7 goals for developing the Noble Eightfold Middle Path
- Having a good Dhamma friend (Kalyāna-mitta): Such friend has a pure and beautiful mind, which by simply being a good example will influence and encourage all other beings to improve their mentality, behaviour and understanding. Such good friend encourages one to learn, train and develop one self towards individual and social harmony.
- Completion of Pure Morality (Sīla-sampadā): Having a minimum of 5 precept moral discipline is the indispensable foundation of right life. This means living harmlesslyand helpfully, and not exploitatively, both within the material and social environment, by using the four necessities of food, clothing, shelter and medicine as well as any technology, so they enhance a true quality of one’s own and others beings life, by promoting education, constructive action, merit-making and the state of balance in nature.
- Consummation of Motivation (Chanda-sampadā): Having a mind that is motivated by withdrawal and good-will, which aims at learning and doing good. Not obsessed by only wanting more, getting low consumer pleasure. Instead, one uses all one’s abilities in joyous learning of how to do only good things, avoid all evil things and purify one’s mind into a subtle radiant excellence.
- 4: Perfection of One-self (Atta-sampadā): By dedicating oneself to the realization of one’s full human potential through daily meditation. One views all difficulties, hardships, obstacles and problems as good training grounds to test and improve one’s mind, intelligence and abilities toward the realization of one’s full potential, through a comprehensive refinement, that encompasses mentality, behaviour, and understanding.
- Clarification of Understanding (Ditthi-sampadā): Seeing that all things has a cause and an effect is adhering to the principle of conditionality. This comprehension of the vast mutual dependency of all mental and material states in the universe comes from repeated reasoning, thorough examination and excellence of rational analysis. This enables mental clarity and intellectual independence, neither being impulsive, nor over-reactive, not allowing oneself to drift along the stream of public hysteria and banal common priorities.
- Achievement of Alertness (Appamada-sampadā): To be acutely and constantly aware of the inevitable impermanence, inherent instability, transience, fleeting evanescence and total insubstantiality of all life, all things and all phenomena, which are constantly changing according to their causes and conditions, both internally and externally, will establish oneself in alertness. One realizes, that one cannot afford to be complacent. One sees the preciousness of time and strives to learn about, prevent and rectify the causes of decline and bring about the causes of growth and prosperity, using all one’s time, night and day to the greatest advantage.
- Fulfillment of Rational Attention (Yoniso-manasikara-sampadā): Attending wisely so as to what is the cause of any phenomena or state, will make one advantageously realize the real truth. To investigate, by intelligently examining, investigating, tracing, analyzing and researching into the very proximate cause of any given situation, will make one able to solve problems and do things successfully through intelligent methods, that allows one to be independent, self-reliant and at the same time, by that self-sufficiency, become a helping refuge to many other people and beings.
(from Samyutta Nikaya V. 29-31)