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• Sitting Meditition - 20-30 minutes
• Welcome and Introductions
• Suggestions for the class
• Daily Sitting
• Five Precepts
• Homework
• Commitment

• Overview of The Noble Eightfold Path (Replacing "Skillful" for "Right")

 
• There are three components of The Noble Eightfold Path: Virtue (Skillful Speech, Skillful Action & Skillful Livelihood), Concentration (Skillful Effort, Skillful Mindfulness & Skillful Concentration) & Wisdom (Skillful Understanding & Skillful Thinking)

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• There are Eight Steps (They are not linear, rather they are mutually dependent and supportive):

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Step one: Skillful Understanding (View) of the Buddha's message requires that we understand skillful behavior in terms of cause and effect and the Four Noble Truths and how they fit into the overall scheme of the Buddha's teachings.
Step two: Skillful Thinking (Intention) introduces us to three positive thoughts: generosity or letting go, loving-friendliness, and compassion.
Step three: Skillful Speech explains how telling the truth and avoiding malicious talk, harsh language, and gossip can help us advance on the path.
Step four: Skillful Action lays out the principles for leading an ethical life-especially abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and intoxication.
Step five: Skillful Livelihood explains why choosing an appropriate job or profession is important to our spiritual practice and how we should approach questions of business ethics.
Step six: Skillful Effort lays out four steps we can take to motivate our practice-preventing negative states of mind, overcoming negative states of mind, cultivating positive states of mind, and maintaining positive states of mind.
Step seven: Skillful Mindfulness refers to the practice of mindfulness meditation-specifically, cultivating mindfulness of your body, feelings, mind, and thoughts.
Step eight: Skillful Concentration refers to four stages of deep absorption we can reach in meditation.
• Summary of Skillful Understanding:

• The Four Noble Truths
• Cause and Effect (Next Week)

• The Noble Eightfold Path is a component of The Four Noble Truths. It is the Fourth Noble Truth: The Way Out of Suffering. But before we can be motivated to seek a way out of Suffering, we must be convinced that Suffering is present in our lives.

 

 

- From The Buddha's First Sermon:

Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five aggregates for sustenance are stressful.

And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of stress: the craving that makes for further becoming -- accompanied by passion and delight, relishing now here and now there -- i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming.

And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress: the remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release and letting go of that very craving.

And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of stress: precisely this Noble Eightfold Path -- skillful understanding, skillful thinking, skillful speech, skillful action, skillful livelihood, skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, skillful concentration.

Vision arose, insight arose, discernment arose, knowledge arose, illumination arose within me with regard to things ever heard before:

'This is the noble truth of stress'....'This noble truth of stress is to be comprehended'....'This noble truth of stress has been comprehended'....

'This is the noble truth of the origination of stress'....'This noble truth of the origination of stress is to be abandoned'....'This noble truth of the origination of stress has been abandoned'....

'This is the noble truth of the cessation of stress'....'This noble truth of the cessation of stress is to be directly experienced'....'This noble truth of the cessation of stress has been directly experienced'....

'This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of stress'....'This noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of stress is to be developed'.... 'This noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of stress has been developed.'

And, monks, as long as this knowledge and vision of mine -- with its three rounds and twelve permutations concerning these four noble truths as they actually are -- was not pure, I did not claim to have directly awakened to the unexcelled right self-awakening.... But as soon as this knowledge and vision of mine -- with its three rounds and twelve permutations concerning these four noble truths as they actually are -- was truly pure, then did I claim to have directly awakened to the unexcelled right self-awakening.... The knowledge and vision arose in me: 'Unshakable is my release. This is the last birth. There is now no further becoming.' S LVI 11
 

• Overview of The Four Noble Truths (have class help me delineate each Truth)

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• Dyadic or small group exercise --15 minutes

• Questioner first asks: "In what way have you experienced your suffering?"
• Respondent simply report on his or her experiences like an objective observer.
• Questioner replies, "Thank you."

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• Questioner then asks: "In what way was the mind caught up in its reaction to that experience?"
• Again, the Respondent simply reports objectively.
• Questioner replies, "Thank you."

• When you are speaking, speak from your center, speak mindfully.

• When listening, please give your entire attention to the person speaking. Simply notice and let go of any mental commentary that arises in the mind or any desire to add to what the person is saying.

• Group Sharing, Reports -- we can see for ourselves the truth of suffering and its cause.

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• Closing Meditation - Sharing of Merit

 
May the merit of our individual efforts and our practice together today, as well as during the week ahead, be for the benefit of all living beings: may they all find true peace and happiness.

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