UnMind 12. Fourth Noble Truth — Atlanta Soto Zen Center

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Noble Eightfold Path:
Where the rubber hits the road —
Work it out yourself.

The Buddha’s First Sermon reveals the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The last teaching, the Lotus Sutra, declares “No Path!” What seems a contradiction is saying the same thing. The way stations on the path — right view and thought, comprising our understanding, or Buddha’s wisdom; right speech, action and livelihood, revealing our outer conduct; and right effort, mindfulness and meditation, indicating our inner discipline — are not limited to a particular place and time. They go with us wherever we go. We are always and only on the Path, whether we know it or not. Thus and therefore, no path. If everything is the path, pointing to the path becomes unnecessary, an anomaly.

Shakyamuni’s teaching evolved with him over time, over the arc of his experience from his mid-30s — about the same age that Jesus was crucified — to his 80s, when he died. During that half-century, his audience also evolved, as they were “doing thou likewise” — meditating along with Buddha, as well as engaging in dharma dialog. But even Buddha could not enlighten his followers. Buddha did not understand what had hit him, that night of his transformation. But he decided to try to help all the others anyway. They must have appeared to him like the sleepwalking zombies in the movies. He was the only one in the crowd that was fully awake.

Buddha is said to have experienced some ambivalence as to whether or not he actually had anything to teach, or whether anyone else could actually get it, or both. The fact that he decided to give it the old college try speaks to a great and abiding trust in human nature to transcend human nature, to aspire to realizing buddha-nature, and a truly humble take on what had happened to him. His last temptation is said to have been elevated to the status of a god by the power of Mara, the avatar of confusion or delusion. The famous statue showing Buddha touching the earth expresses his repudiation of this fantasy, and his confidence in the ordinariness of insight, however rarefied.

Nonetheless Buddhism, in its iteration as Zen, is the ultimate in do-it-yourself. This truism is illuminated by the old question about drinking water — can someone else drink it for you? Will you be as refreshed by their description of it? Can you really survive that way? Zen is like water — cool and refreshing, and nourishing, yes, but not very tasty. Please pack a canteen in your kit as you explore the Eightfold Path.