The Noble Eightfold Path: Step Four: Right Action

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In this episode, I explore Right Action, the fourth step on the Noble Eightfold Path. We begin with Right View and Right Intention, then move outward into speech. Now we take those steps into how we live and act in the world. Right Action is not a fixed rulebook. It is nuanced, relational, and always evolving. I share three lenses from the Buddhist tradition that help us investigate what right action might mean in our lives right now.

Highlights

• Why Right View is about seeing beyond our education, insights, and intelligence
• How Right Intention arises from recognizing interconnectedness
• Why there is no universal playbook for Right Action
• The Five Precepts as a foundational guide: no killing, no stealing, no lying, no intoxicant abuse, no sexual misconduct
• Right Action through the Mahayana lens: loving kindness, compassion, and taking joy in others’ happiness
• The Vajrayana perspective: karma, karmic seeds, and the possibility of planting none at all
• Letting go as a radical form of action
• How meditation reveals the mind noticing itself
• “Mind resting in mind” and the end of karmic momentum

Music After Party

In our after party, I share “Feel Like Going Home” from the album Folk Singer by Muddy Waters, produced by Willie Dixon and featuring Buddy Guy. It is spare, intimate, and timeless.

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Fearless Creativity: A Meditation and Writing Retreat 

Join me at Drala Mountain Center in the Colorado Rockies for Fearless Creativity, a meditation and writing retreat offering dedicated time for creative work alongside guided meditation and conversation. Writers of all genres and levels are welcome, with no prior meditation experience required. 

Learn more and register here.

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Produced by Citizens of Sound

Music by: Derek O'Brien

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