Noble Eightfold Path

The eight factors

Right view is understanding of the Four Noble Truths and of the way things are. Right intention is the resolve towards renunciation, goodwill and harmlessness. Right speech excludes lying, divisive and harsh speech and idle chatter. Right action excludes killing, taking what is not given, and sexual misconduct. Right livelihood excludes trades that cause harm. Right effort is the work of preventing and abandoning unwholesome states and developing wholesome ones. Right mindfulness is sustained attention to body, feeling, mind and mental objects. Right concentration is the development of the meditative absorptions.

The three divisions

The eight are conventionally grouped into three trainings. Speech, action and livelihood constitute sila, ethical conduct. Effort, mindfulness and concentration constitute samadhi, mental discipline. View and intention constitute panna, wisdom.

The ordering of the list is not the order of practice. Wisdom appears first because some understanding is needed to begin, and last because full understanding is the outcome; the tradition describes the three as mutually supporting rather than sequential.

"Right"

The word translated as right, samma, carries a sense closer to complete, proper or well-fitted than to correct as opposed to incorrect. The path is described as middle — avoiding both indulgence in sense pleasure and self-mortification, the two extremes the Buddha is said to have tried and rejected before his awakening.

Status

The eightfold path is common to all Buddhist schools. Mahayana traditions set it within the bodhisattva's longer career and pair it with the six perfections, and Vajrayana adds further methods, but none discards it. It is, with the Four Noble Truths, the most widely shared formulation in Buddhism.