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Did You Enter The Dharma Via The 4NT & The EightFold Path ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Kia Ora,
It's been said that we learn something new every day..........
My introduction to Buddhism was through the 4NT & 8FP, I can't remember the author nor the book, but I think the author was a Theravadin monk, possibly of English descent...
So from the get go, the foundations of my understanding was and still is based upon the 4NT & 8FP ...They are points of reference when in need of doing the 'right' (the middle wade way) thing....
Which path brought you to the Dharma ?
What part does the 4NT & 8FP play in your understanding and practice of the Buddha Dharma ?
I hope I have not exhausted you all with my prolific thread starting... _ 
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Metta Shoshin 
1
Comments
I was completely non-religious until I read the Four Noble Truths. Not sure which book I was reading, or if I was reading something online, but the 4NT touched something deep within me that already knew human suffering was mind-made. Having finally found something in religion that wasn't utter B.S., I continued to study until I determined to start a "practice", including meditation. It's been all uphill from there!
Or is it downhill? I mean it's all been good, not that it's been an arduous hike or anything.
My own introduction was one of Christmas Humphrey's books which did feature the 4NT and 8FP.
If one's intro had been " Cutting Through " as my wife's was, which the biggest selling Buddhist book of modern times, or " What Makes You Not a Buddhist " as it has been for many in the last five years, there is no mention of them at all.
I strongly suspect that if you conducted a poll on www.vajracakra.com. among the Vajra/Dzogchen folk you would find very few came in by that route.
The Vajrayana sees itself as a result of the Third Turning Of The Wheel
The first turning being the Pali teachings including the 4NT and 8FP.
The second turning being the Mahayana.
This is in no way a claim to superiority. Or more or less advanced.
Just a recognition of different needs and temperaments.
Nope. I entered by dying.
And living.
THEN - I was given the "Awakening" Trilogy (or at least, the first of the three) and THEN I became acutely aware of the 4NT and the 8FP....
It was this book that belonged to my Catholic Uncle. I first saw it when I was a toddler but it would be several more years before I could read it for the first time of many.
An excellent introduction imo.
(Who's 'imo'...?)
I found the dharma via some guy putting a shoe on his head. LOL
I didnt enter the "dharma" on the wings of victory- thats for sure! lol! I had to hit "bottom", to be in enough pain to accept help of a "spiritual" nature in the form of a 12 step program. Like many "spiritual" paths it is one that moves toward a more conscious living. It is one that inquires into the causes of suffering and the necessary course of action needed to be taken to undo these causes so it is Dharmic. Bob
My mate Imogene. I thought she might have logged on.
Along with my mate Virginia..or Virgin for short. But not for long.
I entered the Dharma doggie style. I sat, somewhat impatiently, at the back door, with my tail wagging, waiting for somone to come and let me in.
Woof!
I started with meditation in a book by Kathleen McDonald that also discussed emptiness though as a guided meditation and not super difficult.
@Shoshin
Each new second is a new existence. The marvel is** not** that we learn something new each day, but that we can re-grip each new moments existence so tenaciously that out of 86400 seconds in a day, only one breaks free enough to teach us something new.
See that and describing what really brought one to the Dharma gets pretty ethereal.
My most** notable** point of opening towards the Dharma came from learning to meditate.
The 4 NT & the 8 FP were foundation practices of the zen school that taught me meditation instruction with each aptly reflecting the other.
My path took a course where I became utterly involved with my life, then the Tibetan tradition. and then it took a turn of its own.. Alan Watts was a great western philosopher btw, but his finger still should not be seen as the dharma, but just as a finger, it makes more sense. Lol
It took me a little while before I found the 4NTs and 8FP because I stumbled into Buddhism on my way through the Tao.
Once I did, Buddhism became more than a religion to me. That's when I saw it as a process.
I also entered Buddhism through the Tao.
Buddhist introduction books were: Christmas Humphreys' "The Wisdom of Buddhism," Woodward's "Some Sayings of the Buddha," T.W. Rhys Davids "Buddhism" and Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha taught," the exact edition @lobster showed above.
All of them explain the 4NT and N8P profusely. Both teachings are the guiding principle in my life.
Guys quite interested in your intro via Taoism,
I have only read a couple of Taoist texts, one of which is the Tao Te Ching. No idea how many times I have read that . . .
This might deserve a separate thread . . .
IMO Buddhism is easier to comprehend and less subtle than Taoism. It also has a more appealing and pragmatic approach. The problem for me with Taoism is it is not easily available in the West, apart from a bit of Tai Chi, magic systems trying to control ones wind [pardon me] and the occasional whisper from the Yin-Yang
My DIY dharma vehicle was heavily influenced by 'Great Yin overcoming Great Yan' . . .
I had some REALLY bad thoughts when reading that at first (yes I'm bad. Just one of those moods today :P...)
I had my introduction via Mindfulness Meditation whilst still being Wiccan. That was a L O N G time ago.
My first introduction came via a college class which briefly covered Buddhism in about 15 pages. I was intrigued, and quickly turned off by the "all of life is suffering" and here are the directions for the right way to live your life. It was too similar in some ways to what I was trying to leave behind.
Fast forward about 10 years, and my son was reading the HHDL and started asking questions. I couldn't much get into the HHDL's style of writing, so I picked up TNH's "The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings" to help him answer some questions. Of course the 4NT and the N8FP is in there. But a few months later, I met my teacher and while I maintain awareness of the teachings of the 4NT and N8FP, it is not strictly a part of my practice, it's never mentioned in our sangha weekly meetings, and it's never touched on in meetings or retreats or teachings with my teacher. If I had met my teacher before I picked up a book, I likely wouldn't even know what the 4NT or N8FP are. But because I know them, I know they are woven like a ribbon through the teachings I receive without having to mention them directly.
To go back to our imagined poll on Dharma Wheel or Vajracakra @karasti I would make a substantial wager ( if I were a betting man ) that your experience would be very typical among Vajrayana students.
I read a book called "Be here now" by some hippy...
Boy, that takes me back. I was kicking around as a lonely young man, having finally accepted my family religion of Christianity just wasn't going to do it for me, and looking for something to take its place in my life. I was sitting one day in a library and decided to read some books on Buddhism. I read the NT, and something inside me yelled "That's it!" and I began my journey.
@Cinorjer That's almost my own story, except I never felt the need to put something in the place of Christianity (despite my parents holding those beliefs). I was just a skeptical non-believer, only interested in true and useful things. Just like you I read the NT (Noble Truths, not New Testament LOL) and it was on.
It wasn't the NTs alone though. Impermanence, Dependent Origination and Not-Self all seemed "common sense" to me... practically self-evident, and the clear fact that we don't live our lives as if this is the case screamed you've stumbled onto something profound here.
That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with reality, deeper than my previous relationship.
On and on it goes...
Which path brought you to the Dharma ?
Suffering, so I guess you could say the 4NTs
I watched Shaolin monks with Jackie Chan.
I don't know how but I became interested in Buddhism so I googled the basic principles.
Four months on I meditate 45min and study two hours a day, I've never felt so passionately about anything
Just a bit of a joke for you guys, after learning the 4nt and 8np I googled the best books to buy on amazon.
I ended up with a Thai tree forest monk book, a Tibet monk book, a therevada monk book, a contemporary modern book.
Boy was I aware of different cultures in Buddhism. Good thing zen throws books away!
Those Shaolin fighting monks have a lot to answer for . . .
Yes, I entered with the 4NT and 8FP. I read Noah Levine's book Dharma Punx, and listened to his lectures online. He described them as "enough". I meditated, studied Pali Suttas. I veered of from simply practicing the 8FP. I did Tibetan mantras, and took Bodhisattva vows in a Chinese Mahayana monastery. Now, I feel I have no real connection to Buddhism. I had memorized most of what I had learned.
I asked on dhammawheel.com forum, what is right view? And I like how one person summarized: Knowledge about suffering, knowledge about the origin of suffering, knowledge about cessation of suffering, knowledge about the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering. This is called right view.
I entered the dhamma by not self and the khandas I contemplated that the khandhas, and saw that they are not mine, and that I couldn't find a self anywhere in them.
And I felt a joy and happiness I never felt before.
My teacher says that the 8FP is an advanced teaching which we don't realize. Until then it is a way of improving, but not aryan (noble).
@Shoshin
The 4 NT/ 8FP / D.O. & the precepts are considered foundation practices in the Buddhist school that I started with (Soto Zen).
Like Shikan Taza, 40+ years later, I have yet to plumb it's depths.
Kia Ora @how,
You must have gone through a few cushions in that time...(I've heard @lobster has plenty of spare ones going cheap ) .
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Metta Shoshin .
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Yup. 4NT & 8FP. And the 5 precepts. The best place to begin is at the beginning.
.
The precept about not killing intrigued me, because other major religions didn't have that, so my mind latched onto that as a unique challenge. I had fun working out methods for dispatching insects without killing them. I was just a kid at the time. It was like a game.
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/noble8path6.pdf
by Bhikkhu Bodhi
Kia Ora,
I read a lot but it doesn't take away the fact I'm a lazy reader, however I'm a good listener so I listen to a lot of Dharma and from many different sources (no doubt like many of the members here)...
Alan Watts's down to earth take on the 4NT & 8FP
Metta Shoshin .
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No.
I came to Buddhism via Death and Life.
I subsequently enjoyed getting to grips with the rudiments of the 4 and the 8, under the guidance (literary) of Lama Surya Das and his 'Awakening' Trilogy....
I first heard about Buddhism when I had to do a book report on the Tripitaka in 8th grade. I thought the subject was intriguing but I couldn't get around the 1st and 2nd NT, which in my encyclopedia were translated as "Life is suffering" and "The cause of suffering is desire."
When you are a 14 year old boy, you are nothing but desire, so how could that be bad? So I had a hard time getting into it, except as an interesting intellectual concept. I was much more interested in trying to play guitar like the guys on MTV.
It was only a little later, when a friend who was interested in martial arts turned me on to Zen and gave me some books by Alan Watts that I began to realize that Buddhism could actually be a path for me. That is, the Mahayana/Zen form rather than (what I view as) the more ascetic Theravada path (no offense intended here to those on that path!).
Still, I did not actually consider myself a "real" Buddhist until my mid-20's or so, after going through a decade long, rather unhappy atheistic period. Of course, I still don't consider myself to be a very authentic Buddhist now, just a mediocre one at best.
I suppose I should say they are the core of my practice, but I would be lying. The 4NT and 8FP are always there in the background of my mind, as a kind of intellectual background for Buddhism. But really for me, the core of my practice is just mindfulness of the current moment, and meditation, and trying, as much as possible, to be kind. At least, that's what it is when I'm being serious about it.
Sorry @dakini but, the Fifth Commandment ?
@zenguitar I don't know about @Dakini, but I take the Christian commandment to mean not to murder another human, even though there's plenty of murder in the Bible. The Buddhist precept seems to be more fundamental and inclusive, extending to other sentient life forms (as many as you can stomach not stomaching, which will determine whether you go vegan/vegetarian or not).
Buddhism actually has this "ahimsa" or "non-harm" ideal, whereas Christianity (again as an example) is more "don't do these particular things because God says so". I imagine Judaism and Islam are similarly rule-based and not ideal/consequence-based.
Okay, got it.
My imagery was far more interesting :P ....
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