Ideals and Failure: Sins of Omission

Having released ourselves from the cumulative burden of individual past unwise action (sins of commission), the Eightfold Path could still be viewed as an ethical system to be perfected – a goal to achieve because it has meaning in and of itself – the path to a goal of ultimate enlightenment or heaven.

This provides a second potential trap of suffering around our almost inevitable failure to adequately cultivate the Path. It would be reasonable to ask: Have we done enough, particularly with respect to right view, effort, mindfulness and concentration to be good Buddhist practitioners? Is avoiding perpetrating wrongs adequate? Can an omission to do sufficient right things, a squandered opportunity to do ‘right’, be just as unskilful as committing something ‘wrong’.

For example, we could pre- and post-examine all of our farming choices and determine if we had done all we could to develop our skills as Buddhist agro-ecologists. Then we would have a Buddhist yardstick against which to measure our progress (as opposed to our lack of regress) and skilfulness. We would also have a measuring rod with which to beat ourselves for our failure. To do this, in my view, would be a serious misinterpretation of the Buddhist approach.

I have come to think that there is a space between the third and fourth Noble Truths – a gap between realising that suffering can be set aside, and the method prescribed to achieve that end. The pause for practitioners that I can now see is occupied by a realisation that:

• Life is essentially meaningless in all the conventional terms that we usually use to ascribe meaning.
• That the purpose of the Eightfold Path is not to achieve a goal but to describe a way of life that allows us to engage with the present moment.
• That in cultivating the Path we provide conditions that enliven ourselves and reduce the opportunity to proliferate and perpetuate suffering from moment to moment.

In essence: The practice of the Path is the goal. The Path has no end, it can be easily lost, confused or ignored, and it does not lead to a particular destination.

Acknowledged in this realisation is our choice. We are free agents. We can choose views, thoughts, words, actions, livelihoods, efforts, mindfulness and concentration (the dimensions of the Path) that contribute to either alleviating or accelerating suffering.

The choice is to follow, tend, and ultimately age, get sick and die in the act of cultivating the Path. That is all there is to secular Buddhist practice. No discernable rainbow, no heaven, no real prospect of eternal enlightenment.

What is available are flashes of enlightenment on a moment-to-moment basis – access to this living heaven that our way of viewing finds hard to see. There is also the prospect that we might access that moment-to-moment enlightenment on a more regular basis if we skilfully tend the Path in all its dimensions. We might also access it with increasing depth and breadth and be able to share in it with others.

The consolation of Buddhist philosophy is the freedom to choose without judgement but not without consequences. Skilful choices promote loving, joyful and compassionate consequences that can lead us to a sense of boundless equanimity. Unskilful choices play on our fears, cravings and delusions.

The Path is not a rod by which we are judged and with which we chastise ourselves when we are inevitably found wanting. There is no need. Buddhism is quite clear that our ‘punishment’ for failing to do ‘right’ is the same as for doing ‘wrong’. The punishment is inherent in the consequences of our actions. We suffer for both committing ‘wrongs’ and omitting to do ‘rights’.