Wisdom, Morality, and Meditation

The Fourth horrible Truth is the dire Eightfold Path, which is also referred to as Magga. The Noble Eightfold Path fundamentally has three main separate Wisdom, devotion, and surmise. These three sections represent the eight sections of the Noble Eightfold Path. Wisdom is broken go through into h sensationst View and objurgate Intention. Next, morality consists of Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. Finally, meditation consists of Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. One may think that these eight parts must(prenominal) be followed in a specific order, however, all eight parts work mutually dependent of each some other.Right View is a part of Wisdom and, according to our class lectures, is the Middle Way amongst eternalism and nihilism the emptiness of all things. Right View distinguishes wholesome (beneficial) things from unhealthful (harmful) things. A few examples of unwholesome things from our class notes ar onslaught of susten ance beings, taking what is not given, sensual misconduct, lying speech, divisive speech (idol speech), crude speech, covetousness, and wrong view. The roots of unwholesomeness can be narrowed d throw to three things greed and desire, hatred and irritability, and ignorance and confusion.Thich Nhat Hanh describes the importance of Right View and what it is within chapter 9. Right View is recognizen as samyag drishti. TNH talks nearly how sets are planted within our bodies, and every peerless has them. I fantasy it was the coolest analogy when TNH taught of these sow ins within our bodies. It try outms ilk everyone has each kind of seed of all different traits, only if it depends on whether or not those seeds are watered within our bodies. He says If you animated in an environment where your seed of loyalty is watered, you will be a loyal person.But if your seed of betrayal is watered, you may betray even up those you love. Youll tonicity guilty astir(predicate) it, bu t if the seed of betrayal in you becomes strong, you may do it. (TNH, 51) This is such an amazing statement because I am a fairly strong believer that you are the product of your environment. close pile do whatever the status quo is in their neighborhood and rarely does anyone make a big jump to do something drastically different. I encounter standardized all people are created the same, at least mentally, and it is up to the upbringing to form how someone bends in tone.The reading of TNHs chapter 9 discussed how it is up to the individual to decide which seed grows more than others within ones body. In class we discussed how one can submit to keep the seed of anger, for example, from growing. It is up to the individual to essentially stunt the seed of angers growth when one feels any possibility of anger coming in. While pushing the feeling of anger away, one should savour to grow the seed of loving-kindness instead. Within my own life, I try to wait by the idea of kill ing people with kindness. This is my third stratum as RA here on St.Bonaventure and when I confront a situation, I try to always be as nice as possible. theres nothing better than when we are documenting a room for a violation, usually alcohol related, and being overly nice to them. They relieve oneself no idea how to handle the niceness in the situation. It just makes the situation so much better in the long run. Most people act very mad and rude to us when they are being attested and they dont expect us, the RAs, to be nice to them, but when we are nice to them and dont let their obscene hate words affect us, they dont know what to do.I feel like this could be a small example of growing my seed of kindness because I could get very angry about the students calling me hateful names for simply doing my job. Instead, I try to do what TNH state in Chapter 10, replace an unwholesome thought with a wholesome one by changing the peg, just as a carpenter replaces a rotten peg by hammer ing in a bare-assedborn one. (TNH, 62) In this example of my RA duties, I replace the unwholesome thought of harsh speech with loving-kindness, compassion, and clarity (education) to why the students are being documented.Discussing Morality, I read a part in which Kornfield was talking about his teacher, Maha Ghosananda (the Gandhi of Cambodia). Kornfield was telling how his teacher would teach the survivors of the 1975-88 genocide in Cambodia make outs of compassion and loving-kindness for their own loss and that of others. He said, You have disoriented so much. Now you know how precious everything is in this world. You must love again and let new things grow. (Kornfield, 81) This quote can be related to Right View, but more importantly the concept of compassion which is within Right Conduct or Morality.I absolutely love this quote because I feel like way too many people fulfil their keen lives for granted. I am sad to say that I am some clock estimable in that category o f people. I am always humbled so much when I meet someone who has endured a great quantity of pain, or those who have already had cancer and are the same duration as me. Right now, while at college I have both close friends who have already battled cancer and are now gage at college. It makes me feel like I should be so incredibly thankful for the life that I have been blessed with.Many times one can become attached to something that is not all that important. Meditation can resolve this. In chapter 12 of TNH, it talks about how we have become so efficient and able to talk to places on the other side of the planet, however, he also explains that people have a harder time with one-on-one interactions and speech nowadays. This is an example of becoming attached to technology instead of listening and speaking with people in person. When reading through Kornfields 24th chapter, I noticed the stories about Dipama Barua, one of the greatest meditators of the Theravada lineage.They to ld of how she lost two out of three of her young children to illness and lost her save due to a heart attack soon after. Most people would feel like there is no longer a reason out to live after something like that, and she was one of those people. However, after a year of lying in bed full of grief, she started doing meditation and then ultimately became a master of meditation. (Kornfield 382-384) Kornfield had gone to see Dipama and had such an encounterWhen he was leaving from eyesight her, she touched him and said a 10 atomic number 42 prayer in which he started to have a realization and see everything in a positive light. After this, he could not immobilize smiling at everything. (Kornfield 382-384) This encounter between Kornfield and Dipama reminds me of times that I feel like nothing can go right, but all it takes is seeing and talking to someone who you really like and respect. Then, after talking to this one person, you have a totally new positive outlook on life. Th is short story tells me that how you go through life is all about perspective.This halt in life represents a meditation. Sometimes one has to take a break from their busy lives and just reflect on their life and spirituality. When I have done this in the past, it feels so incredibly honor to just take a break from things and reflect on how great life is. When one is thinking about the Noble Eight-Fold Path, one has to toy with that all of the Rights link into each other. We need to be compassionate for others, practice loving-kindness, and embrace wisdom, morality, and meditation within our lives to better understand everything.