The Noble Eightfold Path
About This Book
The Noble Eightfold Path is C.W. Leadbeater's Theosophical commentary on the central practical teaching of the Buddha — the eight practices that the Buddhist tradition identifies as constituting the complete path from suffering to liberation. Leadbeater brings to this commentary his characteristic approach of correlating the Buddhist concepts with the Theosophical framework of planes, bodies, and consciousness development — demonstrating (as was a consistent aim of the early Theosophical Society) that the different world religions and esoteric traditions are describing the same fundamental realities from different cultural and historical perspectives.
The book is particularly valuable for readers who come to Buddhism from a Theosophical background (or vice versa) because Leadbeater makes explicit the correspondences that can otherwise remain implicit: how the Buddhist concept of right mindfulness relates to the development of the astral and etheric vehicles, how right concentration relates to the development of the mental body, and how the ultimate aim of the Eightfold Path (nibbana or liberation from the cycle of rebirth) corresponds to the Theosophical understanding of the process of liberation through the successive initiations.
What You'll Learn
• Understand each of the eight path factors through the Theosophical lens: right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration — with Leadbeater's correlations between each factor and specific aspects of the subtle body development that constitutes the Theosophical understanding of spiritual progress
• Grasp the relationship between Buddhist and Theosophical frameworks: how the Buddhist understanding of the path relates to the Theosophical understanding of the planes of existence, the vehicles of consciousness, and the stages of initiation — and what each tradition's framework illuminates about the other
• Recognise the practical dimension: what each of the eight path factors looks like in terms of concrete daily life practice — with particular attention to the less immediately obvious factors like right livelihood (the relationship between one's work and one's consciousness development) and right effort (the specific quality of application that is most conducive to development rather than spiritual ambition or self-punishment)
• Learn the samadhi dimension: how Leadbeater understands the higher stages of right concentration — the development of the jhanas (stages of meditative absorption) — in relation to the Theosophical understanding of consciousness operating on successively higher planes, and what he says about the ultimate aim of this development
• Appreciate the Leadbeater-Buddhist synthesis: how The Noble Eightfold Path exemplifies the ecumenical vision of the early Theosophical Society — demonstrating that the Buddha's practical teaching and the Theosophical framework of cosmic and human evolution describe the same process and the same aim from different cultural starting points
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