SETTING FORTH ON THE JOURNEY

Why study the Eightfold Path?

“Practically the whole teaching of the Buddha, to which he devoted himself during 45 years, deals in some way or other with this path. He explained it in different ways and in different words to different people, according to the stage of their development and their capacity to understand and follow him. But the essence of those many thousand discourses scattered in the Buddhist scriptures is found in the noble eightfold path.” ~ {excerpted from The Noble Eightfold Path, Tricycle}.  

As our teacher, Peg Syverson states - “The Eightfold Path illuminates the way for healthy communities and harmonious societies. It can be a framework for shared inquiry and a way to monitor healthy development.”  The Buddha’s Fourth Noble Truth declares that there is a way to end suffering and that way is the Eightfold Path.  

The Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, states - “Traveler, there is no path, The path is made by walking…”  While the elements of the Eightfold Path were clearly described by the Buddha, the path only exists for each one of us if it is walked, if it is lived out in our daily lives.  This study of the Eightfold Path will be an exploration of what it looks like to live in accordance with the Dharma.  This study will help to reveal the ways in which every moment of our lives, every action and each choice point, is a place of practice, and in walking the path together, we will better understand how we can live rightly, experience wholeness, and move towards the end of suffering and the restoration of joy.   

What are the learning objectives of the course?

The spirit of the course will be infused with a strong heart-centered practice-orientation for everyday life. In this spirit, participants will engage in a full range of feeling, sensing, relating, connecting, discussing, thinking, critical reflection, and action in order to:

• Attain perspective on an essential teaching within the Zen tradition and how walking the Eightfold Path may transform individuals, the community, and the world.

• Participate in movement toward individual and collective wholeness.

• Deepen inquiry into patterns, habits, and activity of daily life.

• To bring the teaching of the Buddha to life in our daily life

• Explore how the Eightfold Path as the embodiment of our Buddhist practice can lead us toward more ethical, wholesome, wise, compassionate, and connective conduct.

• With the Eightfold Path as a mirror, we will examine patterns in our lives, the habits and conditioning that push and pull us and can keep us caught in a dream of self and move our lives into greater alignment with the Dharma.

• Formulate your own personalized expression of practice and ethical discernment through the understanding of the Eightfold Path. (This can naturally take different shapes through continued practice).

• Discover a regular daily practice rhythm that supports you, your relationships, your life, and your offering to the world. (This includes our foundational practice of zazen. This can also be a part of our discussion and we can offer assistance and further resources.)

• Enrich our experience of one another as Sangha.

• Investigate, engage, study, reflect, and practice meeting each fold/aspect of the Eightfold Path with these questions:

  • What is clarified?

  • What is freed/loosened?

  • What is being expressed?

  • What is being embraced?

  • What is being embodied?