Right Understanding: A Step Towards Achieving Your Goal

As I stated in my previous post about Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues, I was struck by the similarity between his virtues and the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. Not just by the virtues themselves, but how he organized them. He realized that each affected the other, and without bettering oneself in the first, one could not master the next. Again, this is not too dissimilar to the steps of the Eightfold Path.

Around the same time that I was reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, I was learning about the Law of Attraction. In fact, I had even purchased a Law of Attraction planner to help set goals for myself to better organize my days, weeks, and months. In addition, I was reading and listening to the works of Napoleon Hill, and Earl Nightingale. Like Benjamin Franklin, Hill had a list of his virtues, which he called his Keys to Success. Like Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, Hill’s success principles relied on a commitment to self-discipline, having a definite purpose or goal, and learning from adversity as a means to one’s success. And, like Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Hill encouraged keeping a notebook or journal to record one’s goals, progression, and ideas, so that one could maintain accountability for their actions, and routines.

When I learned of these methods of journaling for goal setting, organization, accountability, I immediately thought, “could one use these same methods to utilize the Noble Eightfold Path to make oneself a better person through accountability and reflection, and for mastering goal setting and accomplishments?”

I believe that one absolutely can do this!

To begin, I have to consider the first step of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, called Right Understanding, and how it applies to the rest of the steps as I begin my personal journey. Depending on the interpretation, it is also referred to as Right View, as it is called in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book, The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering.

No matter the word used, it is simply the act of accepting the teachings of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, whereby the Buddha teaches that as living beings, we suffer and that there exists cessation from suffering. And that cessation comes by way of the steps of the Noble Eightfold Path.

In Right Understanding, we are to recognize the source of our suffering, and have a vision for the relief of whatever we suffer from. If I may refer back to Napoleon Hill’s 17 Keys to Success, this is similar to his first key: Develop a Definiteness of Purpose. In his book, Keys to Success, 17 Principles of Personal Achievement, Hill states:

“Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement, and its lack is the stumbling block for ninety-eight out of every hundred people simply because they never really define their goals and start towards them.”

Just as Peter D Santini writes in his book, Fundamentals of Buddhism:

“Why do we begin with Right Understanding? It is because in order to climb a mountain, we have to have the summit clearly in view.”

In Right Understanding, we have the opportunity to be real and honest with ourselves, and to see our environment, our shortcomings, and our strengths as they are. We are at the beginning stages of tackling the root of our suffering, or the starting point of the project, or goal we want to see to completion. For me, I set out to create this blog as a journal of my own journey as a means of accountability and to learn from others who have, or are on this same path. Your step into Right Understanding may be totally different or more substantial and meaningful than writing a blog and drawing some cartoons.

Whatever the case, utilizing the step of Right Understanding, can be the first, and very powerful beginning to ones goal. You would not just go on vacation, driving around aimlessly without a plan or a destination. With Right Understanding, you would say, “I’m going to Disney Land!” and pack a road atlas to help you get there!

Now, this does not mean that the trip will be an easy one without flat tires, road closures, detours, tolls, and potty breaks!

Just as Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai writes in The Teaching of Buddha:

“If a diver is to secure pearls he must descend to the bottom of the sea, braving all dangers of jagged coral and vicious sharks. So man must face the perils of worldly passion if he is to secure the precious pearl of Enlightenment.”

That said, we must not allow obstacles to get in our way of achieving our goals, or working past our point of suffering. Instead, we must face them head-on, identify them, and make our plan for success.

On the subject of adversity, in his book Keys to Success, 17 Principles of Personal Achievement, Napoleon Hill wrote:

“Failure and pain are one language through which nature speaks to every living creature… you must become humble so that you can acquire wisdom and understanding. Realize that the turning point at which you begin to attain success is usually defined by some form of defeat or failure.”

Remember, Buddha broke the Noble Eightfold Path into three disciplines: Ethics, Concentration, and Wisdom. Is it coincidence that Hill refers to understanding and wisdom together, considering that the Buddha classified the step of Right Understanding under the teaching of Wisdom?

Right Understanding is also joined by the next step, Right Thought, under the umbrella of Wisdom. For many of us, me included, setting our intention/goal, or recognizing the root of our suffering is pretty easy. For my money, that next step of Right Thought can pretty challenging. Especially when met with adversity!

For now, I am setting my goal towards maintaining this blog once a week, minimum. I’ve also got some personal goals concerning my career. As this blog progresses, I may share with you some of my tools that I use to keep myself accountable to my work, and my goals.

As always, I am happy to hear your thoughts. So, please feel free to offer your experiences with living the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

In the meantime, I would like to share a few books, tools, and videos that I have come to enjoy in my studies…

The Teaching of Buddha, written by Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai can be found at http://www.bdkamerica.org/book/teaching-buddha-japaneseenglish-edition

You can find a free digital copy of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography on The Electric Ben Franklin at http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobiography/

You can find a lot of great information about Napoleon Hill at the Napoleon Hill Foundation’s website at http://www.naphill.org. In addition, you may enjoy seeing and hearing Napoleon Hill explaining his Keys to Success in his own words on the Napoleon Hill’s Master Key channel on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXEns75ExsEwvw6UNmOQcNQ

My planner of choice, the Law of Attraction Planner can be found at https://manifestationplanner.com/optin.

Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues, and The Noble Eightfold Path

There are many people in business leadership, mentorship, and self-help industries that have crafted roadmaps and guides to success and accountability. People such as Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, and Steven Covey are often given credit for this movement in self-improvement and motivation. However, despite his many great inventions and accomplishments, Benjamin Franklin is not given the credit he deserves for pioneering such tools for personal accountability and discipline.

I recently read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, which is widely regarded as one of the best autobiographies ever published. Written in an informal and conversational tone, it feels as though Franklin is writing this as a letter directly to the reader. As I was reading it, I was shocked that it had taken me until my 40’s to read his story. For that matter, I am disappointed in the public school system for not making this required reading for every young person.

Franklin’s accomplishments and self-discipline at an early age was something that could greatly inspire other young people in their teens and twenties. I know that I could have benefitted from it back then! As Franklin writes, he “conceiv’d the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” However, realizing that this was a monumental task, he devised a system in which he would focus on one of his virtues each week, before moving to the next. He organized each of these virtues in order of how one effects the next. His virtues are as follows:

1. Temperance -- Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence -- Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order -- Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution -- Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality -- Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry -- Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity -- Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice -- Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation -- Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness -- Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquility -- Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity -- Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. Humility -- Imitate Jesus or Socrates.

Using his trade as a printer, Franklin created a personal journal where he could track his daily and weekly progress of self-examination as he attempted to perfect each of these moral virtues. Each evening he would reflect on his day, and mark the row representing the respective virtue whenever he felt he had transgressed. After reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, and seeing the page from his journal, pictured below, I learned that we had a few things in common: he was a vegetarian, and we both have issues with being orderly and keeping our mouths shut!

The way in which Benjamin Franklin pursued his Thirteen Virtues was not too dissimilar from the way Buddha approached the Noble Eightfold Path. In this regard, could the Thirteen Virtues be categorized in the same way that the Buddha bucketed the steps in the Noble Eightfold Path? Perhaps they would be done in this manner:

• Ethics:
• Silence
• Order
• Frugality
• Industry
• Sincerity
• Justice
• Chastity
• Concentration:
• Cleanliness
• Tranquility
• Moderation
• Wisdom:
• Temperence
• Resolution
• Humility

Or could the Noble Eightfold Path be organized as a daily journal as Franklin organized his Thirteen Virtues:

Whether one decides to live their life in accordance to the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path, or by Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues, one would be on a great road to being an exemplary citizen in our global community.

I would urge anyone who has a passion to create the best version of themselves to read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. You can order it in hardcover through Target.

If you want to take your journey to a more virtuous life one step further, check out this attractive Thirteen Virtues journal available at The Art Of Manliness.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!

My Introduction To Buddhism

I began my curiosity into Buddhism when I was a teenager. The ideals and ethics that my Midwestern, Christian parents raised us with were very much in line with everything I was free-reading about Buddhism while loitering in the local Barnes & Nobles. Also, as a result of may Dad’s many business travels throughout the Orient, we had more Asian influence in our household than we did of our own heritage. In fact, my life defining moment came at nine years old, when he and I traveled for a month through Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China.

However, it was not until my late twenties that I was formally introduced to an organized Buddhist practice when a friend brought me to her Nichiren Buddhist community center, where I learned to chant the Daimoku (devotional chant to the Buddha’s teaching called the Lotus Sutra), and later received my Gohonzon (a scroll inscribed with Japanese calligraphy containing a devotional to the Lotus Sutra). More than anything, I enjoyed getting to learn the Dharma in a welcoming environment. I got to hear from people and how their lives where enriched as a result of their Buddhist practice.

Later, I moved away and found another, similar community center in another part of the country. The feel of a “community” seemed lost in this center. This one felt more clique-ish. The testimonies of their practice were not of personal development, or building a stronger family, or community. They were testimonies of how chanting brought them a new BMW, a motorcycle, or money. This seemed to be the opposite of the Buddha’s story that I had come to know.

Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, was a prince who left his family and opulent kingdom to find the cause of, and relief from suffering. He had witnessed the sorrow of poverty, the ravages of old-age, sickness, and death. In order to find the meaning to it all, he brought himself to starvation and near death. It was under a Bodhi tree, while in intense meditation, that he finally found enlightenment and discovered the teachings known as The Four Noble Truths, as listed below:

1.    The Truth of Suffering (known in Sanskrit as Dukkha)

We all experience suffering by way of aging, illness, and death – it is unavoidable. If you are reading this, you are alive, and not getting any younger! You’ve become sick at some point… in fact, I’m typing this whilst suffering a painful sinus infection! And, sadly, unless technology somehow invents a really practical, and affordable brain-transplant-into-cyborg-body technology, we are all going to die one day.

2.     The Truth of the Origin of Suffering (Samudaya)

Our attachments are the root of our suffering.

Consider that new BMW that person chanted for? Imagine him the first time he finds a dent or scratch from an inconsiderate door ding in the parking lot! "Right Thought," or "Right Speech" may not be top of mind for him!

3.     The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering (Nirodha)

Once we recognize that we are flawed and that we suffer – and often from our own choosing – we can seek a path to reckoning with our suffering. Like it is often said: the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

4.     The Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Suffering (Magga)

                     This is where the hard work comes:

                                               The Noble Eightfold Path

Now get ready, because once you read the first three, you will say to yourself, “I’m screwed!” I know I did… and still do!!!

1.     Right Understanding

2.     Right Thought

3.     Right Speech

4.     Right Action

5.     Right Livelihood

6.     Right Effort

7.     Right Mindfulness

8.     Right Meditation

Luckily, The Buddha was a master teacher. He took the Noble Eightfold Path and broke it down into threes. This is something I do on a daily basis whether it is organizing personal goals/chores, or planning my day at work.

He divided the Noble Eightfold Path into the following categories:

1.     Ethics:

Right Speech, Right Conduct, and Right Livelihood

2.     Concentration:

Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Meditation

3.     Wisdom:

Right Understanding, and Right Thought

When you read the Noble Eightfold Path in this way, it makes it seem much more attainable.

In future posts, I will break down each step, and how each relates to the other, and how they may be applied to daily life.

I would love to hear from you, and how the Noble Eightfold Path has benefitted you in your daily life. Feel free to comment below or by emailing me.

Meanwhile, I’d like to share with you a few books that you can find on Amazon that I have enjoyed in my study of the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path:

The Four Noble Truths by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama

Fundamentals of Buddhism by Peter D. Santina