The Noble Eightfold Path -  Christmas Humphreys

The Eightfold Path is the Buddhist Manual to Self-Enlightenment. Much of it may be found in other religions and philosophies, but in Buddhism tremendous emphasis is laid on practical morality. In the words of the Dhammapada, ‘The man who talks much of the teaching but does not practice it himself is like a cowman counting another’s cattle’ (v.19), or again, ‘Like beautiful flowers, full of color but without scent, are the well-spoken words of the man who does not act accordingly’ (v.51).

Right Motive in Morality

The sanction of Buddhist morality is three-fold. At its lowest it is purely selfish. An understanding of the law of Karma makes one realize that it ‘pays’ to be good. At this stage of evolution there is, as Mrs. Rhys Davids points out, ‘no other certain sanction of goodness beyond the driving forces of pain waiting on immoral living, and the pleasures rewarding moral living, now or in the long run1.’ This, when all is said and done, is the sanction of all man-made laws, and the Buddhist knows that the moral laws of nature carry with them both the punishment of disobedience and the virtuous man’s reward. In Buddhism a man is punished by his sins, not for them.

Later comes the rational basis of morality. If life be one, each unit of that life reacts in all it does for good or evil on each other unit of the whole. Hence to do evil is to harm one’s fellow men, while the strict morality of one such unit raises the level of all humanity.

© `Buddhism’ An Introduction and guide by Christmas Humphreys, published (1987) by Penguin Books Limited, England.

1 Buddhism, p. 121.

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