The Eight Fold Path: Training the Decision-Maker’s Mind

Chapter 5 of this book established that True Love is not a feeling or emotion but an unconditioned mental quality of genuine interest in seeing all beings be well, without judging whether they deserve love and without wanting or expecting anything from them. It also established that understanding True Love intellectually does not immediately eliminate the craving/desire/attachment, anger, expectations, habits, and conditioned reactions that have accumulated within the unEnlightened mind. A person can understand that another being does not cause their discontentedness and still become angry during a disagreement. They can understand impermanence and still want a relationship to remain the way it existed years earlier. They can understand that another person has their own life and their own decisions while still experiencing a strong desire to get that person to make a different choice.

The difficulty is not necessarily a lack of intellectual knowledge. The difficulty is that the mind making the decisions has not yet been fully trained. A Practitioner can know that a particular reaction is unwise while continuing to repeat it because the underlying mental qualities remain present. They can recognize afterward that a conversation would have gone better if they had waited until the mind was calm, yet still speak too quickly the next time irritation arises. They can see the complete truth in The Teaching of The Buddha that another being remains the decision-maker within their own life while still experiencing discontentedness when that person makes a different decision. Intellectual understanding provides an essential foundation, but the mind needs to be trained so that wisdom increasingly influences the decisions being made in daily life.

This is why The Buddha did not merely explain the cause of discontentedness and leave humanity to determine what to do next. The Four Noble Truths provide a complete framework. The First Noble Truth identifies discontentedness as the problem. The Second Noble Truth identifies craving/desire/attachment as its cause. The Third Noble Truth explains that discontentedness can be eliminated by eliminating its cause. The Fourth Noble Truth explains the way of practice leading to that elimination.

That way of practice is The Eight Fold Path. It is the complete solution to eliminating 100% of all craving/desire/attachment to experience a peaceful and joyful mind and life, and at the same time, develop harmony in relationships.

The Eight Fold Path trains the decision-maker’s mind so that the Practitioner increasingly understands circumstances through wisdom, forms wholesome intentions, communicates and acts without harm, recognizes what is occurring within the mind, and applies effort and concentration before unwholesome mental qualities influence a decision. The Path does not remove the Practitioner’s ability to choose, nor does it make decisions on the Practitioner’s behalf. The Practitioner remains the one making the decision. What changes through training is the quality of the mind from which the decision is being made.

This is particularly important in relationships because interactions with other beings continually provide circumstances in which decisions are made. Someone says something unexpected. A child chooses differently than the parent hoped. A life partner disagrees. A friend communicates less frequently. A coworker makes a mistake. A Student does not apply advice that was offered. Someone behaves harshly, selfishly, dishonestly, or inconsiderately. In each circumstance, something happens externally, but what occurs next depends significantly upon the condition of the Practitioner’s own mind.

Does the mind understand the circumstance accurately? What intention forms? Is craving/desire/attachment present? Is there anger or ill will? Is loving-kindness present? Does the Practitioner speak immediately, or are they sufficiently aware to recognize that communication at that moment would be unwise? Does the mind remain with the actual circumstance, or does it become scattered through memories, assumptions, imagined motives, and expectations? What decision is eventually made?

These questions bring us directly into The Eight Fold Path.

The Fourth Noble Truth: The Way of Practice

Understanding that craving/desire/attachment causes discontentedness establishes an essential part of Right View, but understanding the cause intellectually does not eliminate it. A Practitioner may clearly understand that their attachment to another person’s behavior is producing discontentedness and then experience the same pattern again the following week. They may recognize that anger is unwholesome and still experience anger when someone communicates harshly. They may know that expectations cannot permanently be fulfilled and still discover another expectation when circumstances change.

The mind has developed patterns over long periods of time through a process referred to as the “conditioning of the mind”. It has repeatedly practiced craving, anger, ignorance (unknowing of true reality), attachment, judgment, retaliation, expectation, distraction, and many other unwholesome mental qualities. Merely discovering that these patterns are producing unfavorable results does not immediately eliminate them. A different mental training needs to be developed repeatedly until wisdom and wholesome qualities become increasingly established within the mind.

The Eight Fold Path is that training.

It is not simply a collection of conflict-resolution techniques, nor is it a set of eight independent exercises completed one at a time. The Eight Fold Path is a comprehensive life practice through which wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline develop together. Right View and Right Intention develop Wisdom. Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood develop Moral Conduct. Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration develop Mental Discipline. As these areas develop together, the entire decision-making process is gradually transformed. Volume 1 of The Words of The Buddha — Developing a Life Practice, particularly Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, provides a considerably more extensive foundational study of The Four Noble Truths and The Eight Fold Path. The purpose of this chapter is not to reproduce that complete Teaching but to preserve the essential meaning of each factor while applying The Eight Fold Path specifically to the development of harmony in relationships.

The Eight Fold Path

The Practitioner does not master Right View and then permanently set it aside to begin Right Intention. Right Speech is not practiced only after Right Intention has been perfected. Right Mindfulness does not wait until every aspect of moral conduct has already been mastered. The entire Path is practiced together throughout daily life. Progress occurs gradually as the Practitioner learns, reflects, practices, observes results, acquires wisdom, and makes increasingly wholesome decisions.

This integrated quality becomes especially clear in relationships because one conversation can involve nearly every factor of The Eight Fold Path within a matter of moments.

Understanding “Right” as “Wise”

Throughout The Eight Fold Path, each factor is traditionally described using the word “Right”: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. While these are the terms that will continue to be used throughout this book, another helpful way for the Practitioner to understand the meaning of “Right” is “Wise”. In this way, Right View can be understood as Wise View, Right Intention as Wise Intention, Right Speech as Wise Speech, Right Action as Wise Action, and so forth throughout the entire Path.

Thinking about the factors in this way helps the Practitioner understand that The Eight Fold Path is training the mind to make increasingly wise decisions based upon true reality, harmlessness, wholesome mental qualities, and an understanding of cause and effect (The Natural Law of Kamma). The question is not simply whether a decision can be labeled “right” or “wrong”. The more useful investigation is whether the view, intention, communication, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, or concentration being cultivated is wise or unwise, and what results that decision will produce. A Wise View understands circumstances accurately. A Wise Intention develops renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness. Wise Speech and Wise Action avoid causing harm. Wise Livelihood guides a Practitioner to develop a way to sustain their life without causing harm to other beings and thoroughly enjoy the work. Wise Effort cultivates wholesome mental qualities while eliminating unwholesome ones. Wise Mindfulness develops the mind to have awareness. Wise Concentration cultivates focus and clarity. In this way, each factor guides the decision-maker’s mind toward choices that produce increasingly wholesome results.

The word “Right” therefore does not need to be understood as a rigid declaration about a person being “right” while someone else is “wrong”. It describes a way of developing the mind that is aligned with wisdom and The Path leading to the elimination of discontentedness. The Practitioner can continue learning the formal factors as Right View, Right Intention, Right

Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration, while also remembering the practical meaning:

Wise View -> Wise Intention -> Wise Speech -> Wise Action -> Wise Livelihood -> Wise Effort -> Wise Mindfulness -> Wise Concentration.

Right View: Understanding What Is Actually Occurring

Right View establishes the wisdom of discontentedness, the cause of discontentedness, the elimination of discontentedness, and the way of practice leading to its elimination. This is why The Four Noble Truths are foundational to The Eight Fold Path. If the Practitioner misunderstands the cause of their discontentedness, every decision that follows can be directed toward solving the wrong problem.

Consider a life partner who says something the Practitioner does not like. A conditioned painful feeling arises within the Practitioner’s mind. Without Right View, the mind can immediately conclude, “You are making me angry”. Once this interpretation is accepted, the apparent solution becomes changing the other person. The Practitioner may attempt to correct their speech, pressure them to apologize, demand a different tone, argue about what they said, or attempt to make them understand that they caused the Practitioner’s mental state.

But if the other person is thought to be the cause of the discontentedness, the Practitioner has placed the solution outside their own mind. The mind then becomes interested in arranging the external world so that other people speak, act, and decide in ways that prevent unpleasant experiences from arising. This approach cannot lead to permanent peace because another being can never be permanently arranged according to the Practitioner’s desires.

Right View changes the investigation. The other person’s communication is an external circumstance. The conditioned painful feeling is being experienced within the Practitioner’s mind because causes and conditions exist there. Craving/desire/attachment may be present for the person to speak differently, agree, show more respect, understand the Practitioner’s point of view, or behave according to an expectation. The problem that needs to be eliminated is therefore not the existence of another independent being who made a different decision. The Practitioner needs to identify and eliminate the craving/desire/attachment within their own mind.

This does not mean the other person’s conduct is automatically wise. Right View does not require pretending that harsh speech is gentle, dishonesty is truthful, or an unwise decision is wise. Wisdom accurately recognizes what is occurring without confusing the conduct of another being with the causes of the Practitioner’s own discontentedness.

Right View also brings the wisdom of impermanence into the relationship. The person is changing. The Practitioner is changing. The circumstances are changing. The relationship is changing. Goals are changing. A relationship changes because the causes and conditions supporting its previous form have changed. When the Practitioner deeply understands this, change is no longer interpreted automatically as evidence that something has gone wrong. The mind can evaluate what exists now rather than continuously demanding that the present reproduce the past.

Right View also remembers that another being remains another being. Their mind is not the Practitioner’s mind. Their decisions are not the Practitioner’s decisions. Their results are not the Practitioner’s results.

Their Life -> Their Decisions -> Their Results.

Offering wisdom, asking questions, explaining likely results, and providing encouragement do not transfer decision-making from the other being to the Practitioner. Another person’s final decision remains their decision. This understanding allows guidance to exist without turning guidance into an attempt to control another being.

Right View therefore changes the question from, “How do I get this person to do what I want?” to, “What is actually occurring, what causes and conditions are present, and what would be a wise decision within these circumstances?”

That is a fundamentally different starting point for a relationship because the Practitioner understands that their discontentedness is being caused within their own mind due to craving/desire/attachment, not by external circumstances.

Right Intention: What Is the Mind Trying to Accomplish?

Once a circumstance is understood, an intention begins directing the decision that will follow. Right Intention consists of the intention of renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness. These three qualities are particularly important in relationships because a person can appear polite externally while the intention inside the mind remains unwholesome.

Renunciation can be understood as the intention to let go. Within relationships, the Practitioner learns to let go of the demand that another being agree, remain the same, provide continual attention, communicate according to a preferred pattern, make a particular decision, maintain a relationship in its previous form, or satisfy an expectation before the Practitioner can remain peaceful. Renunciation is not abandoning the person. The Practitioner is abandoning the craving/desire/attachment within their own mind. Volume 1 describes renunciation as the willingness to let go of unwholesomeness and the false beliefs and misperceptions that keep the mind holding tightly to craving/desire/attachment.

A parent can let go of the craving for an adult child to choose a particular career while continuing to love and support the child. A life partner can let go of the expectation that both people participate in every activity together while continuing to enjoy the relationship. A friend can let go of craving for a particular amount of communication while still valuing the friendship. A Teacher can let go of the expectation that a Student immediately understand or practice every Teaching while continuing to offer guidance.

Non-ill will develops the mind in the opposite direction from anger, hostility, resentment, bitterness, revenge, and dislike. It develops a mind fully permeated with loving-kindness. If the Practitioner’s intention is to punish another person, embarrass them, defeat them in an argument, withhold kindness until they comply, or retaliate because the Practitioner experienced discontentedness, then the decision is already developing from an unwholesome quality before a word has been spoken. Right Intention develops the mental quality of loving-kindness so that the Practitioner maintains a genuine interest in the well-being of other beings rather than forming decisions through ill will.

Harmlessness helps a Practitioner view life situations through a different lens: is the decision being prepared likely to cause harm? The Practitioner may have accurate information and still share it with an intention to hurt. They may be factually correct and still speak in a way that will produce harm. They may disagree with another person and still choose an action intended to punish that being for making a different decision. Right Intention brings the mind back to renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness before communication and action are formed.

It is not possible for you to cause another person to experience discontentedness, but you can cause them harm. Causing harm could include harming another being’s physical body, material possessions, or reputation. Anytime the Practitioner causes harm, harm will return to the Practitioner based on The Natural Law of Kamma. Therefore, when the mind possesses the intention of harmlessness, the Practitioner will make decisions without an interest in causing harm to others, producing wholesome results (i.e. wholesome Kamma).

This is where the training of relationships becomes considerably deeper than simply learning better phrases. Two people can use almost identical words while possessing entirely different intentions. One person may ask a question because they are genuinely interested in understanding. Another may ask the same question because they are constructing an argument. One person may offer advice because they see an opportunity to share wisdom. Another may offer advice because they are determined to obtain compliance.

The words alone do not reveal the entire quality of the decision. The intention from which those words arise matters because decisions about speech and actions arise from the qualities within the mind.

Right Speech: Bringing the Qualities of the Mind Into Communication

Right Speech formally involves refraining from lying, slander, harsh speech, and frivolous speech. These four areas form the foundational Teaching of Right Speech.

During the lifetime of The Buddha, communication occurred primarily through spoken words. Today, the same mental training applies across spoken conversations, text messages, emails, social media posts, comments, voice messages, video calls, and every other method through which people communicate. The technology has changed, but the mind forming the communication has not. This is why Right Communication can be a useful practical description of Right Speech in modern daily life.

A Practitioner can lie through a text message just as easily as through spoken words. Slander can be distributed to thousands of people through social media. Harsh speech can occur in an email. Frivolous speech can occupy hours of digital communication. The moral quality of the communication is not determined by whether sound came from the mouth. It is determined by the intentions and decisions involved in communicating.

Right Speech also needs to be separated from another important Teaching: The Five Factors of Well Spoken Speech. The Five Factors are not the formal definition of Right Speech. They provide deeper guidance concerning the quality of communication and what would be wise to practice to develop harmony in relationships and train the mind to attain Enlightenment. Speech is well spoken when it occurs at the proper time, is true, is spoken gently, is beneficial, and is communicated with a mind of loving-kindness.

This deeper training has obvious importance within relationships. A true statement can still be communicated at an unwise time. Gentle words can still contain a motivation to cause harm. A conversation can contain accurate information while lacking loving-kindness. Wise communication therefore involves considerably more than simply avoiding deliberate lies.

Imagine that a challenging issue needs to be discussed with a life partner. The Practitioner may possess accurate information and have a genuine interest in resolving a concern, but the Practitioner notices that anger is presently active within the mind. Right Speech does not mean that the conversation can never occur. Wisdom may indicate that the topic genuinely needs to be discussed. But the proper time is not while anger is influencing the mind.

The Practitioner can postpone the conversation because the mind is not yet prepared to communicate wholesomely. This is not avoidance. It is training. The mind is learning that the appearance of an impulse to speak does not mean speaking immediately is wise. The Practitioner can wait until mindfulness, concentration, loving-kindness, and clarity of mind are sufficiently present to communicate without harm. Volume 1 similarly explains that a discontent mind is an indication that it is not the proper time to speak and that communication can be delayed until mindfulness, concentration, and wholesome intention are restored.

Chapter 14 of this book will explore Wise Communication in considerably greater depth. For now, the important understanding is that speech is one of the primary ways the condition of the decision-maker’s mind enters a relationship. Training the mind therefore changes the communication which will improve harmony in relationships.

Right Action: What the Practitioner Chooses to Do

Right Action concerns bodily conduct. The foundational Teaching includes refraining from taking life, taking what is not given, and sexual misconduct. The broader application throughout daily life is harmless bodily conduct.

Relationships provide countless circumstances in which bodily actions communicate just as powerfully as words. Physical violence is an obvious form of harmful action, but harmful bodily conduct does not need to reach that extreme before it damages a relationship. Throwing objects, attempting to physically intimidate another person, intentionally damaging another person’s possessions, using aggressive gestures, or engaging in sexual conduct that produces harm are all examples in which the decision-maker’s mental state has moved beyond thought and speech into action.

Right Action brings The Teaching of harmlessness directly into what the Practitioner chooses to do. This also demonstrates why the earlier factors cannot be separated from the later ones. Harmless actions begin with wisdom and wholesome intentions. If the mind is filled with anger, retaliation, craving, jealousy, or ill will, harmful actions become considerably more likely. If the mind possesses Right View and Right Intention, the foundation for harmless bodily conduct has already been strengthened.

A Practitioner can experience significant discontentedness during an interaction and still refrain from converting that mental state into harmful actions. This is an important stage of development. The conditioned feeling may still arise because its causes have not yet been completely eliminated, but the Practitioner becomes increasingly capable of making a different decision while continuing the work of eliminating those causes.

Eventually, the goal is considerably deeper than restraining the body while anger remains active within the mind. The goal is to eliminate the anger itself. But refraining from harmful bodily actions while the mind is still developing prevents an unwholesome mental state from being multiplied through additional unwise and unwholesome decisions that will produce unwholesome results (i.e. unwholesome Kamma).

Right Livelihood: Harmlessness Extends Into How Life is Sustained

Right Livelihood concerns the way a person sustains their life. At its foundation, livelihood is developed without causing harm to other beings. Volume 1 provides considerably more detail on Right Livelihood, including The Buddha’s guidance concerning harmful trades and unwholesome methods of pursuing wealth.

At first, Right Livelihood may appear less directly connected with harmony in relationships than Right Speech or Right Intention. But livelihood occupies a substantial portion of many people’s lives and places them in continual interaction with coworkers, customers, managers, employees, clients, patients, Students, vendors, business partners, and the wider community. The condition of the mind brought into livelihood therefore becomes part of the Practitioner’s relationships.

A person may speak politely with family members while behaving dishonestly in business. They may practice kindness with friends while belittling employees. They may describe themselves as peaceful while earning income through conduct that intentionally harms other beings. The life practice cannot be divided into a wholesome private life and an unwholesome professional life.

Right Livelihood teaches the Practitioner to bring harmlessness into the way life is sustained. The Buddha identified business in weapons, living beings, meat, substances that cause heedlessness, and poisons as trades a Household Practitioner would be wise to avoid because of the harm associated with them. When an individual causes harm to others, including during the performance of a livelihood, harm will come to the individual. So The Buddha taught to avoid these livelihoods so that a Practitioner would not experience harm coming to them based on how they choose to sustain their life. Other aspects of wrong livelihood identified within The Teachings of The Buddha include conduct such as scheming, flattery, hinting, belittling, and pursuing gain with gain.

Having a Right Livelihood can provide the needed resources to sustain a Practitioner’s life while creating a comfortable lifestyle. Conversely, a wrong livelihood would strain an individual’s ability to develop a wonderful life for themselves and all those around them. It would create harm to others; therefore, the Practitioner and those they are supporting will experience the results of that harmful conduct. Therefore, it is wise to develop a Right Livelihood according to what was taught by The Buddha on this important topic.

The complete study of these areas extends beyond the purpose of this relationships chapter and it is advisable to learn all these factors from The Eight Fold Path in the other materials provided by Daily Wisdom - Walking The Path with The Buddha. For developing harmony, the key Teaching is that the Practitioner does not temporarily abandon wholesome conduct merely because an interaction is occurring within a workplace or involves money. The same decision-maker’s mind participates in personal and professional relationships.

Right Effort: Training What Develops Within the Mind

Right Effort is one of the most practical factors of The Eight Fold Path for understanding how the mind is gradually retrained. It contains four aspects:

Prevent -> Abandon -> Produce -> Maintain

The Practitioner applies effort to prevent unwholesome mental states that have not arisen from arising, abandon unwholesome mental states that have already arisen, produce wholesome mental states that have not yet arisen, and maintain wholesome mental states that are already present while developing them further so that they are brought to full perfection and development.

This training has immediate relevance to relationships. Suppose the Practitioner is preparing to meet someone with whom there has previously been disagreement. The mind already knows that certain thoughts frequently lead toward irritation, judgment, or hostility within their mind. Right Effort can be applied before the interaction begins. The Practitioner can establish loving-kindness, remember that the other person is an individual being, reflect on impermanence, establish the intention of harmlessness, and prepare to listen carefully. The Practitioner is working to apply Right Effort to Prevent unwholesome mental qualities that have not yet arisen.

During the conversation, irritation arises. The practice now involves applying effort to Abandon the unwholesome mental state that has arisen. The Practitioner recognizes the irritation and does not need to protect it, justify it, feed it with additional thoughts, or convert it into harsh speech. The irritation is present within the mind, and Right Effort is applied to abandon it. The Practitioner can let go of the thought pattern, remain silent temporarily, return attention to the present interaction, remember the wisdom already acquired, and refrain from allowing irritation to influence the next decision.

At the same time, the Practitioner may recognize that patience or loving-kindness is not present within the mind. Right Effort is then applied to Produce wholesome mental qualities that are not present. The Practitioner deliberately cultivates patience, compassion, loving-kindness, equanimity, generosity, or whatever wholesome mental quality would assist the mind in responding wisely.

When loving-kindness, patience, calmness, and clarity of mind are present but not yet fully developed, Right Effort is applied to Maintain those qualities and bring them to full growth, development, and perfection. The Practitioner does not assume that because the conversation has remained peaceful for several minutes the training is complete. The wholesome qualities are maintained and developed so that the mind becomes fully permeated with wholesome qualities. Volume 1 explains this same progression through the cultivation of generosity, compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, equanimity, wisdom, and other wholesome mental qualities.

This is how the mind changes through repeated practice. Initially, anger may arise frequently and the Practitioner only recognizes it after harsh words have already been spoken. With further training, the Practitioner notices anger while speaking and stops. Later, anger is recognized before the first harsh word occurs. With still more training, the bodily sensations and mental conditions preceding anger are noticed earlier and the mind abandons the unwholesome state more quickly. Eventually, as the causes of anger are eliminated, the same type of circumstance can occur without anger arising at all.

This is gradual training. The goal is not merely becoming skilled at hiding anger. The goal is its elimination and the Practitioner will need to apply effort to accomplish this objective.

Right Mindfulness: Knowing What Is Occurring Within the Mind

Right Effort cannot be applied effectively unless the Practitioner first recognizes what is occurring within the mind. A person cannot abandon anger that they have not noticed, investigate an expectation they do not recognize, or cultivate loving-kindness when they are unaware that ill will has begun developing. This is why Right Mindfulness is essential to training the decision-maker’s mind. For a Practitioner beginning this training, Right Mindfulness can be understood as awareness of mind in the present moment. The deeper Teaching involves The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: developing awareness of body as body (bodily sensations associated with the arising of discontentedness), feelings as feelings (pleasant, painful, and neither painful-nor-pleasant feelings), mind as mind (condition of the mind), and mental objects as mental objects (the arising symptoms of The Ten Fetters—the deeply rooted pollutions of the mind). These areas of awareness allow the Practitioner to observe the development of mental activity rather than simply experiencing the final result after an unwise decision has already been made.

Relationships provide especially useful circumstances for developing this awareness because interactions with other beings can reveal changes within the mind very quickly. A life partner may say something unexpected and the body begins tightening. A conditioned painful feeling arises. Irritation appears. The mind produces a thought such as, “They always do this”. An expectation becomes visible: “They are supposed to understand me by now”. While the other person is still speaking, the Practitioner may begin constructing a response, remembering previous disagreements, imagining motives, or deciding what the other person needs to do differently. Without mindfulness, this entire sequence can move rapidly from bodily sensations and conditioned feelings into thoughts, intentions, communication, and actions without the Practitioner clearly recognizing how the decision developed.

Right Mindfulness allows the Practitioner to notice this process while it is occurring. Rather than becoming completely absorbed in what the other person is doing, the Practitioner develops awareness of what is happening within their own mind. They may recognize that irritation is present, that the mind wants the other person to speak differently, that an expectation has been challenged, or that there is an impulse to interrupt and defend a particular opinion. This does not mean the Practitioner becomes passive and ignores the external circumstance. The other person’s conduct can still be understood accurately. Instead, mindfulness prevents the Practitioner from directing all attention outward while remaining unaware of the causes and conditions developing internally that can influence the next decision.

This distinction is important because a person can pay extremely close attention to another being while possessing very little mindfulness of their own mind. They may notice every word, facial expression, tone, inconsistency, mistake, and decision made by the other person while choosing not to recognize the anger, jealousy, resentment, craving/desire/attachment, fear, or expectation developing within their own mind. The mind can become highly skilled at monitoring other people while remaining largely unaware of its own condition. Right Mindfulness turns awareness toward the area where the Practitioner can actually train and develop—their own mind.

Once awareness of mind is present, the other factors of The Eight Fold Path can be applied more effectively. Right View can help the Practitioner understand why the mental quality has arisen. Right Intention can reestablish renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness. Right Effort can be used to abandon an unwholesome mental quality and produce or maintain a wholesome one. Right Speech can guide whether communication would be wise at that moment and how that communication could occur without harm. Right Concentration can help stabilize the mind so that the Practitioner is not immediately pulled into every thought or conditioned feeling that arises. Right Mindfulness therefore does not operate independently. It provides the awareness through which the Practitioner can recognize the present condition of the mind and then apply the rest of The Path appropriately.

As mindfulness develops, recognition can occur earlier in the mental process. Initially, a Practitioner may only realize that anger was present after an argument has ended. Later, they may recognize anger while speaking harshly and stop. With additional training, irritation may be noticed before the first harsh words are spoken. Eventually, the Practitioner may recognize the bodily sensations, expectations, and mental movements that previously preceded anger, allowing Right Effort to be applied before the unwholesome mental state develops further. The training becomes increasingly refined because mindfulness allows the Practitioner to observe what is occurring sooner and with greater clarity of mind.

This understanding will become particularly important in Chapter 7 of this book, where discontentedness will be examined as the Red Light revealing the presence of craving/desire/attachment within the mind. The Practitioner cannot respond wisely to that red light if they do not recognize that it has appeared. Right Mindfulness trains the Practitioner to notice unwholesome qualities so Right Effort can be applied to eliminate them, while also recognizing wholesome qualities so they can be maintained and brought to full development.

Right Concentration: Developing Singleness of Mind

Right Concentration develops through meditation and the cultivation of singleness of mind. A mind that is continually scattered between past events, future worries, several simultaneous activities, imagined conversations, unresolved disagreements, digital distractions, and numerous competing thoughts will find it considerably more difficult to apply wisdom when a challenging relationship circumstance occurs. Even when the Practitioner intellectually knows The Teachings, that wisdom may be challenging to access if the mind is unstable, distracted, overactive, or continually moving from one mental object to another.

Breathing Mindfulness Meditation provides important training for developing concentration because the Practitioner repeatedly practices remaining with a single object. When the mind wanders, the Practitioner becomes aware that attention has moved elsewhere, lets go, and returns to the breath. This process is repeated again and again, gradually developing the ability to remain present with greater steadiness and clarity of mind. This training supports the Practitioner in eliminating craving/desire/attachment while developing Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. The purpose is not merely to become concentrated during a meditation session. The mind being trained during meditation is the same mind that later communicates with a life partner, listens to a child, guides a Student, works with a coworker, responds to disagreement, and makes decisions throughout daily life. Volume 1 connects Right Concentration with meditation, singleness of mind, and carrying that concentrated training into daily activity.

Singleness of mind therefore becomes part of the Practitioner’s relationships. When another being is speaking, a concentrated mind can remain with what is actually being communicated rather than simultaneously preparing a rebuttal, remembering previous disagreements, checking a phone, interpreting every facial movement, imagining what the person might say next, and deciding how to obtain a preferred outcome. The Practitioner can listen until the other person finishes, consider what was actually said, identify what remains unclear, ask questions when necessary, and then decide how to respond. This produces a very different interaction from one in which the mind is rapidly moving between assumptions, memories, expectations, and reactions.

Right Concentration also helps prevent separate circumstances from becoming mentally combined into one large conflict. A person may be discussing one present concern while the unconcentrated mind begins collecting ten previous disagreements, several unrelated frustrations, and fears concerning the future. The current interaction then becomes burdened by circumstances that are not actually part of the topic being discussed. Singleness of mind helps the Practitioner remain with the circumstance that exists now. Past experiences can still provide useful information, and future results can still be considered, but the mind does not need to scatter itself across every related memory and possibility while attempting to make one present decision.

The complete Teaching of Right Concentration also includes experiencing the Jhānas, or increasingly deep states of concentration and enhanced qualities of mind. These are important aspects of The Eight Fold Path, but a detailed examination of them would move beyond the purpose of this Harmony in Relationships book. The reader interested in developing a complete understanding of Right Concentration would be wise to study the fuller Teachings in The Words of The Buddha book series and receive guidance from a Teacher in meditation practice. Within the present chapter, the important relationship application is to understand that Right Concentration is not merely “paying attention”. Its complete development includes meditation training and progressively refined concentration.

This training directly supports wise decision-making because the Practitioner becomes increasingly capable of remaining present while a conditioned feeling is being experienced. A painful feeling can arise without the mind immediately becoming lost in it. A disagreement can occur without attention scattering into every previous disagreement. Another person can make an unplanned decision without the Practitioner immediately creating several imagined future outcomes. The mind becomes better prepared to recognize what exists, understand it through wisdom, and then choose a response rather than allowing mental scattering to influence the decision.

The Entire Path Functions Within the Decision

Although The Eight Fold Path can be studied through eight individual factors, the Practitioner does not experience daily life as eight separate exercises. During an actual relationship circumstance, several or all of the factors can operate together within a very short period of time. This is one reason The Path needs to be understood as a complete life practice rather than as a sequence in which one factor is perfected before another begins. Wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline continually support one another as the mind learns to make increasingly wholesome decisions.

Consider a circumstance in which a life partner communicates harshly during a disagreement. Right View allows the Practitioner to recognize that the external speech did not cause the conditioned painful feeling within the

Practitioner’s mind. The Practitioner can instead investigate the craving/desire/attachment, expectations, or other causes and conditions present internally while also accurately recognizing that the other person’s harsh speech was unwise. Right Intention directs the mind toward renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness so that the Practitioner does not develop an interest in retaliation, punishment, or forcing agreement. Right Speech influences whether communication is beneficial at that moment and, if communication occurs, whether it can be conducted without lying, slander, harsh speech, or frivolous speech. Right Action ensures that the mental state is not converted into harmful bodily conduct.

At the same time, Right Effort is being applied within the mind. If irritation or anger has arisen, the Practitioner works to abandon it. If loving-kindness or patience does not exist, the Practitioner works to produce those wholesome mental qualities. If calmness, loving-kindness, and clarity of mind are already present, the Practitioner applies effort to maintain and further develop them. Right Mindfulness provides awareness that these mental qualities are occurring, while Right Concentration helps the mind remain stable enough to apply the training without immediately becoming scattered into memories, assumptions, imagined motives, or future fears. Right Livelihood may not be directly involved in this particular conversation, but it remains part of the same life practice through which harmlessness is developed across the Practitioner’s entire life.

As these factors of The Eight Fold Path work together, the Practitioner becomes increasingly capable of making wise decisions. The Practitioner might decide to continue the discussion gently, ask a question, clarify what was meant, remain silent for a period of time, postpone the conversation until the mind is calmer, or discontinue participation in that particular interaction. The Eight Fold Path does not teach that one identical external response is correct in every circumstance because circumstances differ. The Buddha does not provide a decision tree that teaches, “If this happens, do that,” because there is not one permanent response that applies to every unique situation. Wisdom needs to understand the causes and conditions based on the unique variables that exist now. What The Eight Fold Path develops is the quality of the mind from which the decision is made.

This explains why a particular outward behavior cannot always be classified as wise or unwise without understanding the mental qualities and circumstances surrounding it. Silence can arise from wisdom because the Practitioner recognizes that speaking at that moment would cause harm, or silence can be used as punishment because the Practitioner wants another person to experience discomfort. Leaving a conversation can be a wise decision because neither person is currently prepared to communicate wholesomely, or it can arise as an angry attempt to punish the other person.

Agreeing can occur because the Practitioner has genuinely acquired new understanding, or it can occur because they are afraid of disagreement. The outward conduct may appear similar while the mental states producing the decision are entirely different.

For this reason, The Eight Fold Path does considerably more than train behavior. It trains the decision-maker’s mind to function through wholesome qualities that produce wholesome results (i.e. wholesome Kamma).

Wisdom, Moral Conduct, and Mental Discipline Work Together

The three categories of The Eight Fold Path—Wisdom, Moral Conduct, and Mental Discipline—help explain why harmonious relationships cannot be developed through communication techniques alone. Communication is important, but communication is the outward expression of a much larger mental process. If the mind continues misunderstanding reality, forming unwholesome intentions, experiencing anger, holding tightly to expectations, and remaining unaware of its own mental condition, learning a collection of polite phrases will not eliminate the causes of disharmony.

Wisdom provides the understanding from which the decision begins. Through Right View and Right Intention, the Practitioner develops a more accurate understanding of discontentedness, craving/desire/attachment, impermanence, the independence of other beings, and the results of wholesome and unwholesome choices. Without this wisdom, a person might communicate calmly while still attempting to control another being. They could use gentle language while firmly believing another person is causing their discontentedness. They might speak politely while maintaining the expectation that the other person ultimately needs to comply. The external communication could temporarily appear harmonious while the causes of future disharmony remain fully active within the mind.

Moral Conduct carries wisdom into the world through Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. A person can understand The Teachings intellectually yet continue communicating harshly, behaving dishonestly, acting harmfully, or sustaining their life through conduct that harms other beings. Intellectual knowledge alone therefore does not demonstrate that the decision-maker has been sufficiently trained. Wisdom becomes meaningful in daily life when it begins influencing the intentions, communication, actions, and other choices the Practitioner makes while interacting with the world.

Mental Discipline allows wisdom and moral conduct to become increasingly stable. Through Right Effort, the Practitioner deliberately works with wholesome and unwholesome qualities. Through Right Mindfulness, the Practitioner recognizes what is occurring within the mind. Through Right

Concentration, the mind becomes increasingly stable, clear, and capable of remaining with the present circumstance. Without mental discipline, a person may know exactly what would have been wise only after the interaction has ended. They may think, “I should not have spoken that way”, or, “I allowed my expectation to influence the conversation”, only after unwise communication has already occurred and caused harm; thus, harm will return to the Practitioner.

The training is to recognize these conditions earlier. At first, wisdom may come several minutes after the unwise decision. With continued practice, recognition occurs during the decision. Later, mindfulness and concentration allow recognition before the communication or action occurs. Eventually, as craving, anger, and ignorance (unknowing of true reality) are eliminated from the mind, the same circumstances can occur without the unwholesome mental states that once needed active restraint arising.

The Practitioner is therefore not merely learning to act more skillfully after pollution has arisen in the mind. The deeper objective is to purify the mind so completely that the unwholesome mental quality no longer exists.

Gradual Training of the Decision-Maker’s Mind

The development of The Eight Fold Path occurs gradually because the mind itself is being trained. Patterns that have been repeated for years are not necessarily eliminated simply because the Practitioner understands them today. A person may have practiced anger during disagreement for decades. They may have repeatedly attempted to control people they love, interpreted disagreement as disrespect, blamed others for conditioned feelings, spoken immediately whenever irritation arose, or expected close relationships to remain permanently unchanged. Those mental patterns have been practiced repeatedly, and the development of a wiser mind also occurs through repeated practice.

This is why progress can be observed in the quality of decisions even before complete elimination of the underlying causes has occurred. A Practitioner who previously became angry during nearly every disagreement may begin recognizing anger more quickly. Someone who once sent harsh messages immediately may learn to wait until the mind is peaceful and clear before deciding whether a response would even be wise. A parent who repeatedly explained the same advice until an adult child complied may learn to share wisdom when there is an open door, answer questions, and then recognize that the final decision belongs to the child. A life partner who once interpreted independent activities as rejection may begin understanding that two beings can love one another while continuing to have different interests and experiences.

These developments are meaningful because they reveal that the decision-maker’s mind is changing. The external circumstances do not need to become easier before progress can occur. The life partner may still disagree. The child may still choose differently. The coworker may still make mistakes. Another person may still communicate harshly. The Practitioner’s development is observed in the increasing ability to understand these circumstances through wisdom, maintain a calm mind in challenging situations, and make wise decisions without requiring every other person to change first.

This progression does not end with improved behavioral restraint. If anger is present but the Practitioner successfully avoids harsh speech, that is beneficial progress because an additional unwise decision has been prevented. But the ultimate goal is not to spend the rest of life silently containing anger. The Practitioner continues investigating and eliminating the causes of the anger so that eventually the anger itself no longer arises because it no longer exists in the mind. The same is true for jealousy, resentment, irritation, expectations, craving/desire/attachment, and all other unwholesome mental qualities. The Eight Fold Path is not merely training the Practitioner to conceal them more effectively. It is training the mind toward their elimination.

The process can therefore be understood as an ongoing development in which wisdom leads to greater awareness, greater awareness allows the Practitioner to identify unwholesome mental qualities, Right Effort is applied to abandon those qualities and cultivate wholesome ones, wiser decisions are made, the results of those decisions are observed, and additional wisdom is acquired. The Practitioner then carries that greater wisdom into the next circumstance and continues the training.

Acquire wisdom -> recognize the condition of the mind -> identify unwholesome mental qualities -> apply Right Effort -> cultivate wholesome qualities -> make wiser decisions -> observe the results -> acquire greater wisdom -> continue training.

Relationships provide countless opportunities to repeat this process because they continually bring the Practitioner into circumstances needing understanding, intention, communication, action, patience, loving-kindness, and decision-making.

The Path Does Not Depend Upon the Other Person Practicing

An especially important quality of The Eight Fold Path is that the Practitioner does not need to wait for another being to begin practicing before developing their own mind. A life partner does not need to establish Right Speech before the Practitioner can practice Right Speech. A child does not need to understand impermanence before the parent can establish Right View. A coworker does not need to eliminate anger before the Practitioner can cultivate non-ill will. A friend does not need to develop mindfulness before the Practitioner can become aware of their own mind. Another person does not need to demonstrate loving-kindness first before the Practitioner can cultivate loving-kindness toward them.

If wholesome conduct were dependent upon another person behaving wholesomely first, the Practitioner would be allowing the condition of their own mind to depend upon external circumstances. This would recreate the very problem that the earlier chapters have been helping the reader understand. The Practitioner would effectively be saying, “I will practice loving-kindness when you behave the way I want”, or, “I will communicate wisely after you communicate wisely”, or, “I will remain peaceful after you make a decision I agree with”. That is not liberation of the mind. The Practitioner would still be attempting to arrange the conduct of other beings before cultivating wholesome qualities to be present within their own mind.

This does not mean the conduct of other beings is ignored or treated as irrelevant. Wisdom continues to recognize causes, conditions, choices, and likely results. Repeated dishonesty can wisely influence whether the Practitioner enters a financial arrangement with someone. Harmful conduct can influence the form of participation in a relationship. Harsh communication can influence whether continuing a conversation at that moment is wise. Another person’s decisions may produce external circumstances that necessitate the Practitioner making new decisions about their own involvement.

The distinction is that the Practitioner does not need to develop hatred, resentment, hostility, or ill will in order to make those decisions. The choices and decisions another being makes can be separated from the being themselves. The Practitioner can recognize conduct as unwise while continuing to cultivate loving-kindness toward the person. They can change participation without changing True Love. They can decline an invitation, discontinue a business arrangement, reduce contact, or end a life partnership while continuing to train their own mind through wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline.

Harmony therefore does not depend upon the other person behaving harmoniously in return. The Practitioner trains their own mind.

Training the Mind Before the Decision Is Made

The Eight Fold Path provides the complete framework for training the decision-maker’s mind. Right View develops accurate understanding. Right Intention develops renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness. Right Speech brings wholesome qualities into communication. Right Action brings harmlessness into bodily conduct. Right Livelihood extends moral conduct into the way the Practitioner sustains their life. Right Effort trains the mind through Prevent -> Abandon -> Produce -> Maintain: preventing and abandoning unwholesome mental qualities while producing and maintaining wholesome mental qualities. Right Mindfulness develops awareness of what is occurring within the mind. Right Concentration develops meditation, stability, clarity of mind, and singleness of mind.

These factors work together so that the Practitioner increasingly makes decisions through wisdom rather than allowing craving, anger, and ignorance (unknowing of true reality) to influence the decision. The goal is not to surrender the decision-making process to a set of rules because none of these Teachings are based on rules. The Practitioner remains the decision-maker. The Eight Fold Path develops the mind from which those decisions arise so that choices become increasingly wholesome because wisdom and wholesome mental qualities are increasingly present.

This creates an important transition into the next stage of practice. The Practitioner can learn the entire framework of The Eight Fold Path and still need a practical way to recognize the exact moment when the mind is beginning to move toward an unwise decision. Craving/desire/attachment can arise quickly and can initially appear reasonable. The mind may think it is simply trying to help another person, preserve a relationship, solve a problem, maintain respect, or obtain a beneficial outcome when underneath those thoughts there is a strong desire to get another being or circumstance to be a particular way.

That moment needs to become recognizable because it is the moment in which the Practitioner can either continue allowing craving/desire/attachment to influence the decision or apply The Teachings before moving forward. When craving is not recognized, the mind can proceed quickly toward discontentedness, expectations, attempts to control another being, anger, resentment, unwise communication, and harmful actions. When craving is recognized, the Practitioner has an opportunity to stop, observe the condition of the mind, apply Right View, use Right Effort, establish Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration, and determine what decision would be wise within the actual circumstances.

The Practitioner can therefore learn to recognize the arising of discontentedness as the Red Light indicating that craving/desire/attachment is present within the mind.

A red light.

Chapter 7 will examine this practical training: The Red Light: When Discontentedness Reveals Craving