the.com/eightfold path
Buddhism's to-do list for ending suffering, minus the deadlines and guilt.
means The Buddha's eight-part guide to ethical and mental conduct — right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration — said to lead out of suffering toward awakening.
from From the Buddhist teaching called in Pali 'ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga' — the 'noble eightfold path.' 'Aṭṭha' means eight, 'aṅga' means limb or factor, so it's literally the path with eight limbs, laid out in the Buddha's first sermon after his enlightenment as the fourth of the Four Noble Truths — the practical answer to 'suffering exists, here's the way out.' It traveled into English through 19th-century translations of Buddhist scripture, 'eightfold' being a plain Anglo-Saxon rendering of 'aṭṭhaṅgika.'
- not sequential
- all eight steps practiced simultaneously, not checked off in order
- middle way
- designed to avoid both indulgence and punishing self denial
- three clusters
- groups into wisdom, ethical conduct, and mental discipline
- right view first
- starts with understanding, because action without insight misfires