THE WAY TO THE CESSATION OF SUFFERING
The fourth noble truth completes the pattern established by the first three truths by revealing the means to eliminate craving and thereby bring an end to suffering. This truth teaches the "Middle Way" discovered by the Buddha, the Noble Eightfold Path:
1. right view (sammā ditthi)
2. right intention (sammā sankappa)
3. right speech (sammā vācā)
4. right action (sammā kammanta)
5. right livelihood (sammā ājīva)
6. right effort (sammā vāyāma)
7. right mindfulness (sammā sati)
8. right concentration (sammā samādhi)
Mentioned countless times throughout the Majjhima Nikāya, the Noble Eightfold Path is explained in detail in two full suttas. MN 141 gives a factorial analysis of the eight components of the path using the definitions that are standard in the Pali Canon; MN 117 expounds the path from a different angle under the rubric of "noble right concentration with its supports and its requisites." The Buddha there makes the important distinction between the mundane and supramundane stages of the path, defines the first five factors for both stages, and shows how the path factors function in unison in the common task of providing an outlet from suffering. Other suttas explore in greater detail individual components of the path. Thus MN 9 provides an indepth exposition of right view, MN 10 of right mindfulness, MN 19 of right intention. MN 44.11 explains that the eight factors can be incorporated into three "aggregates" of training. Right speech, right action, and right livelihood make up the aggregate of virtue or moral discipline (sila); right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration make up the aggregate of concentration (samädhi); and right view and right intention make up the aggregate of understanding or wisdom (pañña ). This threefold sequence in turn serves as the basic outline for the gradual training, to be discussed later.
In the Pali Canon the practices conducing to Nibbāna are often elaborated into a more complex set comprising seven groups of intersecting factors. The later tradition designates them the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment (bodhipakkhiya dhammā), but the Buddha himself simply speaks of them without a collective name as "the things that I have taught you after directly knowing them" (MN 103.3, MN 104.5). Towards the end of his life he stressed to the Sangha that the long duration of his teaching in the world depends upon the accurate preservation of these factors and their being practised by his followers in harmony, free from contention.
The constituents of this set are as follows:
the four foundations of mindfulness (satipatṭhāna)
the four right kinds of striving (sammappadhāna)
the four bases for spiritual power (iddhipāda)
the five faculties (indriya)
the five powers (bala)
the seven enlightenment factors (bojjhanga)
the Noble Eightfold Path (ariya atṭhangika magga)
Each group is defined in full at MN 77.15-21. As examination will show, most of these groups are simply subdivisions or rearrangements of factors of the eightfold path made to highlight different aspects of the practice. Thus, for example, the four foundations of mindfulness are an elaboration of right mindfulness; the four right kinds of striving, an elaboration of right effort. The development of the groups is therefore integral and not sequential. MN 118, for example, shows how the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness fulfils the development of the seven enlightenment factors, and MN 149.10 states that one engaged in insight meditation on the senses brings to maturity all thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment.
Factorial analysis of the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment brings to light the central importance of four factors among them - energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. From this a clear picture of the essential practice can be sketched. One begins with a conceptual understanding of the Dhamma and an intention to'achieve the goal, the first two path factors. Then, out of faith, one accepts the moral discipline regulating speech, action, and livelihood. With virtue as a basis one energetically applies the mind to cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness. As mindfulness matures it issues in deepened concentration, and the concentrated mind, by investigation, arrives at wisdom, a penetrative understanding of the principles originally grasped only conceptually.