do this.
When I attribute a beautiful sunset to my mother's presence right after I do that I also see oh look look at the meaning I just made.
So the path is both about meaning and stepping out of thought and putting all the meaning down the compulsion to know and to make meaning.
That compulsion to know and to make meaning that squeezes the heart too.
It causes pain also.
So there's this kind of dialectic from meaning making and stepping out of meaning.
We're mostly under the spell of our ideas the way that we interpret our life and concepts and our views and our opinions.
But the more intimate we get with experience with understanding these four truths there is pain in this life.
And there is a thorn in the heart.
Instead of analyzing how did the thorn get there and trying to figure out the source of it and who put it there and what events happened to lead to the thorn.
Instead of all that which is useful to do we like we make less meaning just by pulling out the thorn.
So the compulsion to figure it out and to talk about our life and all the thorns starts to fall away.
It starts to fade.
So part of our practice is letting go of meaning and the need for meaning.
We practice letting go of the mind sort of desperate attempt to land on some conclusion.
And this happens moment by moment with awareness.
From the silence and the stillness of our practice we make new meanings.
We don't find our meaning in stories but we find it in the intimacy with experience.
And so this is kind of where I'd like to start the inquiry into wise view.
The Eightfold Path in the early tradition is very different than it comes to us now.
It's more related to awakening itself than how it's often presented as sort of this beginner's path.
Many people understand that this path this Eightfold Path is if you do these things they will lead to this awakening.
But the way it's described in the early teachings is it's actually an expression of awakening itself.
It's an expression of this deep seeing this deep acceptance of the arising and passing of all phenomena.
So the Eightfold Path is a description of how someone begins to live when they have some degree of freedom.
When they've touched something deep inside themselves their wholeness their oneness.
Now our minds are one.
Their lack of holding on.
And it's somatic.
You know it's a felt sense.
It's very distinct from our thinking.
We can't think our way towards freedom of the heart.
It's not found in words but it's found in the encounters that we have with experience.
And the first path factor begins by saying that someone who has this awakened knowledge of awakening rising and passing who really let's go into the way things are the coming and going seeing that over and over that the right view right being sort of the direction or right being sort of the road will spring up.
It will emerge out of that understanding.
It appears.
So it's said that we enter this stream of the Eightfold Path.
We're letting go into something that carries us something that supports us.
And it's the springing up within us this ethical behavior and inner development.
It appears so next week we will dive into the view that springs up from practice.
Thank you for your consideration and your attention.
