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18 EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS

WHAT IS RIGHT VIEW?

By Krishnan Venkatesh

Krishnan Venkatesh has taught at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
USA, for more than 20 years and helped shape its Eastern Classics graduate
program. From 2003 to 2008, he was the dean of graduate studies at the college,
and his recent works and studies explore the Pāli Canon of the Buddha, the
Japanese philosopher Dōgen, and the mathematical books of Johannes Kepler.
Born in Malaysia in 1960 to a South Indian Brahmin father and a Hakka
Chinese mother, Venkatesh studied English literature at Magdalene College,
Cambridge, where he obtained First Class honors. He researched Shakespeare
at the University of Muenster, Germany, and from 1986 to 1989 he taught
literature and philosophy at Shanxi University, China. The lifelong companions
on his bedside table include Montaigne, Chaucer, the poet Thomas Hardy,
Blake, Wordsworth, Zhuangzi, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Austen, Balzac, Laxness and
Shakespeare.This is part of a series on the eightfold path.

When the Buddha defined views as “wrong” or “right,” he was not presenting a
dogmatic or moralistic way of looking at the world, but rather pointing out that
certain views lead to the end of suffering.

What is right view, and why does Greek and Indian philosophers the foundations of our own thinking.
the Buddha place it first in the challenged us to do this work But this kind of clarity is hard to
Eight-fold Path? two thousand years ago, but it arrive at without friends, teachers,
seems that few people today take and sometimes enemies—it can
At first glance, it seems obvious that the trouble to submit their most take a political crisis, for instance, to
sound spiritual practice needs to be cherished assumptions to rigorous make us articulate our real thoughts
rooted in sound understanding of questioning. Why, for example, do about what society should be or
life. But how do we attain this kind we think love is good and war is what true leadership is.
of wisdom? bad? Why are we so certain that
all human beings are equal? Why Related: How to Practice Right
On one level, the Buddha is asking do we think that we do or do not Speech Anywhere, Anytime, and
us to be more “philosophical” about have souls? What are our moral with Anyone
the opinions we hold, to become principles really based on?
aware of what we think, and then Our thoughts about these things The phrase “right view” is a
to inquire more deeply into why we affect our daily decisions and translation of the Pali samma ditthi.
think what we think. Only then can relationships deeply, and we would Here, “right view” does not mean
we know if our thoughts are true, make better decisions in all aspects that there is only one right way to
false, or confused. of our lives if we were clearer about look at things. Samma is a rich word