The website only features the introduction, but in the article, Stephen Batchelor (predictably) makes the first acknowledgment that Buddhism is about more than meditation or traditions such as begging for alms or submission to a teacher -- it is about the Nobel Eightfold Path.
As the name indicates, there are eight elements in the Noble Eightfold Path, and these are divided into three basic categories[1] as follows:
- Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)
- 1. Right view
- 2. Right intention
- Ethical conduct (Sanskrit: śīla, Pāli: sīla)
- 3. Right speech
- 4. Right action
- 5. Right livelihood
- Mental discipline (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi)
- 6. Right effort
- 7. Right mindfulness
- 8. Right concentration
In all of the elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, the word "right" is a translation of the word samyañc (Sanskrit) or sammā (Pāli), which denotes completion, togetherness, and coherence, and which can also carry the sense of "perfect" or "ideal".
While right effort, mindfulness, and concentration are important, they are only three of the eight things we should focus on in trying to become better people. For most of us, simply trying to follow the Noble Eightfold Path is more than enough work for this lifetime.
While it is not essential, according to most teachers, to follow each of the eight steps in order, it is certainly crucial to have the first one in place before any of the others, since it is concerned primarily with the Four Noble Truths. Without the Four Noble Truths, it will be very difficult to hold right view.
I like to think of the Noble Eightfold Path as a kind of Buddhist integral practice. Each of the steps on the path, which can and should be practiced simultaneously, concerns a specific area of our lives, but as a whole they address body, mind, emotions, spirit, our actions in the world, and how we support ourselves. This is as integral as it gets.
Meditation (the last two steps: mindfulness and concentration) are definitely important, and this practice alone might make as happier, more balanced, and less reactive, but this practice alone will lead anyone to a true cessation of suffering. You can have all the non-dual experiences you want, but each time you return to samsara, your life will be no better than it was (aside from some lingering bliss).
As Chan master Sheng Yen writes in that same issue of Buddhadharma:
Buddhism emphasizes the need to practice in order to realize one's own buddhanature. But this does not mean that someone who perceives buddhanature is no longer subject to vexation. After experiencing buddhanature for the first time, one still has habits and propensities that can lead to impure thoughts and impure conduct; greed and aversion may still arise.
Master Sheng Yen advocates we practice the four foundations of mindfulness and the four proper exertions in order to purify the mind, but this alone, if you ask me, is not enough (no doubt Yen would think so, too).
In the discussion that got me thinking about this, I saw echoes of the Sam Harris piece from last winter, Killing the Buddha, in which Harris advocates for a Buddhism stripped of the Buddha. This is a distinctly Western idea, that we have to isolate the "technology" of Buddhism (meditation) from the rest of Buddhist practice. Ken Wilber makes essentially the same argument in The Marriage of Sense and Soul.
If Buddhism were reduced to merely a systematic technology of meditation, much would be lost. Sure there are a lot of superstitions in the various versions of Buddhism; in fact there are all manner of irrational leftovers from lower developmental levels. But as I have argued many times before, there are still a lot of people on this earth who live at those developmental levels and for whom those superstitions have incredible value. If Buddhism is to serve its role of helping people develop, we have to reach them where they live.
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