Eight Worldly Conditions

Gain and loss, shame and fame, blame and praise, pleasure and pain:

these conditions that people meet are impermanent, transient, and subject to change.

A wise and mindful person knows them and sees that they are subject to change.

Desirable conditions don’t excite his mind nor is he saddened by undesirable conditions.

(Reference: AN 8.5)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares “Eight Worldly Conditions”.

Four (4) of these conditions are desirable, while four (4) are undesirable.

The Buddha is sharing that a Practitioner should train the mind so that it is unaffected by desirable conditions through experiencing excitement. And, that a Practitioner should train the mind so that it is unaffected by undesirable conditions through experiencing sadness.

He is providing a reminder that “these conditions that people meet are impermanent, transient, and subject to change”. Knowing that all desirable and undesirable conditions are impermanent and subject to change, it would not be wise to allow the mind to be affected by these temporary conditions.

An Enlightened mind will be trained to not base its inner feelings on impermanent conditions.

The Buddha shares that “a wise and mindful person knows [these desirable and undesirable conditions] and sees that they are subject to change”.

Whenever The Buddha is referring to a wise person, he is referring to a person who is either close to Enlightenment or is Enlightened. Whenever The Buddha is referring to something that is wise, he is referring to practicing these Teachings in such a way that leads to Enlightenment.

Mindful or mindfulness is “awareness of mind”.

So, an Enlightened (wise) person, one who has awareness of the mind (mindful), knows and can observe that all these worldly conditions are subject to change and will train the mind to not base their inner feelings on these impermanent conditions.

In that way, an Enlightened (wise) person, one who has awareness of the mind (mindful), does not allow the mind to become excited by desirable conditions and does not become saddened by undesirable conditions.

When the mind experiences an arising pleasant feeling with Right Mindfulness, the Practitioner needs to apply Right Effort to “cut off and let go” of the arising discontentedness. If a Practitioner can observe this as a bodily sensation and cut it off there, this is ideal. The mind will gradually be trained to eliminate creating its inner feelings on impermanent conditions residing in the middle peaceful, calm, serene, and content with joy, not based on any conditions at all - the mind will be unconditioned.

If the Practitioner is unaware of the arising discontentedness as a bodily sensation, then “cut it off and let it go” as it becomes feelings , is also highly beneficial. Allowing the arising discontentedness to pollute the mind with discontent feelings, then there is the potential for those feelings to influence the condition of the mind for a few hours or days. This will leave a Practitioner challenged with practicing wholesome moral conduct while the mind is polluted with discontentedness.

If the Practitioner is unaware of the arising discontentedness as a feeling, then “cut it off and let it go” as it becomes a condition of the mind , is also beneficial. Allowing the arising discontentedness to pollute the mind by influencing the condition of the mind, there is the potential for the condition of the mind to form mental objects that are more long term and creates sustained changes to the mind that require much more effort and work to eliminate them from the mind. This will leave a Practitioner challenged with practicing wholesome moral conduct, while the mind has a long term sustained unwholesome mental object that influences unskillful moral conduct causing significant harm to one’s own mind and to others in the world.

Observing the arising discontentedness through The Four Foundations of Mindfulness to then “cut off and let go” of the discontentedness, comes with deep practice related to learning and practicing the entire Eight Fold Path to include Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration (i.e. mental discipline) with an understanding of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

This is accomplished through gradual training and gradual practice to experience gradual progress on The Path to Enlightenment with guidance from a Teacher.