The 8 Fold Noble Path

(1) RIGHT VIEW: Right view consists of an understanding of the Four Noble Truths: Right view also consists of an understanding of kamma: "Beings are the owners of their actions....whatever deeds they do, good or bad, of those they shall be heirs."

(2) RIGHT INTENTION: Right intention consists of the intentions of Renunciation, Good Will (Metta) and Harmlessness. The intention of renunciation means that the pull of desire (craving) is to be resisted and eventually abandoned, because it is the root of suffering. "Turning away from craving becomes the key to happiness, to freedom from the hold of attachment." The intention of good will (metta) involves the development of selfless love for other beings. The intention of harmlessness involves the development of thought guided by compassion, the wish that all beings will be free of suffering.

(3) RIGHT SPEECH: Right speech means abstaining from false speech, slander, harsh or hurtful language, and idle chatter.

(4) RIGHT ACTION: Right action means abstaining from killing other sentient beings (not just human beings), abstaining from stealing, and abstaining from sexual misconduct (sexual relations which are harmful to others).

(5) RIGHT LIVELIHOOD: Right livelihood means earning one's living in a righteous way: legally, honestly, peacefully, and without producing harm and suffering for others.

(6) RIGHT EFFORT: Right effort involves the undertaking of four "great endeavors": (a) to prevent the arising of unwholesome mental states (such as sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and worry, and doubt), (b) to abandon arisen unwholesome mental states, (c) to arouse wholesome mental states (such as the seven factors of enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity), (d) to maintain arisen wholesome states.

(7) RIGHT MINDFULNESS: "The ultimate truth, the Dhamma, is not something mysterious and remote, but the truth of our own experience...It has to be known by insight...What brings the field of experience into focus and makes it accessible to insight is mindfulness." Right mindfulness is cultivated through the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness: mindful contemplation of the body, feelings, states of mind, and phenomena.

(8) RIGHT CONCENTRATION: Right concentration (one-pointedness of mind) "makes the mind still and steady...opens vast vistas of bliss, serenity and power," and helps us to "generate the insights unveiling the ultimate truth of things." It is developed through meditation on specific objects