Page 34 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

Noble Eightfold Path, samyak means whole, perfect, integral,
complete. Translators usually render samkalpa as 'thought' ,

'intention', 'purpose', or 'plan', but none of these is very
satisfactory.

Samkalpa, a word which exists in the same form in modern
Indian languages, is really 'will'. Samyaksamkalpa is not just Right

Resolve. It is more like Perfect Will or Integral Emotion, and
represents the bringing of the whole emotional and volitional
side of our being into harmony with Perfect Vision, our vision of

the true nature of existence.

In the lecture on Perfect Vision we saw that the Noble Eightfold
Path consists of two sections: the Path of Vision and the Path of
Transformation. The Path of Vision corresponds to the first stage

of the Eightfold Path, that is to say, to Perfect Vision, while the
Path of Transformation corresponds to all the other stages. Thus

Perfect Emotion is the first stage of the Path of Transformation,
and represents the transformation of our emotional nature in
accordance with Perfect Vision. In a sense, Perfect Emotion

mediates between Perfect Vision and the last six stages of the
Path, because we cannot follow that Path, cannot really practice

Right Speech, Right Action, and so on, until we have transformed
our whole emotional nature and in that way derived energy for
the remaining stages of the Path. This is why the problem of

reason and emotion is central in the spiritual life. Putting it very
simply, there is really no spiritual life until the heart is also

involved. No matter how active the brain is, or how much we
have understood intellectually, until the heart is involved and we
begin to feel what we have understood -

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