by Charles W. Leadbeater

The Way which leads to the Escape from Sorrow. This is given to us in what is called the Noble Eightfold Path – another of the Lord Buddha’s wonderful tabulations or categories. It is a very beautiful statement, because it can be taken at all levels. The man in the world, even the uneducated man, can take it in its lowest aspects and find a way to peace and comfort through it. And yet the highest philosopher may also take it and interpret it at his level and learn very much from it.

The first step in this Path is Right Belief. Some people object to that qualification, because they say that it demands from them something in the nature of blind faith. It is not at all that sort of belief which is required; it is rather a demand for a certain amount of knowledge as to the ruling factors in life. It demands that we shall understand a little of the Divine Scheme as far as it applies to us, and if we cannot yet see that for ourselves, that we should accept it as it is always put before us. Certain broad facts are always put before men in some form or other. They are explained even to savage tribes by their medicine-men, and to the rest of mankind by various religious teachers and in all kinds of scriptures. It is very true that scriptures and religions differ, but the points in which they all agree have to be accepted by a man before he can understand life sufficiently to live happily.

One of these facts is the eternal Law of Cause and Effect. If a man lives under the delusion that he can do anything that he likes, and that the effect of his actions will never recoil upon himself, he will most certainly find that some of these actions eventually involve him in unhappiness and suffering. If, again, he does not understand that the object of his life is progress, that God’s Will for him is that he shall grow to be something better and nobler than he is now, then also he will bring unhappiness and suffering upon himself, because he will be likely to live for the lower side of life only, and that lower side of life never finally satisfies the inner man. And so it comes about that he must at least know something of these great laws of Nature, and if he cannot yet know them for himself it will be well for him to believe them. Later on, and at a higher level, before the second Initiation can be attained, we are told that we must kill out all doubt.

When the Lord Buddha was asked whether this meant that we must accept some form of belief blindly, he replied: “No, but you must know for yourself three great things – that only upon the Path of Holiness and good living can man finally attain perfection; that in order to attain it he moves through many lives, gradually rising higher and higher; and that there is a Law of Eternal Justice under which all these things work.” At that stage the man must cast out all doubt, and must be thoroughly and inwardly convinced of these things; but for the man of the world it is well that he should at least believe that much because unless he has that as a guide in life he cannot get any further.

The second step of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Thought. Now, Right Thought means two separate things. The first demands that we should think about right things and not about wrong things. We can have at the back of our minds always high and beautiful thoughts, or on the other hand those minds may be filled with thoughts of common everyday matters. Let there be no mistake here; whatever work we are doing should be done thoroughly and earnestly, and with whatever concentration of thought upon it is necessary for that perfection. But most people, even when their work is done, or when there comes a pause in it, still have their thoughts running upon unimportant and comparatively ignoble things. Those who are devoted to the Master seek always to hold the thought of that Master in the back of their minds, so that when there is a moment’s respite from worldly action, at once that thought of him comes forward and occupies the mind. At once the pupil thinks: “What can I do to make my life like the Master’s? How can I so improve myself that I can show forth the beauty of the Lord to those around me? What can I do to carry on his work of helping other people?” One of the things we can all do is to send out helpful and sympathetic thought.

Remember, also, that Right Thought must be definite and not scattered; thoughts resting for a moment on one thing and then flying instantly to something else are useless, and will not help us at all in learning to manage our thoughts. Right Thought must never have the slightest touch of evil in it; there must be nothing doubtful about it. There are many people who would not deliberately think of anything impure or horrible, and yet they will cherish thoughts which are on the brink of that – not definitely evil, but certainly a little doubtful. In Right Thought there must be nothing like that; wherever there is anything which seems in the least suspicious or unkind, it must be shut out. We must be quite sure that all our thoughts are thoroughly kind and good.

There is another meaning of Right Thought, and that is correct thought – that we should think the truth only. So often we think untruly and wrongly of persons just because of prejudice or ignorance. We get an idea that a certain person is a bad person, and, therefore, that all that he does must be evil. We attribute motives to him which are often absolutely without foundation, and in doing so we are thinking untruly of him, and therefore our thought is not Right Thought. All men not yet Adepts have in them something of evil as well as something of good; but most unfortunately it is our custom to fix all our attention on the evil, and to forget all about the good – never to look for it at all. Therefore our thought about these people is not Right Thought, not only because it is uncharitable, but because it is untrue. We are looking only at one side of the person and we ignore the other side. Furthermore, by fixing our attention on the evil in the man instead of the good, we strengthen and encourage that evil; whereas by Right Thought we might give just the same encouragement to the good side of that man’s nature.

The next stage is Right Speech; and here again we find just the same two divisions. First, we should speak always of good things. It is not our business to speak of the evil deeds of others. In most cases the stories about other people which reach us are not true, and so if we repeat them our words also are untrue, and we are doing harm to ourselves as well as to the person of whom we speak. And even if the story is true it is still wrong to repeat it, for we can do no good to the man by saying over and over again that he has done wrong; the kindest thing that we could do would be to say nothing about it. We should do that instinctively if the wrong thing were done by a husband, a son, a brother; we should certainly feel that it would be wrong to advertise the misdeed of one whom we loved to many people who would not otherwise hear of it. But if there is any truth at all in our profession of universal brotherhood we should realize that we have no right to circulate evil about any man, that we should speak with regard to others as we should wish them to speak with regard to us. Yet again we must remember that many people make their speech untrue because they allow themselves to fall into exaggeration and inaccuracy. They make little things into enormous stories; assuredly that is not Right Speech.

Again, speech must be kindly; and it must be direct and forceful, not silly. A large section of the world exists under the delusion that it must make conversation; that it is odd or rude not to be perpetually babbling. The idea seems to be that when one meets a friend one must keep talking all the time, or the friend will be hurt. Remember that when the Christ was on earth he made a very strict statement that for every idle word that a man should speak he would have to account hereafter. The idle word is so often a mischievous word; but quite apart from that, even innocent idle words involve waste of time; if we must talk, at least we might say something useful and helpful. Some people, with the idea of seeming smart, keep up a stream of constant half-joking or sneering talk. They must always be capping something that someone else has said. They must always be showing everything in a ridiculous or amusing aspect. Certainly all that comes under the heading of idle words, and there is no doubt that it is seriously necessary that we should exercise exceeding care in this matter of Right Speech.

The next step is Right Action. We see at once that these three steps necessarily follow one from another. If we think always of good things, we shall certainly not speak of evil things, because we speak what is in our mind; and if our thought and speech are good, then the action which follows will also be good. Action must be prompt and yet well considered. We all know some people who, when any emergency arises, seem to become helpless; they potter about and do not know what to do, and they get in the way of those who have their brains in better working order. Others plunge into some rash action without thinking at all. Learn to think quickly and act promptly, and yet always with consideration. Above all, always let action be unselfish; let it never be actuated in the least by personal considerations. That is very hard for most people, and yet it is a power which must be acquired. We who try to live for the Master have many opportunities in our work to put that idea into practice. We must all think only what is best for the work and what we can do to help others, and we must entirely put aside any personal considerations. We must not think what part in the work we should like to bear, but we must try to do best that we possibly can with the part that is assigned to us.

In these days few people live by themselves as monks or hermits used to do. We live among others, so that whatever we think or say or do will necessarily affect a great many people. We should always bear in mind that our thought, our speech and our action are not merely qualities, but powers – powers given to us to use, for the use of which we are directly responsible. All are meant to be used for service, and to use them otherwise is to fail in our duty.

We come now to the fifth step – Right Means of Livelihood – and that is a matter which may touch quite a large number of us. The right means of livelihood is that which causes no harm to any living thing. We see at once that that would rule out such trades as those of a butcher or a fisherman; but the command reaches much further than that. We should not obtain our livelihood by harming any creature, and therefore we see at once that the selling of alcohol is not a right means of livelihood. The seller of alcohol does not necessarily kill people, but he is unquestionably doing harm, and he is living on the harm he does to the people.

The idea goes yet further. Take the case of a merchant who in the course of his trade is dishonest. That is not a right means of livelihood, because his trading is not fair and he is cheating the people. If a merchant deals fairly, buying his articles wholesale and selling them retail at a reasonable profit, that is a right means of livelihood; but the moment he begins to mislead people and sells a poor article for a good one, he is cheating them. A right means of livelihood may become a wrong means if it is treated in a wrong way. We must deal as honestly with people as we should wish them to deal with us. If a person is a trader in a certain class of goods, he has special knowledge of those goods. The customer trusts himself in the hands of the trader, because he himself has not that special knowledge. When you trust a doctor or a lawyer, you expect to be treated fairly. But it is exactly in the same way that the customer comes to the trader, and therefore the latter should be as honest with his customer as the lawyer or the doctor is with his client or his patient. When a man thrust you in that way, he puts you on your honor to do your best for him. You have a right to make a reasonable profit in the course of your bargain, but you must also look to your duty.

The sixth step is Right Exertion or Right Endeavor, and it is a very important one. We must not be content to be negatively good. What is desired of us is not merely absence of evil, but the positive doing of good. When the Lord Buddha made that wonderful short statement of his doctrine in a single verse, he began by saying: “Cease to do evil,” but the next line runs: “Learn to do good.” It is not enough to be passively good. There are so many well-meaning people who yet achieve nothing.

Every person has a certain amount of strength, not only physical, but mental. When we have a day’s work before us, we know that we must reserve our strength for that, and therefore before we begin it we do not undertake something else which would so exhaust us as that the day’s work could not be properly done. Similarly we have a certain amount of strength of mind and of will, and we can perform only a certain amount of work on that level; therefore we must take care how we spend that power. There are other powers too. Every person has a certain amount of influence among his friends and relations. That influence means power, and we are responsible for making good use of that power. All about us are children, relations, clerks, workmen, servants, and over all of these we have a certain amount of influence, at least by example; we must be careful what we do and what we say, because others will copy us.

Right Exertion means putting our work into useful lines and not wasting it. There are many things that can be done, but some of them are immediate and more urgent than others. We must look about and see where our exertion would be most useful. It is not well that all should do the same thing; it is wiser that the work should be divided among us so that it may be perfectly rounded off and not left in a one-sided condition. In all these matters we must use our reason and common sense.

Right Memory or Right Remembrance is the seventh step, and it means many things. The Right Memory of which the Lord Buddha spoke has often been taken by his followers to mean the memory of past incarnations, which he himself possessed most fully. In one of the Jataka stories, a person spoke ill of him. He turned to his disciples and said: “I have insulted this man in a previous life, and therefore he speaks ill of me now; I have no right to resent it.” No doubt if we remembered everything that had happened to us before, we could arrange our present life better than we do. Most of us, however, have not the power of remembering our past lives; but we must not therefore think that the teaching as to Right Memory does not apply to us.

First of all it means self-recollectedness. It means that we must remember all the time who we are, what our work is, what is our duty, and what we should be doing for the Master. Then again Right Memory means the exercise of a reasonable choice as to what we shall remember. To all of us in our lives there come pleasant things, and also things unpleasant. A wise person will take care to remember the good things, but he will let the evil die. Suppose someone comes and speaks rudely to us; a foolish person will remember that for weeks, months and years, and will continue to say that such-and-such a person spoke unkindly to him. It will rankle on his mind. But what good will that do him? Obviously, none at all; it will only annoy him and keep alive in his mind an evil thought. That certainly is not Right Memory. We should immediately forget and forgive an evil thing done to us; but we should always bear in mind the kindness which people have done us, because they will fill our minds with love and with gratitude. Again, we have all made many mistakes; it is well that we should remember them in so far as not to repeat them; but otherwise, to brood over them, to be always filling our minds with regret and with sorrow because of them, is not Right Memory.

Let us forget the things that vexed and tried us,
The worrying things that caused our souls to fret;
The hopes that, cherished long, were still denied us,
Let us forget.

Let us forget the little slights that pained us,
The greater wrongs that rankle sometimes yet;
The pride with which some lofty one disdained us,
Let us forget.

Let us forget our brother’s fault and failing,
The yielding to temptations that beset,
That he, perchance, though grief be unavailing,
Cannot forget.

But blessings manifold, and past deserving,
Kind words and helpful deeds, a countless throng;
The fault o’ercome, the rectitude unswerving,
Let us remember long.

The sacrifice of love, the generous giving
When friends were few, the handclasp warm and strong;
The fragrance of each life of holy living,
Let us remember long.

Whatever things were good and true and gracious,
Whate’er of right has triumphed over wrong,
What love of God or man has rendered precious,
Let us remember long.

The last step is called Right Meditation or Right Concentration. This refers not only to the set meditation which we perform as part of our discipline, but it also means that all through our lives we should concentrate ourselves on the object of doing good and of being useful and helpful. In daily life we cannot be always meditating, because of the daily work that we must all do in the course of our ordinary lives; and yet I am not sure that a statement like that, made without reservation, is entirely true. We cannot always have our consciousness drawn away from the physical plane to higher levels; yet it is possible to live a life of meditation in this sense – that the higher things are always so strongly present in the background of our minds that, as I said when speaking about Right Thought, they may instantly come to the front when that mind is not otherwise occupied. Our life will then be really a life of perpetual meditation upon the highest and noblest objects, interrupted now and then by the necessity of putting our thoughts into practice in daily life.

Such a habit of thought will influence us in more ways than we see at the first glance. Like always attracts like; two people who adopt such a line of thought will presently be drawn together, will feel an attraction one for the other; and so it may well be that in time a nucleus of those who habitually hold the higher thought will be gathered together, and will gradually develop . . . they will draw together, their thoughts will react upon one another, and in that way each will greatly help the advancement of the rest. Again, wherever we go we are surrounded by invisible hosts, Angels, nature-spirits, and men who have laid aside their physical bodies. The condition of Right Concentration will attract to us all the best of those various orders of beings, so that wherever we go we shall be surrounded by good and holy influences.

This is the teaching of the Lord Buddha as he gave it in that first Sermon; it is upon this teaching that the world-wide Kingdom of Righteousness is founded, the Royal Chariot-Wheels of which he set in motion for the first time on that Asala Festival so many centuries ago.

Excerpt from The Masters And The Path