The Noble Eightfold Path
팔정도

The Noble Eightfold Path lists the eight practices we must perfect in order to remove afflictions and suffering and to attain nirvana.

①    Right View (Samma-ditthi): To understand things as they are. Ultimately it refers to the understanding of the Four Noble Truths.

②    Right Thought (Samma-sankappa): Selfless thought transcending personal desires, which can be extended to all beings. To have thoughts of love and non-violence.

③   Right Speech (Samma-vaca): In daily life, speak without doing these four things: lying, spreading rumors or slandering, fomenting problems between others, and pointless chattering.

④   Right Action (Samma-kanmmanta): To act in right and ethical ways. That is, to refrain from killing, stealing, intoxicants and sexual misconduct.

⑤   Right Livelihood (Samma-ajiva): To not make a living from jobs which may cause harm to others, but from jobs which are honorable and respectable.

⑥   Right Effort (Samma-vayama): The effort to discard harmful states that have arisen and to prevent harmful states from arising; and the effort to promote the arising of beneficial states and to preserve beneficial states that have arisen.

⑦    Right Mindfulness (Samma-sati): It means to become fully aware of oneself and one’s surroundings with right mindfulness in order to practice Right Thought and Right Concentration.

⑧   Right Concentration (Samma-samadhi): Meditative concentration which can be attained by practitioners when they extinguish desires. Right Concentration provides a foundation for the perfect practice of Right View, Right Speech and Right Livelihood.

- excerpt from Buddhist English (Elementary 2) published in 2014 by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism​​​