I’m a daily user of the meditation app Waking Up. I’m not a Buddhist, but I love many of their teachings. Along with daily meditation, this makes me a better person and gives me freedom from ruminating on my thoughts.

I listen to many talks from Joseph Goldstein and usually take the time to make notes. I started a new series within the App called The Eightfold Path, which is hosted by Dan Harris, Joseph Goldstein, and Sam Harris. The first talk was approximately two hours long, and I listened to it once through uninterrupted, then returned a second time with the purpose of taking notes.

I thought I’d post my notes from the first talk. Perhaps this will pique your interest enough to want to listen to the entire series, or maybe even try meditation. It has changed my life.

“The Eightfold Path”

Dan Harris, Joseph Goldstein, & Sam Harris on the Waking Up App.

Day 1 - The Right View

Someone asked the Buddha, Are there still enlightened beings in the world? As long as people are practicing the Eightfold path, there will be enlightened beings in the world.

Enlightened, awakened: The uprooting of greed, hatred, and delusion.

Assess your practice, are you suffering less or more?

Generosity, Love, and Wisdom are causes of greater happiness.

Dukkha:

The Pali word is usually translated as suffering, but Joseph likes the inevitability of unwanted experiences. And why the inevitability? because everything is unstable, everything is continually changing. Things are becoming otherwise.

The monkey trap:

Hunters will hollow out a coconut and make a small hole, just big enough for a monkey to put his empty hand through. Inside is a sweet, tempting treat. The monkey slides his hand through and grabs the treat, but is unable to remove his hand while holding the treat. The hunter is approaching, and the monkey is trapped. Unable to remove his hand. It is the rare monkey that can “let go” and remove its hand. Because of the force, the habit, the deeply conditioned habit of grasping to what is pleasant, holding on.

You get to the edge of your comfort/discomfort:

Level of discomfort, painful emotion, you get to the edge, the goal of practice is not to avoid that, it’s a benefit that the practice leads you to this place. You can learn how to relax into whatever that experience might be without holding onto it or pushing it away. You are seeing the impermanence of the discomfort, the emotion, so your comfort zone gets a little bigger. With more practice, over the years, you are enlarging your comfort zone, ultimately to the place where you have no edges. So, whatever arises, the mind is relating to it from a place of greater freedom.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Plasma, Gas, Liquid, Solid.

The Two Arrows:

The first arrow is the pain. The second arrow is all the mental suffering you might add to the physical pain. The Buddha points out that it’s the second arrow that we can work with. How we relate to it is up to us.

Letting Go:

It’s not the best phrase, but using the phrase “Letting Be” is much better. If something is painful, you’re not holding onto it; you don’t want it. Letting Be is a better description. Let it be, watch it change, watch it go away.

Preferences:

It’s not, not having preferences. It’s not being attached to the preference. You’ve been planning the buffet all day long, craving sweet buns, and you get to the buffet and they are out of sweet buns. Ideally, this would not cause a ripple in thought, nor cause suffering. To hold what is pleasant and unpleasant with equanimity.

Buddha would visit the sick:

I hope your pain is diminishing, but the patient would say No, it’s getting worse. The Buddha would say, Though your body is afflicted, may your mind remain unafflicted.

Mental Suffering:

Our thoughts on the past, present, and future bring the most suffering. The real promise of meditation is that, though the first arrow of physical pain is inevitable, the second arrow of mental suffering in all its forms, certainly your suffering of thoughts of the past, present, and future, is something that you can wake up from.

The Buddha said mental suffering is worse than physical suffering. The teachings of the Buddha are how to free ourselves from that mental suffering.

First Step of the Eightfold Path is Right View:

One expression of wrong view is: it’s the feeling or experience of, I’m happy, or I’m sad, I’m afraid, I’m bored, etc. This is the common way we interpret our experience. The wrong view aspect is the claiming of that mind state to be the self, to be I. Which is so deeply embedded into our conditioning. So the relief from that suffering is to be mindful enough, aware enough, of the emotions themselves as being impersonal.

One Tibetan teaching says, Thoughts and emotions wander through the mind like clouds in the sky, no roots, no home. What we can do is to root those emotions in the view of self, and that is what is problematic. Our practice of meditation is to see the emotions, the thoughts, for what they are: moving, always changing, passing by. Do not root them into the ground, into your mind as yours, as I.

Right View sets the direction of your path.

The first level of Right View is sometimes called Mundane Right View. It has to do with the right view for developing greater ease and happiness in our lives. How do we live wisely in a way that reduces suffering, creates more ease, aligns us, and puts us in harmony with the way things are?

The understanding that our actions have consequences. The Law of Karma. All of our actions will bear fruit at some point, depending on the motivation associated with the action.

When we act motivated by greed or anger, motivated by delusion, that is like planting the Karmic seed of some future unwanted experience. On the other hand, when we act motivated by generosity or love, by understanding or wisdom, that is planting the seed of some future desirable experiences.

When we act, it’s usually without thinking about where this act is coming from, what the Karmic consequences would be. Without taking the time to consider our motivations. Where is this act coming from, where is it leading, and do I want to go where it’s leading?

Which feels better, being happy and kind and loving, or being angry and upset? Which person do other people want to be around? It’s so simple and so powerful.

In the texts, it emphasizes the value of generosity, a behavior to cultivate, not just because it feels good in the moment but because it has very good Karmic consequences.

Make generosity a practice.

On the spiritual path, time is not a factor. We, especially in the West, want results now; we don’t want to wait. The spiritual path takes time, and time is not a factor if we are on the right path, going in the right direction.

Deep Dive into talking about belief in the deeper parts of Buddhism, like rebirth and Karma:

The willing suspension of disbelief. We can be attached to our disbeliefs as strongly as our beliefs.

Saying “I don’t know” is very different than saying “It’s not true”.

Be open to the possibility.

Sam references Pascal’s Wager in relation to belief in rebirth.

Pascal’s Wager:

Pascal argued that when it comes to belief in God, we face a kind of wager or bet:

If God exists and you believe → you gain infinite reward (eternal life).
If God exists and you don’t believe → you risk infinite loss (eternal punishment or loss of salvation).
If God does not exist and you believe → you lose little or nothing (maybe some worldly pleasures).
If God does not exist and you don’t believe → you gain little or nothing.

So, from a practical, risk–reward perspective, believing in God is the “better bet,” because the potential gains outweigh the potential losses.

Joseph had a teacher who said, “You don’t have to believe it to become enlightened; it’s true, but you don’t have to believe it.”

Dan’s summary of Mundane Right View:

Understanding that actions have results or consequences. 
Understanding that awakening is possible.
The root of suffering is craving. 
Joseph adds, selflessness or non-self.

We don’t invite our thoughts to come; you can, but most of your thoughts come uninvited.

One technique is to treat your thoughts that pop into your head as if they are coming from the person next to you. It can help you not identify with them.

As the thought is there, ask the question, What is a thought? Not what the thought is saying. But what the thought is as a phenomenon. You’ll find that it’s not much. You are taking the power away from the thought. You can get angry, or jealous, or have a very strong emotion over a little, small thought. Take that power away. Look at what that thought is. The empty nature of thought.

Impermanence, Dukkha, and Selflessness.

Mundane Right View: Day-to-day right view, conditional, conventional, what are the actual ways of producing ordinary states of happiness. Super Mundane Right View: Transcending all the Mundane Right View and waking up

In Sam’s view, the most astounding quality of the mind:

Unexamined thoughts are everything, and examined thoughts are nothing.

There is almost no tradition in the West of philosophy or psychology that even acknowledges that fact.

We are completely in our stories.

Three stages of Tibetan self liberation:

Writing on water: as soon as you write it, it vanishes.
The knotted snake unties itself.
Thieves entering an empty house.