Jessica Woo's Eightfold Path

While I was absent for three weeks during my IGCSE leave, I missed out on almost the whole Buddhism unit.  Therefore, I decided to create my own eightfold path to be engaged and learn more about the rituals of this religion. As a Christian, I decided to alter the purpose of the original eightfold path, to end unhappiness, by changing it to have a purpose of achieving joy not only by focusing on myself, but acting upon others as well.

1.  Right Views

To start this process of the eightfold path, I knew I had to first be fully engaged mentally. Immediately after waking up, I said a small prayer thanking God for the giving me life to experience the new day.  I had never prayed in the morning before, therefore it did feel a little strange. However, doing this actually allowed me to realize how grateful I was for everything that God had provided me- food, family, shelter, and the bed that had me rested every night.

2. Right Thought

 To perform right thoughts and intentions, I had to relieve all the stress and negative thoughts that were filling my brain from all the schoolwork and family drama. To do this, I went outside and walked around in the small garden in the back of my apartment. While walking, I took deep breaths of the fresh morning air and with every step and exhale, tried to release any negative thoughts, and rather focus on the clean air and the energy I was inhaling to get me through the day.

3. Right Speech

Usually towards my siblings, I tend to be a little bit sarcastic and mean. We don’t have the perfect sibling relationship; rather we often get very annoyed of each other and say jokingly mean comments towards each other. However, for the right speech, I decided to change my ordinary way of talking to my siblings and had quite a meaningful conversation full of compliments and love. It started out very awkward, as it was very unusual for us to be so kind and warm towards each other, however as time progressed, I found myself enjoying the conversation and hearing about my siblings’ day.  As the oldest of three, I gave them words of encouragement and motivation.

4. Right Conduct

For me, right conduct doesn’t only mean not killing, stealing, and abusing others. It also means being respectful and always doing the best in everything I do. To perform this, I attended every class with the mindset that I would try and excel in everything I did. With self-control activated on my computer, I prevented myself from procrastinating on social network sites and payed attention throughout all my classes. I knew that listening to my teachers meant respecting them and showing appreciation for their time and effort for my benefit in learning.

5. Right Livelihood

In the 10 commandments, it said that we must respect and honor our parents. For right livelihood, I thought it was important to help out to always show love and gratefulness towards my parents. When I got home from school, I decided that I would cook dinner and do the dishes to give my mom a break from her busy day. I cleaned up my dad’s office so that he didn’t have to stress out after his long day of work.

6. Right Effort

I chose to perform right effort by putting my effort into doing the good for others. Although it was a small act, I went to the orphanage the next day with my friends and helped out by cleaning up and just playing with the children. This took a bit of stress off the people that were taking care of the orphans.

7. Right Mindfulness

After finishing all my homework for the next day, I decided to present right mindfulness by thinking about plans for this summer. As a rising junior, I didn’t want to spend the whole summer lazing around just hanging out with my friends all day everyday, so I made a specific and detailed schedule to balance out my time spent on studying versus the time spent on having fun.

8. Peace

To end the day, I said a last prayer thanking God once again, but this time for all the wonderful things that happened that day. I reflected on all the good deeds that I had acted upon throughout the whole eightfold path, and cleared my mind of all the stress that I had dealt with the whole day. Then, I fell asleep.

By creating my own eightfold path, I realized how much more positive I had become just by following the few steps that originated from Buddhism. By doing my best in everything I do, and by helping others, I truly did fulfill my goal of reaching joy and gaining positive energy.