Right View
Del
BC Canada New
Hi All
I am new to the website and just wanted to say you have some great information and discussions here.
I started doing some mindfulness practice a few years ago to help with my anxiety. I have found it very helpful and it has lead me to becoming interested in some Buddhist practices.
One area I have been having trouble understanding is right view. I get what hate, greed etc.. is and can under stand these areas but I get confused when they discuss delusion.
Delusion seems to be such a subjective view. Just trying to understand what is delusional in our modern day western capitalist society sends my head for a spin sometimes. You think that something is delusional, but it seems that if enough people believe something it almost seems to then be reality, if so what then is living in delusion?
Just wondering if anyone has struggled with these thoughts.
Del
Comments
So if people believe something then that is reality based on there being quite a number of them that believe?
Delusion is a convention that people take as "reality". An example is nationality or religion. So we have Americans, British, Australians, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists.
Have you ever seen American, British, Australian, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist birds?
@ Del
One way to look at it.
Our ego, identity or the selfish self presents us as something innately independent or separate from the rest of existence. This presentation becomes the personification of our ignorance.
Delusion is just a way of describing any of our belief in it's story line.
The four noble truths and the eight fold path are the means of bringing about a cessation of the suffering that results from our participation in this story line.
Right view is the process of seeing how to stop participating in that story line.
as right thought is the process of thinking in a way that stops participating in that.........
as right speech is the process of speaking in a way that stops participating in................
as right action is the process of acting in a way that stops participation in .........
as right livelihood is the process of having a livelihood that stops p.............
as right effort is the process of putting effort into stop.......................
as right mindfulness is the process of being mindful to...
as right concentration is the process of............
Since you started with "right" view, I continued with it but the 8 fold path seldom gets mentioned here in any detail before someone offers "perfect" or "complete" as the better translation to exchange "right" with.
Thanks you have given me some things to think on. The trick I find now is how do I take this new information to a point that it becomes a way of thinking or being within a practical day to day living environment.
Hello and welcome
Delusion from one Buddhist perspective, includes those ways of thinking that do not lead to happiness. They are part of many people's subjective reality, 'the pursuit of happiness' in all the wrong places.
To offer a simple example. Bad junk diet. The untrained body craves it, well mine does BUT the 'happiness' is fleeting and ultimately false.
This is why sila, following the training of the eight fold path that @how mentions is so important. That will lead to great clarity of being. Not maybe, not perhaps. Guaranteed as may of us attest.
I think that a reading through of the 4 NT and 8 FP each day, in conjunction with a mindfulness practice, could eventually unfold kaleidoscopic illuminations to any moment of any day.
Why do you think they call it 'practice'...?
Just as athletes have to train their bodies by strenuous exercise, fuelled by the right foods, so our Thoughts - our ways of thinking - our Perceptions, our Views - need feeding with the "Right" nutrients, in order that we might 'strenuously' (read, 'diligently') train our Minds.
You might find reading ' Opening the hand of thought' by Kosho Uchiyama useful. The book deals with the self, delusions etc from a Zen standpoint, however, it's an informative read whatever tradition you follow or decide to follow.
I knew it would be helpful asking the forum, this information is helping me frame my question/thoughts better. I believe that has been some of the problem I have been experiencing is not having a grasp of what type of practice right view entails.
It can be difficult to practice when you are unsure what the practice entails. For example I have found it easy to practice things like diet and exercise as it involves concepts that are easily understood, you just need to then practice.
I found the same when I started my mindfulness practice, it was easy to understand the body scan and breath exercises, after understanding the process I was able to then practice the process.
I almost find this right view practice seems to be similar to the problems I had when we started practicing mindfulness of thought. The difficulty in understanding the process so that you could then start practicing the process.
Noticing what is sufferring would be a good place to start building on right views I believe.
My experience is limited, but for me, right view begins with a clear, unfettered view, and that begins with understanding logic. This builds on top of the virgin view, allowing you to clear a kind of conceptual space, finding topics which are connected and which support each other, and which form an interrelated, consistent whole. This allows you to cope with many basic topics related to the world. Understanding things like Occam's Razor - that given two otherwise identical propositions, the least complicated is likely to be true - helps too.
Then concerning the reality which we project onto the world, as you say there are the Three Poisons. These are desire, anger or aversion, and delusion. You say you understand the first two and how they push and pull at your clear view. So about delusion, a lot of it is about preconceptions, the programmed notions that parents, teachers and media have told you and that you consciously or unconsciously hold to be true. Finding these and deprogramming yourself is an exercise first in mindfulness, in becoming aware of these assumptions that we hold on top of the basic, logical view. Then there is a process of questioning, of examining the preconceptions and their sources, and seeing if you find them to be true or untrue. Sometimes you find a delusion that you yourself have created, out of wishful thinking perhaps.
People like Krishnamurti have also written about deprogramming, it is an interesting process. Sometimes the world is not exactly what we thought it was.
But I find it essential to accompany the process with kindness and heartfulness, to oneself and other living beings and plants. This is kind of an antidote to too much realism, which can leech the life and vibrancy from ones world if you take it too far.
Example of delusion: "this is a bad day" And then practicing would be to examine that and maybe loosen the hold. But to loosen the hold you have to have a 'light touch'. For example it would be a different kind of tightness to say "there is no such thing as bad days". Having a light touch is basically a guide wire for examing delusions.
Good points guys. I feel deprogramming is a good term and the idea of a light touch also. Idries Shah calls deprogramming 'unlearning'. Most of us are not only deluded, subjective and opinionated (yes that would be me) but also need to understand what the Middle Way is, how it works and how to travel it. We have to develop right view.
During meditation we very quickly learn that 'our mind' really belongs to a chattering monkey. This mind is capable of a limited right view. It needs to be trained or allowed to settle.
This is why the understanding, discernment and wisdom component of right view deepens. The important thing is finding helpful and skilful views as we travel ...
I listen to a dhamma talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu every day, and today just happened to be about right view. Maybe it will be helpful here:
Right view about right view:
youtube.com/watch?v=EBy2ua5t3KI
Thanks for the discussion, it has helped with my understanding of right view, I can see why a light touch will be needed.
www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-ditthi
I hope that worked.
Great site.
Sorry, I guess my work was in vain there, lol.
If you copy and paste it is a good explanation.
Good plan.
As a semi-detached Buddhist, I make do with 'Emptiness is form and another brick in the wall' ... wait ... that is no housing plan ... 'Form is the space to practice and an Empty Mind has form'.
mmm ...
Back of the class ... again.
http://opcoa.st/09pHv
Noble Truth 1 Ignorance is dukkha
NT2 back to the cause [lobster rambles off into the void ...]
my understanding of Right View (Noble)
all are perception
'we' take perception as a thing or a being
'we' develop thought on such perception
that is the Delusion
because of delusion 'we' greed or hate
so we roam in this 'samsara'
if one day 'we' will be able to see the perception as perception
and
perception is in 'our' mind but not in outside of 'our' mind
that point of time 'we' come to Noble Right View
@lobster