Therapy Works

If we can follow this eightfold path, we can live a true, balanced, connected life. Sharon Salzburg outlines it beautifully here.

THE EIGHTFOLD PATH

1. Right View or Understanding—Developing a greater awareness of sources of suffering in our lives, sources of release from suffering, and aspects of reality that help us live differently, such as the understanding that actions have consequences.

2. Right Intention—Cultivating thoughts and intentions based on non- harming, letting go of grasping, and strengthening lovingkindness.

3. Right Speech—When speaking, we aim for speech that is truthful, helpful, kind, and timed wisely.

4. Right Action—Acting in ways that do not cause harm, such as not taking life, not stealing, and not engaging in sexual misconduct, so as to deepen peace within oneself and harmony in one’s community.

5. Right Livelihood—Making an ethically sound living; being honest in business dealings.

6. Right Effort—Practicing letting go of thoughts and feelings that create suffering for ourselves and others, and cultivating those that foster connection, wisdom, and true happiness for ourselves and others.

7. Right Mindfulness—Practicing mindfulness of one’s body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities.

8. Right Concentration—Developing the ability to focus our attention steadily in a wholesome way, without filters of grasping or aversion.

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What does a deeper glimpse into this truth of change offer us, ultimately? We see that there is a tender, exultant beauty to every hour, in fact to every minute we have just because we are alive. Yet at the same time, everything we hear and see and feel and want and know is fleeting, ungraspable. The fragility and dynamism of life is also what makes it so vital. Every experience, every encounter, every realized desire, and every unfulfilled longing that comes into our lives is moving, changing. Our everyday reality is as insubstantial and shimmering as light . . . and in its very presence, miraculous. It is hard for words to convey both our ability to rejoice at the wondrousness of life as it continually flows into being and the poignancy forged in the insubstantiality of constant change as it all continually recedes.

Life is short, and it is sacred.

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