A Buddhist Inspired Critical-Analytical Framework (An Interpretation of the Buddha’s N8P, 10/10)

January 30, 2019 revisesociology 284 Comments

This is the final post in a ten part series on my interpretation of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path…. or ‘eight things you should do to realise enlightenment’.

Parts 1-9 available here:

Part 1: The Noble Eightfold Path: An Introduction
Part 2: Right Understanding
Part 3: Right Intention.
Part 4: Right Speech
part 5: Right Action.
Part 6: Right Livelihood
Part 7: Right Effort
Part 8: Right Mindfulness
Par 9: Right Concentration.

A Buddhist inspired critical-analytical framework

AKA Six ‘logics of action’ conducive to meaningful happiness according to the Noble Eight Fold Path and their opposites.

As I see it, you can summarise down the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path (or N8P as I like to abbreviate it) to just 6 logics of action, on the left of the table below. The (general) opposites, IMO, are on the right hand side of the table.

If yer interested in what I mean by ‘meaningful happiness’, see this post: What is Happiness?

This is pretty much the framework I use for assessing whether ‘I’ find something desirable or undesirable. NB the fact that I do this means that I have a ‘long way to go’ on the ‘path to enlightenment’ according to some Buddhists, but no matter, this is me taking something from the Buddha and doing my own ting with it!

(Note to self that ‘ting’ in the above sentence doesn’t trigger a grammatical query from Word.)

Tings I like and things I don’t like:

Below is my ‘off the top of my head’ intuitive list of tings I like and things I don’t like…. I’m going to spend some time over the next few months pondering why I like the things I like, and why I don’t like the things I don’t like. Theoretically, they should tie in with my ‘deeper beliefs’!

Hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll get the time to develop a critique of those things on the left, expanding on what exactly it is that I don’t like about those things, and vice versa for the tings on the right.

Should be fun, so if you like this sort of ting, stay tuned,

Final quick word On Ethics ‘versus’ detachment

I know there’s a lot written in Buddhism about detachment and letting go of ideas etc… however, the N8P clearly has an ethical base to it as well as the detachment thing….. in the same way as anarchism and decentralisation (if they’re going to work) don’t just mean tolerating anyone doing anything no matter the consequences, the N8P is pretty clear about those actions which are conducive to development genuine ‘freedom’ and those that are not. In other words, ‘detachment’ isn’t just an anything goes free for all and I’m fairly sure anyone on the ‘path should be tending left on the table above, and maybe that way in politics more generally?

I’m sure once you’ve spend 2 decades in a Zen temple, then ethics and detachment just merge, but for the rest of us, I think a bit more care needs to be taken maybe?!?