Satya Robyn introduces the Eightfold Path, the Buddhist teaching on how to end suffering. She names all eight factors and offers three ways to practice them: fake it till you make it, use the teaching as a mirror for self-inquiry, or treat it as distant inspiration.
Hi everybody, welcome to another very short video about the Buddha's teachings. Today we are focusing on the Fourth Noble Truth, Magga, which means path. Particularly, it means the Eightfold Path, this list of 8 things that Buddha said is good to pay attention to, or to follow, or to be curious about. Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right meditation. It's a big list, very encompassing. And I guess I'll do a video about each of those things. I certainly can't cover them all today. I want to talk about 3 approaches to using the Eightfold Path, or really to using any Buddhist teaching. The first, fake it until you make it. Take the teaching. Oh, it says I'm supposed to be like this. Let me try it out in my life. If it's not too many steps ahead of where we are already, actually we can sort of nudge ourselves into that shape and we find that our kind of emotions and mind catches up and maybe it starts to become a natural way of behaving, and then we start to see the fruits of that practice. So that's the first way, fake it until you make it. Kind of works if it's just a small step ahead. If it's too many steps ahead, usually some other part of us rebels and we come off the rails. And then who knows what happens? Maybe it takes us a while to get back on the rails again. The second way is using the teaching mirror, as something to be curious about. Oh, the Buddha says this is a good way to be, or a good teaching to follow. How well am I doing at that? And if I'm not doing that, if I'm not embodying right livelihood, for example, why is that? What are the conditions of my life and my mind that make that difficult? So it's an invitation to unravel something about ourselves, which potentially leads to more freedom and makes it easier to put that teaching into practice, an opportunity for insight into our own nature in this present moment. That's the second way, the way of the mirror or curiosity. And the third way is simply to understand the Buddha is describing the activity of enlightened beings, of other Buddhas, and to treat it as inspiration, as a good thing to do, even if it feels like it's over there in the distance, we can still celebrate that Buddhas behave in this way. And that kind of celebration and empathy and understanding that that is a good thing to do can help draw us forward. Like, I was gonna say like a boat being drawn towards the lighthouse, but I think boats are supposed to avoid lighthouses. But you can think of your own analogy or metaphor there. So these 3 helpful ways of taking Buddhist teachings: fake it till you make it, use it as a mirror, or just take it as some inspiration and allow it to draw you forwards. Coming soon, videos about all of those 8 things on the Eightfold Path.
