Right Action
Photo by Sandra Seitamaa
As the fifth factor in the Noble Eightfold Path, Right Action is traditionally understood as not taking life, not stealing, and not engaging in sexual misconduct. More broadly, we could understand it as actions that are affirming, live-giving, and in harmony with the truth of things—that is, our deeply interconnected nature.
Sensei quotes Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, who says that dharma means “the unmistaken.” And he says that the way to be unmistaken is to first learn, then reflect, then training in being unconfused. How? By taking actions that will lead to our clarity and awakening.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Right Action
I am not going to talk about religious beliefs, but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know their virtues far outweigh those faults.
I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say, “I’m hungry,” and you will be fed. I believe in our fellow citizens.
Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly people. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workers.
I believe in my whole race, yellow, white, black, red, brown, in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet.
I believe that this animal, barely up from the apes, will endure longer than her home planet, will spread out to other planets, carrying with her her honesty, her insatiable curiosity, her unlimited courage, and her noble essential decency. This, I believe, with all my heart.
This is part of a slightly longer piece by Robert A. Heinlein, who in the 1950s was known as the Dean of Science Fiction. He wrote A Stranger in a Strange Land, for example. This was part of a series, an NPR series that then became a book called This I Believe. They interviewed a number of people, some young, some old, men, women, all occupations, no occupation, and asked them to describe in a few hundred words their philosophy, the philosophy that they lived by.
What Heinlein sees as this noble, essential decency, this uniquely human quality, he says, I thought it would be a good way to speak about right action. Right action is the fourth factor in the Noble Eightfold Path that I have been speaking about, the path and each of these factors.
The path, as you may remember, is made of the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Recognizing Suffering as the Ground of Action
Right action is samyak karmānta, and it falls under the category of virtue or ethical conduct. It is specifically understood as refraining from killing, from stealing, and from sexual misconduct, which, of course, are the first three of the ten great precepts.
We can also think about it a little more widely in terms of action that does not create suffering. It does not create hurtful or negative karma. Somebody shared with me the term fruitful action, and that is a very nice way to think about right action, action that is fruitful for self and others. What makes it such?
In order to affect right action, we must first acknowledge that there is suffering, and that it is created, in fact, as the Buddha said. To know this, not because we have been told that we should, because it is the Buddhist thing to believe, but because we have personally experienced this in our lives. I do not think this is automatic, just because you start practicing.
In my own practice, when I first came here and heard the Four Noble Truths, I had read them before, and I think I just skipped over them. Because I remember when I heard it, I just did not, it did not quite connect. I did not know what people were talking about. What is all this suffering that people are talking about?
Not because my life had been all rose-colored in any way, but I understood suffering as the kind of more traditional definition, as hardship and distress, wretchedness, torture, trauma. These are all the terms that you see in the dictionary when you look up suffering. It just seemed a bit much to me.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, in that refuge reading that we did last tango, translated it as stress. I thought that was interesting. I had not seen that before. It really is this constant, this constant underlying hum, this unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly and almost incessantly, in most every home in the land. It is probably safe to say that it is in every home in the land, in every person, whether we are aware of it or not.
There is a New Yorker cartoon where a man is bellowing at his wife, and she is saying to him, “Why can’t you live a life of quiet desperation like everyone else?” This cartoon appeared in 1960, so not much has changed. It is that never-ending thrum.
When someone is hard of hearing, there is a sound, but you do not quite know where it is coming from. And angst, if you will, that, as far as we know, is also a uniquely human quality.
Those pigeons, that pair of pigeons, they are always making a racket. They hang around the building. The day that it was pouring, I think it was Tuesday, Tuesday afternoon, I was walking the kyōsaku, and I saw them. They were sitting side by side on the windowsill here, and they were completely silent for the first time.
It was actually quite touching. One of them seemed to be just resting there. Its wings were tucked in, and it was just kind of sitting there. The smaller one, which I took to be the female, looked kind of concerned, actually, I have to say. She was kind of craning her neck, and her head was tilted, as if she was trying to look past the window. It was looking at the rain.
It kind of looked like she was asking, you know, what is going on? As Shugen Sensei said the other day, you know, what is this? Of course, that is the question.
How Our Sense of Self Leads to Harm
Where is this suffering coming from? Once we start paying attention, paying close attention, we realize it is deeply, deeply connected to this sense of me, this sense of a solid, separate self.
There are countless teachers who have said, well, the only solution to this is to realize no self. This is the description of freedom, of great peace, they say.
If it seems like maybe that is too much, that how can this thought, this belief, this sense of me create all of this and all of the suffering, just next time you find yourself struggling, ask yourself what is at the heart of this.
Not the story, not the justifications, not the train of thought that we layer on top to make sense of why we struggle, but really what is at the heart of this conflict right now?
Right action is understood literally to mean refraining from taking what is not given, whether it is life, whether it is personal property, or whether it is your physical, your sexual property, if you will.
I was telling people in the city a few weeks ago, I was there by myself one afternoon at the temple, and somebody called, claiming that he was from Con Edison, the electric company. He demanded right off, very gruffly, to speak with the owner. I said, well, he is not here. He said, well, we have not received any payments in this account, and so we are going to shut down the electricity in an hour.
I thought, that is not good. Then I flashed on a call that we had gotten here a few months before that was exactly the same. Somebody else had picked up the phone. They said they were from Con Edison and said they were going to shut down our electricity because we had not paid. They passed the call to me, and as the guy repeated his demand, I suddenly realized, wait a second, we do not have Con Edison, we use NYSEG. I said that, click, he hung up.
In the city, I flashed on this, and I said to the guy, well, we do not have Con Edison, we have NYSEG. He started to say something, and I said goodbye and hung up. Then I thought, well, I should better check. I went to the files, and we actually do use Con Edison at the temple. But we had paid, and it was still a scam. I thought, you know, I really wanted to call him back and say, is this really how you make your livelihood, intimidating people into giving you what is not yours? I did not. I did not call, but I really wanted to.
The strength of our confusion will never be commensurate with our ability to learn and reflect and act according to what is true.
Right action is not just literally refraining from killing, but really all manner of taking life. The killing of someone’s hopes, someone’s aspirations, the killing of their humanity through torture, through prejudice, through disregard, and our own as well. That sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle killing, extinguishing of our own life or a piece of our life. To not waste and not wait, not throw any of it away.
It is also refraining from stealing someone’s identity, hijacking someone’s time, misappropriating someone’s ideas. All the gross and subtle forms of sexual misconduct. Cheating, possessing, objectifying another. Flirting to get what you want, to feel important, as revenge. Fantasizing, but that is just happening in your mind, right? It does not really hurt anyone. Is that true? Is that true?
When we pay close attention, is that really true, that it does not hurt? What is going on in my mind at that moment? What is going on in the world at that moment as well? What is the result of choosing to use my mind in that way?
What makes all these transgressions possible is our, sometimes it seems insistent, penchant for others as others, as the other, the others who are in my way, or who are actively causing me pain, or just not helping, not supporting my search for happiness.
One of the other writers in this collection, This I Believe, said that we do not really know what happiness is, but that we do know and feel and follow the imperative to keep searching. That pursuit of happiness that we see as an inalienable right.
I do not know. I think maybe we do know. I think actually we do know what happiness is. I think we have all lived moments where the most important thing was not me. It was not even the only thing. At times when we felt fulfilled, not because we were getting what we wanted or because things were going our way, but because we actually found ourselves, even if it was just for a moment, in tune with the way things are.
Not that we liked the way things are or that we agreed with them particularly, but that we were in tune, which meant that we were accepting them, as Jiro said yesterday, that we truly and deeply accepted them. Not only accepted them, but that we decided that we could thrive in their midst.
What We Make of Our Circumstances
There is a poet, Tibor Toles, who was a Hungarian poet. In the time of communist rule in Hungary in the 1950s, he was imprisoned. It is not really clear why, but he was sent to prison for about nine years. Most of the time, he was in solitary confinement. He was imprisoned with other poets and intellectuals.
They decided to spend their time first choosing a poem that had been written originally in English and voting, then translating it into Hungarian. This would take months. He did not have any paper. He probably, I am guessing, communicated with the help of a sympathetic guard or something.
They passed notes on the food trays and hidden in the laundry and circulated first several options of the poems that they wanted to translate. They finally settled on O Captain! My Captain! by Whitman, which, as you probably know, is an elegy to Lincoln, who in 1865 had just been assassinated when Whitman wrote it. Because they all knew it in the original English, they set about translating it.
Toles did not have paper in his cell, and so he covered his shoes with a very thin film of soap. With a toothpick, he would write out the lines. He would memorize the translated line in Hungarian and somehow pass it on to the next prisoner. In this way, several dozen translations began to circulate around the prison. If you think about it, in his case, he had to have them all in his mind. That was the only way that he could hold them. They would vote.
They spent some time, then they voted on the poem that they thought had the highest achievement in terms of the accuracy and the rhyme of the translation. Then they moved on to a poem by Schiller. In no way being a victim of the circumstances, but deciding to thrive in their midst.
In the Upajatana Sutra, the Sutra on subjects of contemplation, it says, “A disciple of the noble ones considers this: I am owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.” A disciple of the noble ones also considers that to the extent that there are beings, past and future, passing away and re-arising, all beings are owners of their actions. Whatever they do, for good or for evil, to that will they fall heir.
When the disciple reflects on this, the factors of the path take birth. The disciple sticks with that path, develops it, cultivates it. Then the fetters are abandoned, the obsessions destroyed. I and all beings are owners of our actions. Whatever we do, good or bad, to this we will fall heir.
These actions become our inheritance, and they also become our legacy. Knowing this, what kind of actions will we take? What kind of actions are affirming of all life, including our own life? We are one of the beings that needs to be saved. What kind of actions are generous and giving that honor the body, yours and mine, and the body of this planet, this earth, which, if Heinlein is right, will outlive? We will have to change a few things along the way, but it is not impossible.
What actions reflect the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of this human race? What actions reflect the truth that all those bodies out there are not different from this body here? At which point does hearing this or taking in this teaching become truth, become my truth? How does it actually happen?
That is the same as asking, how does realization happen? Quickly, I will tell you that. Seeing can happen in an instant, but doing what you have seen takes a whole lifetime. Lincoln said, “I shall do nothing in malice, for what I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.”
What we deal with is too vast for malicious dealing. It is too vast for selfish concern, for limited caring. It is too vast to be killed or pilfered or abused, but that does not stop us from trying in our confusion. It does not neutralize the effect of our actions. To say, “I cannot hurt you because the self is empty,” is not only diluted, it is dangerous. At the same time, we do have to realize that the self is empty. We have to see clearly the way things are.
Choosing Clarity Over Being Right
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, a Tibetan teacher, says that Dharma means the unmistaken. It is that which is not confused. He says the way to be unmistaken is by first learning, then reflecting, then training in being unconfused. A disciple reflects on the fact that whatever actions they take, to those actions they will fall heir. Reflecting like this, the factors of the path take birth. The disciple sticks with that path, develops it, cultivates it. As they do so, the fetters are abandoned and the obsessions destroyed.
Learning, reflecting, and training in being unconfused, unconfused about the self, unconfused about things, unconfused about mind. This endless obsession with me and you lessens. The boundaries become faint and eventually disappear. I see that what I do unto you, I do unto myself. Then we become decent toward each other, not because we should, but because we see there is no other way to live and actually be happy.
Through practicing right action, we become activists of the deepest and broadest kind, promoting and directing spiritual transformation. Thank you. My experience with this work does require a tremendous degree of attention, to notice what you believe, what I believe, and how those beliefs play out in every single interaction that I have. The stories, the one or two stories I have learned to tell myself, make up who I am.
To question those beliefs over and over again, then to look at them more closely, because some of them are quite subtle and difficult to see. The longer we practice, the more this is true, because the bigger stuff gets smaller. You have to pay closer attention to the stuff that is not so obvious. I have always thought you really have to want to be clear rather than to be right. You have to want it again, and you have to want it when you do not want it. You have to remember when it would be easier to forget.
I have been enjoying and appreciating over at Dharma Communication seeing the many ways in which people remind themselves to practice, remind themselves of their aspiration. Someone has a photo of a loved one who has passed away on their desk. Someone has a copy of the evening gatha, reminding them that time does swiftly pass and opportunity is lost. Someone has a screen saver with the four immeasurables or a picture of Kanon Bodhisattva. Several people have some kind of statue, a Buddha, between the keyboard and the screen.
They are all saying, “I will not forget, no matter what life presents me with. I will not go back to sleep because I have been there, and that is not what I want for my life.” Every time we let go of a thought here in the zendo, we are practicing right action, every time we choose for that instant to be unconfused. How else would we realize this no-self that the teachers speak of?
As long as these thoughts and stories are constantly recreating me, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to see. That is why we place such emphasis on stillness and silence. That is why we do sesshin. It makes it easier to see, to practice moment after moment, wholeheartedly being unconfused, being unmistaken.
Let me end as I began, but this time with my own words. I am not talking about religious beliefs, but about matters that are neither obvious nor obscure. They do bear stating every now and then. I believe in human beings and in our infinite capacity for wisdom and kindness. The strength of our confusion will never be commensurate with our ability to learn and reflect and act according to what is true.
I believe in the luminous Buddha nature that is in every single thing in the universe, a nature that is indestructible. I believe in our mutual reliance. I believe that until the very last day that men and women walk on this earth, there will always be seekers whose lives will not admit going halfway, who will not accept the easy answer.
For them, there is no pursuit of happiness because they know each moment is an arrival. For them, happiness is not complete until it is everyone’s. As impossible as this may seem, they know it is attainable in this lifetime. That is why, in the end, I believe we would rather be clear than be right, why in our search for peace and for freedom, for basic love and for dignity, we will always be unstoppable. This, I believe, with all my heart.
Right Action, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.