The Magic 8-fold Path: Right View, continued

Still trying to hold it lightly

This is a series exploring Buddhism’s foundational and well-loved frameworks. Like flat, stark bangs being teased into full, sexy three-dimension by the right amount of Aquanet and the perfect comb, I will attend to these ideas with TLC and some razzle dazzle. If you’ve been curious about Buddhism or yourself in relation to the world, or if you need any kind of buoy at this time, this is for you.

We start with the Eightfold Path. Catch up on part 1.a (Right View) here.

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Hello friends,

We are continuing to explore the first step of the Eightfold Path — Buddha’s recommended “plan” for an ethical life that leads toward enlightenment (NBD) — which is right view. Part one on right view is here (now with VO if you prefer cute podcast form!) where we quickly arrived at a core of great uncertainty.

Right view is about unlacing your judgments of what and how and who things and people are, and just allowing them to be. Right view is holding it very lightly. HOW can this possibly be in a time like now, when we are in a chaos blizzard of true harmful delusion with very real consequences for so many lives?

Well, right view is also not disengagement. It is not apathy; it is not letting others walk all over you either. It is not nihilism or ignorance. In Buddhism, reality functions on at least two levels: the proximate and the ultimate. Actions and words and politics very much mean something in the proximate world. In a way, they’re maximally important because they’re all you’ll leave behind for generations to remember you by. At the same time, nothing we see, hear, feel, or experience is fundamentally, essentially as we see, hear, feel, or experience it — does that make sense?

In this way, right view is not incompatible with compassionate action and social justice; rather it requires it. More on that another time.

Before we move on, the word “right” may be caught in your throat. It has gotten caught in mine. To a conditioned rule follower and (recovering) perfectionista cat like myself, the word “right” is catnip. Right?? There’s a RIGHT way? I will do it then! At all costs! And nothing less than perfectly right will be acceptable. I will be deeply disappointed in myself, and feel like a BAD person if I don’t do it right.

This is why I loathe the right-wrong binary. Right and wrong, so often applied in this way, are overused and lazy, laden with paternalism and often applied subjectively and oppressively to situations. They conjure up simplistic notions that if you do the right thing you are good; if you do the wrong thing you are bad. We know this isn’t true, and in fact it’s harmful.

The great Tibten Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa said that we are basically good which isn’t to say we don’t do shitty things we must account for and repair, but that there is an abiding nature of clarity, gentleness, and abundance to us from the get go. The harder work is simply to remember this.

But then we have “right and wrong,” often used like wrecking balls in ways that make us feel small and judgy and scared. Ethics, in contrast, are a deep understanding of interdependence including consistent self-awareness and inquiry, and a commitment to compassionate action. Ethics are accountability, repair, and love in action.

Back to right view. What exactly is meant by “right” in the context of the Eightfold Path? We should get clearer on this, because the next seven steps are also “right” something or other. The Buddha didn’t use “right” in contrast to “wrong,” as in to mean “good” and “bad” but rather more like “spacious” vs. “clinging.” As Chogyam Trungpa earlier clarified, “wrong view” is conceptualization. Wrong view is freezing everything into place whereas right view is spacious queerness.

I think the Buddha used “right” in this framework as in juuuuuust right — the appropriate amount — suggesting equilibrium, insight, and wisdom. Right view is the appropriate amount of view that enables you see just enough to understand but not so much that you think you see it all.

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash

The Buddha was a Goldilocks of sorts in that his experience of too much and then too little allowed him to arrive at just right. He was like Goldilocks in that he was a lost seeker driven forward by some inherent entitlement. There has to be something else that fits better; I’ll know (feel) it when I find it.

The Buddha was born a prince but left a life of opulence and insulation for a life of raw asceticism. Neither were the move, but became two sides of a goal post he hurdled himself through. Touch down!

Though not everyone will arrive at “just right” through the experience of too much and not enough. I don’t think you need to have been an addict to be able to understand and live well in moderation, for example. Certainly Buddhist monks who live their whole lives in monasteries studying and meditating may never have experienced great opulence or asceticism, and they may still be much closer to “right view” than the rest of us.

But it is true that deep wisdom comes only through experience — practice. In Buddhism, the core practice is meditation. So while monks aren’t on weekend benders at Señor Frog’s in Orlando, they, are on meditation benders in their monastery cell.

If the function of meditation is to practice working with the mind to label and dissipate delusion, approaching a more spacious understanding of true nature of reality, then perhaps there are other ways to practice this too. If you’re mindful enough while doing it.

Because the reality is most of us do not have enough time to meditate for meditation to be the only avenue to gain this wisdom. I am committed to channeling all the other experiential facets of my life toward wisdom as best I can.

I’d argue that the greatest gift of falling over the edge one way or another is that it enables a full-body understanding of “just right” in a deeper way. I am a believer in the sacredness of fuck ups. While I have a hell of a time showing myself grace when I’m the one who’s fucked up, I still believe this.

There is a sacredness of imbalance because it is a singular doorway to balance. Equinox exists only in relation to periods of long, dark winter nights as well as long, bright summer days. You know just right because you’ve felt its absence.

And I’m speaking now to people struggling or feeling like shit about themselves. You fucked up royally. You fell off the wagon. You went too far, again. You find yourself caught in the same narrative or the same pattern, again. In these moments it’s so hard to access kindness of any sort, especially for your self.

Remember everything you do can be practice. If you show up to it juuuuust right. Remember you are basically good, all of the time — whether you remember it or not.