By Maslow
August 16, 2007, 05:22 PM
Now we get into the actual practice of Buddhism. The practice isn't easy and takes a lot of effort, but it's worth it for a better life and WILL reduce anxiety. The practice is called the "path" because it is not a destination -- it is the way to live your life.
The Eightfold Path
The Forth Noble Truth consists of eight disciplines called the Eightfold Path.
- Right understanding
- Right thought
- Right speech
- Right action
- Right livelihood
- Right effort
- Right mindfulness
- Right concentration
These can be broken into three categories:
- Wisdom (1, 2)
- Morality (3, 4, 5)
- Mental Discipline (6, 7, 8)
Right Understanding
My wife and I had a bit of an issue with keeping the windows open in our bedroom at night during the summer. My wife wanted them open and I wanted to just run the air conditioner because as soon as the sun started coming up at about 5:00 in the morning, the birds would start making all sorts of racket and would wake me up. The noise just annoyed the hell out of me and I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep until I closed the windows.
After learning about mindfulness, I began to simply listen to the birds, and their chirping went from being excruciatingly annoying to having soothing effect. They would still wake me up sometimes, but now a calmness would come over me as I lay there mindfully listening to their sounds, and after a few moments, I'd be sound asleep again.
When the Buddha talked about right understanding, he was talking about practicing mindfulness. When listening to the birds, there's no need to analyze the sounds -- you simply hear them. You know that what you're hearing is the sounds of birds and there may be times when we visualize the birds, but that's as far as it needs to go. We don't judge the sounds. We simply listen.
Right understanding is to see things as they are, without any personal bias. It's simply observing. Sometimes I try to sense the way our dog Molly senses. She lays motionless for long periods of time, simple observing (and waiting for squirrels to come into the yard). I'll sit on the lawn chair and listen to the sounds. I can hear the sounds of leaves rustling, birds chirping, and the occasional car horn from the busy street about a 1/2 mile away. The green leaves stand out in sharp contrast to the blue sky. Down the street, a car approaches.
It's funny. We tend to observe these types of things in movies, but in real life, we don't pay any attention to them. Our world is a fascinating place and simply being aware can help us relax.
Right Thought
This one can be a little tough in the competitive world in which we live. Right thought involves intentions. It's to act in a way that embraces a spirit of kindness, compassion, and harmlessness -- not only to our fellow human beings, but to everything: plants, animals, the environment... It's to get away from the ego and live a life where your actions are entirely selfless.
This brings up the argument that even when we do something nice for someone else, it may still be a selfish act because we did it to make ourselves feel good. We've all known people who do bad things all the time: gossip, backstabbing, insults, and then they try to redeem themselves with an occasional charitable act.
An occasional charitable act does not constitute a way of life or define ones character. The idea is to live a life of compassion or as Jack Kornfield puts it, "a path with heart." Right thought is also called right intention. What are the intentions of your actions? Do you set out to do harm or do you try to make the world a better place?
Those of us who suffer from SAD sometimes have intentions that aren't consistent with the outcome of our actions. Sometimes things we say just don't come out right when we're nervous. We may inadvertently offend people when we are trying to be sociable or friendly. Part of it may be the lack the skills necessary for socializing, and our nervousness itself may be offensive to some people.
Why are we so nervous? We crave companionship and acceptance, and fear rejection, which often results in anxiety. The thing is -- as we follow the path to eliminate these cravings, we are more likely acquire those things we crave.
People low in self-esteem sometimes compensate by being overly aggressive or by trying to hurt other people. They may think that hurting people will make them feel better about themselves. You see this kind of thing on many of the message boards in the form of bullying. It's easy to be a bully on the Internet. The wimpiest person in the world can be a bully when there are no real repercussions. Or perhaps they're insecure in their opinions but crave attention. Throwing around insults is a sure way to get some attention.
When you put your opinion or emotions out for everyone to see, you leave yourself vulnerable. It reveals something personal about you. When someone disagrees with your opinion, you may take that it as a personal insult. People with low self-esteem may feel safer to insult the other person than to allow themselves to be vulnerable. Many Buddhists don't understand the concept of self-esteem because they believe there is no self. You can't have self-esteem without a self. We'll explore that concept later.
Intentions are important in all forms of communication. Psychologists often talk about assertiveness vs. aggressiveness. With aggressiveness, your intention is to intimidate or hurt the other person in order to get what you want. With assertiveness, your intention is to get what you want, but in a way that will be positive for all those involved.
To summarize, practicing right thought is to move away from the ego and live a life where service is your lifestyle and your motivations are selfless.
Right Speech
Right speech is a little easier to understand than right understanding and right thought. Right speech involves personal integrity. Most of these are pretty obvious. You shouldn't lie, slander, curse or use abusive language, raise your voice unnecessarily, gossip, insult, spread hatred or fear, or hog the conversation. You also shouldn't exaggerate or boast.
It's not always that black-and-white, though. There are times when a little white lie is good in order to avoid hurting a person's feelings, or just to make a person feel good. You have to be careful, though. For example, if you consistently praise the work of someone, even when it's undeserved, your praise will become meaningless.
Then there are times when people should just keep our mouths shut. Like the old saying goes, "if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything." We've all known people who are "brutally honest" and feel the need to voice their opinions, even if you don't want to hear it and don't really care what that person thinks. The funny thing is, people like that often believe that being brutally honest is an admirable trait. It's not. Those people are often obnoxious and just plain noxious. We should do what we can to stay away from people like that.
Right Action
This is another "thou shall not." The obvious ones are: steal, commit injury or any kind of harm to another, destroy someone else's property, commit adultery or covet you neighbor's wife -- or at least don't act on your coveting. To strictly follow the teachings of the Buddha, you're not supposed to drink alcohol or do recreational drugs. Of course, that rule was made before the invention of beer and football, so there may be a little flexibility in its adherence.
Then there are some right actions that aren't so obvious. You shouldn't overindulge, which means you shouldn't get drunk during the Broncos games or cause (serious) injury to Chargers fans when they attend Broncos games. You shouldn't overeat. You shouldn't disturb someone's peace or interrupt them with chores when they're watching football. Also, you shouldn't make a lot of noise that may disturb people when they're sleeping or trying to relax. My neighbor likes to mow his lawn early in the morning. That's not "right action."
We should also be kind to animals and nature in general. That means we should protect the environment and only eat animals that were raised and killed in a humane way.
Right Livelihood
Right livelihood involves what we do for a living and what we do to help others. Sometimes we have to take whatever job is available in order to pay the bills and put food on the table, no matter what the job involves. But when we have the choice, we should find work that benefits society and the world. Some examples might be: developing alternative fuels that reduce pollution, working for a charitable organization, teaching children, farming in a way that provides healthy foods to people. When possible, we should work for companies that promote peace and kindness in the world.
Some careers to avoid: drug cartel, Mafia hit-man, bank robber, international terrorist. Okay, those are pretty obvious. Some not so obvious: we should avoid working for companies that pollute the environment, engage in unethical behavior such as bribing politicians, or companies that provide or manufacture military equipment.
The next three disciplines are mental disciplines.
Right Effort
In order to be successful at anything, the "right effort" is required. This applies to all aspects of life -- not just Buddhism. If you want get over our social anxiety, you need to work at it, and it takes a lot of work. If you want to develop an online business, you can't just develop a Website and hope people will visit -- you have to do the additional work to get people interested in it.
In Buddhism practice, right effort means getting rid of improper thoughts and attitudes. This is similar to what is taught in CBT in stopping your maladaptive thoughts only in Buddhism, you don't counter the thoughts -- you simply eliminate your judgment about the situation. In the beginning, it may help to counter the negative thoughts as is taught in CBT to help you get to the point where you're no longer judging the situation. Therapy techniques work well along with Buddhist practices but while therapy should be short term, Buddhism should become a way of life.
Maladaptive thoughts are not the only thoughts we want to eliminate. We want to eliminate all unnecessary thoughts. We want to eliminate the ruminations, judgments, daydreams, longings, and cravings. We want to live in the present. Accomplishing that requires the right effort.
The true nature of reality reveals itself in the practice of mindfulness and meditation.
Right Mindfulness
The practice of mindfulness has helped me with my anxiety more than any kind of therapy or medication. It takes a lot of effort (the right effort) and it takes a long time. I've been practicing mindfulness for a couple years now and I still have to remind myself to be mindful sometimes, but it helps me a great deal when I'm out in public, when I'm trying to concentrate, and when I lay down to go to sleep to keep my mind from racing.
Mindfulness is about living in the moment. When you're eating, think about the food you're eating -- it's texture, smell, flavor. Follow it going down your throat and into your stomach. Not only will you relax -- you may actually lose weight! You'll feel full sooner.
Anything can become enjoyable when done in a mindful state. Even doing the dishes can go from being a chore to being a meditation practice (or so I keep telling my wife). I've been practicing mindfulness when doing things like trimming the bushes and mowing the lawn. It's especially enjoyable when doing things like walking the dog and being out in nature.
The key to mindfulness is not to judge. It's to simply observe and be in the moment. Observe the details of the objects around you. Observe the sounds. Sense your body. If you are feeling nervous, simply observe the nervousness. Feel your heartbeat. Follow your breath as it goes in through your nose, down into your lungs, and back out again. If you have trouble concentrating on a book or movie, follow your breath while engaged in those activities or when you get distracted.
The practice of mindfulness is part of many modern therapies. In the ACT therapy book: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, Steven C. Hayes write extensively about the practice of mindfulness. He also writes about acceptance, which is what the "A" stands for in ACT. ACT therapy is essentially just the practice of Buddhism with a few additional techniques thrown in.
Right Concentration
For those of you keeping score, this is the eighth practice in the eightfold path. Not that they're in any specific order for they all need to be practiced with equal importance.
Right concentration is part of the practice of mindfulness. It is to focus all your attention on awareness and not be distracted by needless thoughts. This is a tough one for people who suffer from monkey-mind syndrome. Many people with anxiety problems have difficulty concentrating and may experience a racing mind when trying to sleep. Then there are the incessant ruminations and maladaptive thoughts that accompany and often cause the anxiety. Those superfluous and destructive thoughts can be reduced and sometimes eliminated by the practice of right concentration.
One technique used for right concentration is being aware of your breath. As I mentioned in the discussion of mindfulness, one simply watches the breath. When a thought arises, simply observe the thought but don't judge it. Then return to your awareness of your breath.
The technique of observing your breath is called one-pointed meditation. One could also observe a sound or activity. Have you ever watched someone work when they don't know you're watching? It can really be mesmerizing just to observe them. That would be a type of single point meditation. When you are mesmerized (or hypnotized), that is the state of mind we are looking for. It is the same state of mind we enter when becoming lost in a book or movie, but in Buddhism, with practice, we can enter that state at any time by simply observing our breath.
