Right View
Photo by Federico Respini
The Fourth Noble Truth, as the Buddha framed it, is the Noble Eightfold Path of right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
In the first of a series of talks on the Eightfold Path, Zuisei speaks of right view as the light that illuminates the darkness of ignorance—the intellectual and experiential knowledge of the way things actually are.
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 View
It is just as if a seeker, traveling along a wilderness track, were to see an ancient path, an ancient road traveled by people of former times. She would follow it. Following it, she would see an ancient city, an ancient capital inhabited by people of former times, complete with parks, groves, and ponds—walled, delightful. She would go to address the queen or the queen's minister, saying, “My lady, you should know that while traveling along a wilderness track, I saw an ancient path. I followed it. I saw an ancient city, an ancient capital, complete with parks, groves, and ponds—walled, delightful. My lady, rebuild that city.” And the queen or the queen's minister would rebuild the city so that at a later date, the city would become powerful, rich, and well-populated, fully grown and prosperous.
In the same way, I saw an ancient path, an ancient road traveled by the rightly self-awakened ones of former times. And what is that ancient path, that ancient road? Just this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. That is the ancient path, the ancient road traveled by the rightly self-awakened ones of former times.
I followed that path, and following it, I came to direct knowledge of aging and death, direct knowledge of the origination of aging and death, direct knowledge of the cessation of aging and death, direct knowledge of the path leading to the cessation of aging and death. Knowing that directly, I have revealed it to monks, nuns, male lay followers, and female lay followers, so that this holy life has become powerful, rich, detailed, well-populated, widespread, proclaimed among celestial and human beings. This is the ancient path traveled by the Buddhas of old. This is the way to awakening.
And first, let me acknowledge that I changed the gender of the characters in the above simile of the Buddhas. It was a man traveling the path and meeting a king and meeting the king’s minister. So at first, I changed the king to a queen. And when I got to the minister, my mind kept doing a kind of hiccup. I just couldn’t see—I thought minister, and I thought it was a guy.
And it reminded me of this book by Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, where all the characters are hermaphrodites, and they don’t actually take on sex or gender until they are about to pair with another person. And it depends on their partner’s gender that they take on their own gender. And the king is a king, and he’s a he, but he’s pregnant. And he often acts like a pregnant woman. He has morning sickness, and he often will cry uncontrollably. And so when you’re reading these passages, your mind kind of does this little bit of a hiccup. You have to adjust.
And I remember I asked Kaijin about it, just what she thought. She loved Ursula Le Guin’s books. And so I asked her about it, and she scoffed. You know how she did with her hand? She was just like, “She’s trying to be a feminist,” and she was just disgusted. And like I said, she loved Ursula Le Guin’s books, but every time she thought she was being anywhere near a feminist, she would just dismiss her.
So then I just went ahead and changed the minister to a she. I thought of Margaret Thatcher, and I thought, well, it’s possible. And then I said, well, I’ll just go ahead and change the traveler. You know, at first, I thought maybe I should at least leave the traveler, so I’ll be more balanced. But you know, the guys always get to go on these quests, and the women just stay at home doing the laundry or something. So I thought, no, that’s not quite fair, so I’ll just change the whole thing.
But then I thought, you know, then the guys are not going to be able to identify. It’s going to sound stilted. Exactly. Gentlemen, you’re getting a taste—a very small taste—of what we deal with all the time.
The Dawn of Right View
So this Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha didn’t make it up. He didn’t create it. He rediscovered it, and he set it for himself. Like this seeker following this ancient path to a great walled city. And the traveler goes back to the queen, to the ruler, and says, “Build, rebuild this city that I have seen.” And the queen does, so that at a later date, this city will become powerful, rich, and well-populated, fully grown and prosperous.
We too become fully grown following the Noble Eightfold Path. And the path is divided into three subcategories. Right view, or right understanding, and right aspiration, or right intention, fall under discernment, or wisdom. And then right speech, right action, and right livelihood fall under virtue, or ethical conduct. And right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration fall under concentration, or samadhi.
So I wanted to start at the beginning with right view. The Buddha said, “Just as the dawn is the forerunner and first indication of the rising of the sun, so is right view the forerunner and first indication of wholesome states.” And ideally, all eight of these factors, of these branches, are present simultaneously. But there’s also a gradual component to them, and that’s why it is a path. So one who has right view, right understanding of the way things are, gives rise to right aspiration, right intent. And having that right intent, then you go on to give rise to right speech and so on. But right view is where it all begins. It is like the dawn breaking, like that light that illuminates everything.
And right view has two aspects: a conceptual aspect, which is really a thorough grasp of the Buddhist teaching and their meaning—a more intellectual understanding—and an experiential aspect, wisdom that is derived from personal experience and practice. Conceptual understanding is critical, because you can practice concentration till you’re blue in the face. And without that grounding in the teachings, it becomes stilted; it becomes inflexible. But if it’s just intellectual, then it’s stale, it’s lifeless, and it’s not very useful when it comes to liberation. So both of these aspects need to be present and need to be integrated—like we chant in the identity of relative and absolute, like a box and its lid.
In the Samadirshti Sutra, Shariputra addresses the sangha, a group of disciples, and he’s speaking directly of right view. And he says, or the sutra says, “Thus have I heard: On one occasion, the Blessed One was living at Shravasti in Jeddha’s Grove. There the venerable Shariputra addressed the sangha thus.” “Friends,” they replied. The venerable Shariputra said this: “In what way is a noble disciple one of right view, whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the Dharma, and has arrived at this true Dharma?”
And these sutras—we’ve heard this before—they’re setting up the stage. It doesn’t just launch into the teachings. There’s always a context and a setting, and it’s helping the disciples to hear, to listen well. Friends, they address one another. When they were speaking to the Buddha, they would call him Lord, but among themselves, they would call each other friends. It makes me think of a wedding ceremony—the first, the traditional wedding ceremony, where the priest’s first words are, “Dear friends,” or “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today.” And to me, it has that feeling of closeness, of intimacy, of gathering in, of bringing together your attention, your presence.
I followed that path, and following it, I came to direct knowledge of aging and death…
Like we do here for a Dharma discourse: there’s the bells and the box preparing the zendo, letting us know that the altar is ready, and the Jisharaya is ready, and there’s the drum, so slow and stately, that it is saying something important is about to begin. Don’t miss it. And so the disciples—Shariputra, I’m sorry—first, he sets up the question. He says, when a noble disciple understands… No, I’m skipping one. He’s basically saying, what is the question at hand? What is the noble disciple who has the right view, whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the Dharma, and has arrived at this true Dharma? And the rest of the group says exactly, “That’s what we’re here to learn from you. We’ve come from far away to learn from the venerable Shariputra the meaning of this statement. It would be good if the venerable Shariputra would explain it. And having heard it from him, we will remember it.”
They confirm that this is, in fact, what they want to know, that they’ve traveled far, so they’re in the right place. They brought themselves there, and they say, “We want to hear what you have to say, and when we’ve heard it, we will remember it. We won’t forget, and we won’t lose sight of it, because it’s important.” And Shariputra says, “Then, friends, listen and attend closely to what I shall say.” So if he’s saying, you know, don’t miss the profound teaching, it’s taking place all the time, but right now it’s especially evident. Right now, we’re in agreement that this is what we’re here for, and it’s being put forth.
And so then he says, this is what right view is. “When a noble disciple understands the unwholesome and the root of the unwholesome, understands the wholesome and the root of the wholesome, in that way they’re of right view. They’re one whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the Dharma, and has arrived at this true Dharma.”
That we can, if we want, if we really want to see everything clearly. That’s what Sesshin is for, and that’s what we are here to do. Isn’t it?
This is called Early Hour by Wislawa Szymborska:
I’m still asleep, but meanwhile facts are taking place.
The window grows white, the darknesses turn gray.
The room works its way from hazy space; pale, shaky stripes seek its support.
By turns unhurried, since this is a ceremony, the planes of walls and ceiling dawn.
Shapes separate one from the other, left to right.
The distances between objects irradiate.
The first glints twitter on the tumbler, the doorknob.
Whatever had been displaced yesterday, had fallen to the floor, been contained in picture frames, is no longer simply happening, but is.
Only the details have not yet entered the field of vision.
But look out, look out, look out.
All indicators point to returning colors, and even the smallest thing regains its own hue, along with a hint of a shadow.
This rarely astounds me, but it should. I usually wake up in the role of belated witness, with a miracle already achieved, the day defined, and dawning masterfully recast as morning.
Right View, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.