Page 16 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

misleading. Under the heading of Right Understanding some

writers on Buddhism would apparently like to include the
whole of Buddhist doctrine. It is as though whatever could not
be included under any other heading is squeezed in here. After

all, it is all a matter of Right Understanding: it is all something
to be understood. So in it all goes — the whole doctrine, the

whole teaching, the whole philosophy. This tends to create the
wrong impression. Students of Buddhism often think, I have
found, that Right Understanding, as qne first step of the Noble

Eightfold Path means making a thorough study of the whole of
Buddhist thought, and taking a sort of Ph.D in Buddhist

Philosophy. They think that before you can start walking on the
Noble Eightfold Path you have to learn all about the
Madhyamikas and the Yogacarins, the Sarvastivadin; and the

Sautrantikas, as well as about the T'ien T 'ai school and the
Avatamsaka school etc., etc. Only then, they think, can you put

your foot on the Path and start practising Buddhism. But really
it is not like that at all. Samyag-drsti, it must be emphasized, is
just Perfect Vision. It has nothing to do with the study of the

schools of Buddhist philosophy. It is a Vision and, as such,
something simple, direct and immediate, and more of the

nature of spiritual experience than intellectual understanding.
Of course, the experience, the insight, can be expressed
intellectually, in terms of doctrinal concepts, philosophical

systems and so on, but it is not identical with these. The Vision
itself stands apart, stands above.

So what is this Perfect Vision? Though one may say it is a vision
of the nature of existence, still the question remains: what is

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