Right view appears as the first step of training in the Noble Eight-Fold Path. It leads to an integrated understanding of the liberating teachings of the Buddha and the successful development of meditation and wisdom. Right view is essential to understanding the causes and the end of suffering. Without right view awakening is impossible, and wrong view is considered the insidious obstacle to all progress. In this six-week series Shaila explores right view from several perspectives found in the discourses of the Buddha. Related themes of wise attention, concepts of liberation, truthfulness, false beliefs, attachment to opinions, kamma, cause and effect, learning and peaceful engagement in discussion will bring this traditional theme to life in our contemporary practice.

What is Right View 41:01

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Right view is an approach to life that leads to awakening, to enlightenment. As mindfulness becomes mainstreamed in western culture, serious practitioners should take care that the framework of virtue, the integrated eight-fold path, and the liberating potential of meditation practice are not lost. Both mundane and supramundane right view are examined in this talk. Ultimately, right view implies a direct realization of the four noble truths and of the model of dependent arising.

Cultivating Liberating Understanding 49:49

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This talk explores the theme of right view or right understanding through a teaching found in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (MN 43). This sutta lists five factors that assist the development of right understanding when liberation is the aim and fruit of the path. These five supportive conditions include virtue / morality, wide learning / reflection, discussion of what was learned, tranquility / calmness, and insight. The talk considers each of these factors in turn.

Opinions and Truth 41:14

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Our views, beliefs, and opinions affect our perception of events. To what extent do we assume that we are right and become attached to our opinions? With attachment to views we solidify a sense of self. Mindfulness meditation invites us to observe our relationship to views and opinions and see how it might be distorting perception by reinforcing a fixed sense of self. The term "right view" does not imply a more accurate or factual perspective; rather, right view describes a perspective beyond all attachment to views and opinions.

What Must Be Known 34:58

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What do we need to know, understand, investigate, and realize through our meditation practice? In the Anguttara Nikaya. VI, 63, the Buddha described six things that should be known in six ways. The six things to be known include desires, feelings, perceptions, taints, kamma (actions of body speech and mind), and suffering. Each can be known through their presence, conditioned origin, diversity, outcome, cessation, and way to cessation. This talk explores the structure and details of this brief sutta teaching, and proposes a practical approach to investigating the mind and our relationship with life.

Danger of Fixation 36:05

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How does suffering manifest in attachment to views? This talk explores right view and addresses the danger of attaching to a position, philosophy, belief, or opinion. Primary sources are the teachings from the Middle Length discourses numbers 72 and 74. Recognizing the dangers of attachment and clinging to beliefs and opinions, we directly investigate what can be known in the mind and body. This is a pragmatic path of mindful awareness that results in actions that are immediately liberating.