When Buddha was teaching the four truths of Existence, he revealed that the last one was about the path to cease suffering. He also revealed this path would have eight stages. These stages represent the requirements we should comply with if we want to follow that path. We cover these eight requirements across three broader areas: wisdom, ethics and concentration. These can be applied as daily practices towards attaining greater enlightenment.
1. Attaining wisdom
Wisdom speaks of the perfect vision, which has a philosophical meaning, where we can identify how we see the world, what our priorities are and how we live our lives. For Buddhism it refers to interdependence. And it is not only interdependence that connects us to each other, it is also about our subjective view of the world. It is not an objective world outside of us.
We are talking about our personal way of rereading reality, using our filters and perceptions which are the result of our way of living and beliefs. It is the interdependence of the world and my understanding of it. It goes way beyond the interdependence represented by the butterfly effect. It is an internal interdependence that each one of us has , therefore we will have a multitude of interpretations to the same situation and all of them will be a part of the truth.
The second element of wisdom is perfect intention. Perfect intention is the one that has as its objective to reach happiness for ourselves and others. Due to interdependence, we come to the conclusion that it won’t be possible to be happy if we are surrounded by suffering. It also refers to our internal dispositions since we know that external circumstances do not guarantee happiness.
2. Developing your ethics
The first aspect of Ethics is perfect discourse, which is a natural result for someone with perfect vision and perfect intention. Nothing will come out of our mouths if not intended to serve the purpose established by wisdom. It won’t be meaningless words, they will be coming from the heart. A heart in alignment with this perfect process.
It is also deeply connected to the next step of perfect action, that of your conduct, your way of behaving and dealing with people, and life will be the product of all the rest. It will .be perfect because it will be coherent and inspired by a perfect motivation to reach happiness for yourself and for everyone else.
Perfect means of subsistence (survival) will be the last part of Ethics. It will cover all the means needed to provide the needs of oneself and also their family. These means must be proper. For Buddhists it means gaining life without making anyone, or anything suffer. This is one of the reasons many choose to be vegetarians for example.
This also can determine the choice of profession. It must not have ethically reproachable results that cause constant negative emotions.
3. Maintaining your concentration
The first part of concentration refers to the perfect effort in the art of perseverance. It means gathering all resources and conditions available to go further in the path of accomplishing spiritual development.
Perfect attention is what helps perfect effort to happen. We must not get distracted because it may lead us to misplace our energy, or perpetuate bad habits, self-destructive habits. Attention must be constant (the idea of mindfulness fits perfectly here). The more watchful we are, the easier it is to refrain from those bad emotions. We can stop them from the beginning.
The final aspect is perfect concentration or meditation. It is by far the most difficult because it requires a lot of discipline. Discipline to save moments to practice it, discipline to sit in silence, discipline to make our spirit run after our thoughts. It is also the one that makes all the other paths feasible.
The question is how to walk this path? I will say, one step after another. Sometimes you will have to stop, perhaps even back up, so you won’t have to start all over again. Make each step solid before passing on to the next. Above all else, don’t try to do them all at once. Even Siddhartha tried, and he learned that if he tightened the string too much it would snap.
