(Cute cat, or a display of serious concentration in progress?)
Concentration
is the last element of the Eightfold Path. Practising all of the eight factors
of the path pretty much guarantees us a powerful and transformative journey of
discovery, growth and change. If we go far enough down this path, it ought to
lead to some sort of liberation from suffering and confusion and awakening to
authentic being. This is what the label on the packet suggests, you will have
to make your own way and sample the goods to find out whether the claims are
true, or not.
The
Eightfold Path does not exist out there somewhere and I hope I have made that
clear to some degree in these blog posts. It cannot be perfected in any
absolute sense and there is no committee to measure your progress, and, most
likely, no one will pat you on the back and say well done if you make notable
progress on it, and, well, what is ‘it’ anyway?
Many followers of Buddhism mistake the external forms, teachings and
practises as ‘the’ path. This is a mistake. The Eightfold Path is simply an
effective model to inspire, guide and prompt us to action that has been
reliable enough to warrant its survival and continued propagation for a couple
of thousand years. The path though is ‘our’ actual-personal-experience of
putting these practices and concepts into action. We need to start and gain
some first-hand experience before we can relate experientially to what is
alluded to in the many books out there. The path then is created through the
raw elements of our own actions, choices and intent. As we gain first-hand
experience we can start to relate to what teachers and teachings are hinting at
and decide for ourselves what works and what doesn't, whether a given teacher
or form of Buddhism has its head in a dark place, or if it/they might be worth
investing time and energy into. There are many Buddhisms out there and most of
them believe they have the final say on what Buddhism is. Outside of institutions
and organisations, authoritative figures, leaders and followers is the simple
matter of an individual, or a group exploring the consequences of dedicated practise
on this human life, in this time and place.
A
path that journeys into new territory is always going to provide surprises, the
unexpected and new experiences in unfamiliar surroundings. A one-to-one
teaching situation should support us in making our own way, rather than impose
a set of rules and instructions which we ought to adhere to religiously. In
such a dynamic, negotiation and exchange are a more useful relationship dynamic
than superior and subordinate roles. I personally have always preferred the
idea of spiritual friend to guru or master for this reason and been highly
suspicious of powerful, aloof, all-knowing men sat on high thrones. Institutionalised
Buddhism often has the most authoritative sounding say on Buddhist matters, but
to accept dogmatic, doctrinal view as the most authoritative would be a
mistake. Relying on impersonal, external authority to determine the validity of
your own first-hand experience in practise and in life is likely to lead to
blind faith, group think and a lack of self-authority and imagination. Negotiating
authority successfully entails levelling the field. The same seductive ease
which convinces individuals to vote for ‘strong leaders’ plays out in spiritual
communities.
The
path is your own personal-direct-firsthand experience of putting meditation and
new concepts into practise and exploring the results and consequences as they
evolve in an ongoing discipline. The rest is an add-on that may or may not help
you on your way. At the end of the day it is good to be able to trust yourself
to know what works for you and what doesn't, and stand on your own two
feet. It takes courage to do so, but it
is well worth it. It is certainly better than ending up in bed with a wrinkly, 70-year-old,guru…or maybe not, if that's your thing.
Now,
on with the last element of the Eightfold Path.
