So over these past weeks we've been walking through some of the most foundational teachings of the Buddha.
We started with the Four Noble Truths in the beginning of the year and then proceeded into the Eightfold Path and these teachings are often described as the heart of Theravada Buddhism,
Not as a philosophy,
Like something to admire,
But to test in the middle of our lives.
If there's one thing I hope that is becoming clear or that has become clear it's that these teachings are not meant to take us away from our daily life.
They're meant to bring us more fully into it.
The Buddha didn't offer something metaphysical.
His teachings are actually very ordinary.
You know,
There is dukkha.
There is a background hum of dissatisfaction even when things are sort of fine.
Suffering isn't always catastrophic.
It's subtle,
Like an ongoing sense that things are slightly off,
You know.
The way the body tightens when plans change.
The irritation that arises when you're sitting at a red light.
The grief that comes with love.
And the Second Noble Truth points to the habit,
The craving,
Wanting things to be other than they are.
Wanting pleasant experiences to last and wanting unpleasant experiences to go away.
Wanting this sense of self to be secure and affirmed and in control.
And then we enter the Third Noble Path which is totally radical.
Like this dissatisfaction can end not by fixing life but by changing our relationship to experience.
Noticing when there's contentment and cultivating that.
Noticing when nothing is wrong and resting in that.
And then the Fourth Noble Truth is this path,
The Eightfold Path.
And it answers the most practical question of all which is,
How do we live in a way that leads us to freedom?
And it's very easy to think of the Eightfold Path as a list but it's more helpful to see it as a pattern of alignment.
How wisdom and ethics and mental cultivation,
They just support one another.
You know in daily life this might look like right view showing up as remembering that everything we experience is conditioned and changing.
And right intention is the repeated choice towards not harming,
Towards being kind to ourself and others,
And towards letting go.
Right speech and right action and right livelihood.
These are the ethical path factors and they might be expressed as mindfulness through the body,
And through our voice,
And through our actions.
And then the Samadhi factors,
What we practiced this morning,
That right effort is not a strain.
It's a steadiness to notice what's happening and to relax and to begin again.
Mindfulness is knowing what's present without needing to edit and concentration is this continuous collection of the moment,
Collectedness that allows us to see more clearly.
And none of these path factors require retreat conditions.
It's helpful to go on retreat but it does,
It's not required.
It just requires us to remember.
Remember in the grocery store,
Remember in conversations,
Remember in grief and in joy.
And as mindfulness deepens something else becomes unavoidable.
We begin to see what the Buddha called the three characteristics of existence.
And these are also central to the Buddha's teaching and sometimes we overlook them,
But they are essential and they are Anicca,
So impermanence,
Changing,
Everything changes.
Everything is always in change.
This breath is different than the next one.
Sensations arise and then they pass and moods come and then they go.
Relationships come and go,
Opinions,
Even our practice moves.
When we resist change what happens is Dukkha follows.
Dukkha is the unsatisfactoriness,
The second characteristic of existence.
Dukkha arises not because things are wrong but because we ask these impermanent happenings to provide lasting security.
And then Anatta,
Not self.
This is the most confusing for people and also the most liberating.
Experiences are happening but there is no solid separate owner to the experience.
Thoughts arise,
Feelings arise,
Choices are made and all of this is conditioned.
In daily life practice I think Anatta or not self might sound like anger is here rather than I am angry or worry is happening rather than something is wrong.
I am worried.
So there it's very subtle,
It's a shift,
Loosening the identification with the solid sense of self and with the suffering.
So seen together,
The teachings kind of form a single movement.
The Four Noble Truths tell us what is happening and why and the Eightfold Path shows us how to live in response to what's happening and the three characteristics describe what we discover when we pay attention.
Change,
Dissatisfaction and no lasting self that it's happening to.
So these these are not separate teachings.
You know these are just another there's these are three ways of describing the same process of waking up in ordinary life and the practice again and again is very simple to just notice suffering,
Notice clinging and let awareness do its quiet work.
You know it's quiet work this awareness and the most important practice is to begin again.
Not perfectly,
Not heroically,
Just honestly,
Just being honest with oneself.
Begin again.
You know perhaps the deepest insight of all is that freedom doesn't come from becoming a better self.
You know believe me I I have tried this and it doesn't work.
It comes from understanding experience clearly and letting it be.
So as we kind of close this this pay this chapter on these foundational teachings the invitation is not to hold these teachings tightly but to trust them enough to keep practicing right here in this life as is.
So I want to close with with quoting my teacher Gil Fronsdale in his book The Issue at Hand.
This is called Faith.
A key element of every stage of the path is faith.
A word that is often troublesome for Westerners.
In Theravada Buddhism faith does not mean blind belief.
Rather it describes trust or confidence in oneself in the teachings and the practice of liberation and in the community of teachers and practitioners.
So all of you both past and present.
It is the kind of faith that inspires one to verify for oneself the experiential possibilities of spiritual life.
See for oneself.
Ahipassaka.
See for oneself what is true in your direct experience.
So thank you.
I offer this for your consideration and I look forward to hearing your own wisdom.
