The Christian Eightfold Path

​The Christian Eightfold Path, an understanding for life and an element of the Act of Consecration of the Human Being, by Rev. Michaël Merle

Reported by John-Peter Gernaat

This is a perspective on the Christian Eightfold path from a modern Spiritual Knowledge perspective. The Eightfold path of Buddhism is a way which people can follow in order for them to feel supported in their lives. There are elements in the Buddhist Eightfold Path that predate it. The second, third and fourth steps on the Buddhist Eightfold Path are a prime example. They come to us from the Avestan scriptures which are the record of the oral traditions of Zarathustra’s teaching. In these scriptures the intention was for these steps to be ‘good’: good thought, good word and good deed. They were the ethics of the Zarathustran tradition. The Buddhist Eightfold Path incorporated these three steps with the intention of developing a right way of coming to thought, word and deed. There was a shift of consciousness from doing the good to doing things in the right way. The Buddhist Eightfold Path ran into the inevitable risk of a misunderstanding that the right way provided a clear methodology and therefore is prescriptive. Right is not, in this understanding, the opposite of wrong, but rather that the way should be in right accordance with what is needed.

Rudolf Steiner makes it clear that the Buddhist Path is a valid path for the human being except that Christ has renewed the path through his incarnation on earth. Christ states: “I make ALL things new”. This is the renewing power of Christ. For a modern conscious spiritual practice, we would have to recognise what the renewed path is.

The first step of the path is often referred to be ‘right view’, also referred to as ‘right understanding’, now requires that we “pay careful attention to the significance of every idea”. We need to develop a perspective that whenever we encounter an idea, that we can determine its significance. This takes us beyond knowing the right idea to appreciating the significance of the idea. Part of the appreciation of the significance is understanding the change in the constitution of the human being that has come about through the incarnation of Christ and has evolved since then with the development of the consciousness soul. Before Christ great minds accessed the ideas outside of themselves while now we can access the ideas within our incarnated ‘I’-constitution. Steiner says of the first path: “Every idea should be of significance for us. We should see in it a definite message instructing us concerning things of the outer world. We must direct our mental life in such a way that it becomes a faithful mirror of the outer world.”

In the next three steps there is a consequential progression: develop good thoughts in right accordance with our understanding, speak good words that are in accordance with the thoughts, and do good deeds in right accordance with the words and thoughts.

The Buddhist Path takes right understanding into right thinking. Is what I think right for the circumstances and right for the day? Steiner now says that we must “resolve that all of our action comes out of well-founded considerations”. We are looking for a new foundation for our thinking. We cannot only think, we must consider where this thinking comes from, on what it is based and where it is taking us. And then, to resolve that we act only out of this well-founded thinking. Thus, lighting a candle at the start of a group discussion may seem the right thing to do. The thinking is right, but this thinking needs to be considered more closely and the context and circumstances investigated through thinking. Is the thinking founded on sentimentality? Or, is the thinking founded on an understanding of the significance of lighting a candle? Steiner says of the second step: “we must resolve upon even the most insignificant act being founded on well-founded and thorough consideration.” No action should come from thoughtlessness or thoughts that carry no real meaning. Our thinking should align to the reality of things. We must constantly question our thinking.

The next step is ‘right word’. What we say manifests, how we say it determines how it will manifest. Words have power. Rudolf Steiner says: “Only such words as have sense and meaning should come from our lips”. This also goes to the meaning and origin of words, and how a word should be used. There should also be an alignment between what we say and how it is said. “All talking for the sake of talking diverts a person from their path. A person should avoid the usual kind of conversation with its indiscriminate, haphazard chatter. This does not mean shutting oneself off from communication with one’s fellow human beings, but one should bring increasing significance into one’s words. One is ready to talk with everyone, but one should do so thoughtfully and always with consideration. One never speaks without grounds for what one says. One tries never to use too many nor too few words.” (from Knowledge of the Higher Words)

The third step of right deed, Rudolf Steiner formulates this as “regulating your actions so that they are harmonious – the regulation of harmonious actions”.

As human beings we discover and experience an eightfold path which speaks to a certain development, a certain progression that we take as human beings, that was first identified and consolidated by the Buddha, but which is a relevant, experiential, step-by-step progression that we can see in the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Luke, that we can see in the structure of many aspects of life. Rudolf Steiner speaks of this eightfold path in relation to a descending development of our chakra system under the influence of the Holy Spirit, that is connected with our throat chakra, the chakra for the development of will and speech, which is a chakra also associated with that aspect of our development that is closely related to the Christ forces.

We have this in the Sacrament of Baptism where the substances used are connected with the ‘third eye’, the chin area – where the chakra of the larynx has moved upwards slightly, according to Steiner, – and the heart chakra. These are the first three chakras activated on the descending path of the Spirit. We connect the water, with which a triangle is traced on the forehead, with the Father; the salt, that is traced as a square on the chin, to the Son; and the ash, that is traced over the heart, to the all-renewing power of the Spirit. This relationship in the sacraments allows us to see the eightfold path as a path of the Christ.

When we look at the structure of the eightfold path in the Act of consecration of the Human Being it is linked to the blessing “Christ in you”. It is where the spiritual world can acknowledge that something has come to its conclusion and opens up the next stage in the ritual. The first path of the eightfold path is expressed in the opening epistle. John Bowker describes this as ‘the right view about the true nature of reality’ – the true nature of reality for the Buddha is expressed in the four noble truths (life is suffering, suffering is caused by desire, the end of suffering is the aim of life and the way to end suffering is the eightfold path) – which is to see things as they truly are. This is what the opening epistle makes possible, we come to know the spiritual reality of things. The epistle is as much a prayer as it is a statement of reality. Each epistle outlines the significance of the season of the liturgical year. We have to see it as telling us what the spiritual reality of life truly is. Are we conscious of our humanity in every thought, word and deed? Are we aware of the experience of Christ in our lives, in our humanity?

There is never a repetition in the Act of Consecration of the Human Being. When we turn to the seventh path of the eightfold path it may seem like a repetition. This occurs when the blessing is giving that signifies the end of Communion. The priest turns to the altar and moves again to the right of the altar where the epistle is prayed. The seventh path is described as ‘right mindfulness’. Mindfulness is at the heart of the Buddhist meditation. In a description of the Buddhist path it says: “Buddhists in meditation seek to become more truly aware of their nature and its transience, but also the opportunity it offers to move towards enlightenment”. Ancient meditation that sought to still the mind related to a time in human evolution when the ‘I’ had not yet incarnated, and it was necessary to hear the ‘I’ in stillness of mind. Now we need to become more aware of the true nature of the human being and also of the opportunity life affords us to move towards enlightenment. Therefore, when we hear the epistle the second time, it is not a repetition but rather, the epistle tells us what we are to become.

The seventh step may also be considered as ‘right memory’. We must remember the understanding that was established in the first path. The thing about memory is that it is not the same as the original experience. When we experience something the events play out in a sequence. When we remember them, we remember them as a whole totality. We are not reliving the events in remembering them, we are taken beyond the original events in a sense.

The first time we hear the epistle we hear the true reality that we have not yet attained. The second time we hear it we hear what we need to attain in order for it to become a reality. This is a subtle but huge difference. There is a connection between understanding and right mindfulness. It requires understanding to be mindful.

The last blessing opens up ‘right concentration’ which is described as ‘right contemplation’ in the Buddhist path: “To practice the concertation that achieves a kind of intuition.” It is described as: “The unifying of all aspects of mind and being into a single point of focus”. Take all that has come before in the Act of Consecration of the Human Being and keep concentrating on it. The concluding words should not indicate a closure but rather the opening up of a wholeness that continues, and needs to be taken up by those present and carried into life. If those present do not carry it within themselves, it is gone.

The connection between right knowledge or perspective and right mindfulness – holding the vision in mindfulness – is important to understand. These two concepts predate the eightfold path and go back to Taoism, to the understanding of The Way. It is not accidental that Christ says: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. Being ‘on the way’ is important. The eightfold way of Christ is The Way. It is of significance to us. We are under way on the way of Christ. We walk with Christ on the way.

A question was asked in a Community Conversation about the eight diamond shapes on the St John’s chasuble. One interpretation is that these may refer to the eightfold path of Christ as being expounded in this study. The shape of the diamonds is the progression of a triangle of the spiritual world pointing down towards an earthly triangle that points upward. As these move towards one another they will touch, then move into each other, eventually forming the Star of David. They will continue to move until their bases only are in contact thus forming the diamond shape. It is worth pondering the meaning of this progression and how it will continue.

The steps of the eightfold path are no longer the steps of the human being towards enlightenment, rather the light of the Spirit in us allowing us to take the steps as bearers of the Christ.

After the reading of the epistle and the blessing that follows it, the book moves to the gospel side of the altar. This opens the second step which was ‘right thought’. Rudolf Steiner says: “This second step involves a resolution that everything we are going to do is based on a thorough, thoughtful, considered, meaningful understanding”. This means that our actions will ultimately flow from good and correct thoughts. “The esoteric pupil should not resolve upon the most insignificant act without well-founded and thorough consideration.” No action should be without clear meaning. It is a training in what it is to think correctly about what we should do. The prayer of the priest before the reading of the gospel prepares the priest to speak the words of the gospel meaningfully. In the case of the gospel reading, we will hear a proclamation from the spiritual world. In life, whenever we speak, we are proclaiming Christ to the other.

After the priest has prepared himself or herself to read the Gospel the priest turns and gives the blessing which opens up the next step of ‘good/right word’. We hear the good word from the realm of the angels. After hearing the Gospel, the priest demonstrates the intention of this step by delivering a sermon of carefully considered words. This step ends with the good words that we, the congregation, offer in response to the spiritual worlds: the Creed.

Thereafter, the priest speaks the blessing, opening up the fourth step of ‘good deed’. The ‘good deed’ is everything to do with the Offertory and the inserted prayer (except in the seasons of Christmas and St John’s). The deed is the deed of offering. The only thing that the human being can offer God is what he has given us. We can offer what Christ has given us, the bread and the wine, His Body and His Blood. We offer this in what we have received, which is the incarnated spirit ‘I’-constitution. As we offer ourselves to God something changes for the Divine, because the act of giving freely is a divine quality.

This report covers two different sets of discussions on the eightfold path, that of how the eightfold path can provide spiritual well-being, and how the eightfold path is present in the Act of Consecration of the Human Being. These discussion groups will continue for a few weeks and the report of those discussions will be presented in the September newsletter.