It All Starts with Your Right View

People often wonder how do we live a life of happiness and fulfilment. Politicians often talk about human rights, but we know that humans need to live lives in certain right ways for human rights to be productive.  For example, everyone has the right to talk freely, but if one talks in not right ways that harm others, that human right has to be modified.

In our teachings we teach people the Eight Human Rights.  It all starts with the Right View, which is to view things from the right angle. We know that all views are perception, and with perception there is deception.  To perceive something is to perceive it as it is and not let ourselves (the perceiver) affect the perception.   For example, if you have biasness against someone, your view of him would be distorted and not right.

Only with the Right View can you start to have Right Thinking.  Thinking is the speech of our mind.  Because thinking often leads to action, Right Thinking is needed for us to take the right path of right action.  Right Thinking is not easy because our mind is often thinking about one thing while our body is doing another.  This is because our mind and body are not unified.  Our body's behaviour is often the result of habits and external influence.  Like you have the right thinking that exercise is good, but your body would prefer to rest more (lazy).  To have the Right Thinking we need to do some checking and question ourselves "Are You Sure?"

When you practice Right View and Right Thinking you are in the Present Moment, and that will lead you to what we called the Right Mindfulness.  With Right Mindfulness, you will have awareness and memory easily.  You are so called 'Paying Attention' and will never be careless, mindless or inconsiderate.  Mindfulness is the energy that brings you peace and clarity as you will be living every moment fully with full awareness and enjoyment.  This is what people called living a full life.

With Right Mindfulness you will naturally have Right Speech and Right Action.  Note that these two are what we express to the outside world where our thoughts are no longer our private possessions.  Deep Listening is at the foundation of Right Speech for if we cannot listen mindfully we cannot practice Right Speech.

Right Action is simply the result of the above Right View, Right Thinking, Right Mindfulness and Right Speech.  When people say someone has behave wrongly, that wrongful action often has roots in wrong view, thinking, mindfulness and speech.

Having Right Action we also need Right Diligence or Effort as any action without diligence will not be able to achieve the right result we want.  Right Diligence also means perseverance and not giving up easily.

When you put in the Right Effort to your Right Action you will achieve Right Concentration, where your mind dwells on whatever that is happening in the present moment, even as it changes.  You will become very alert and can adapt immediately to any changes in the environment.  Right Concentration leads to happiness, and it also leads to Right Action.  The higher the degree of concentration, the greater is the quality of our life.

With the above 7 Rights, you will live a life of Right Livelihood, which means that your life is in accordance with your view, thinking, mindfulness, speech, action, effort and concentration.  There is simply no struggle and every day life is a breeze.  Isn't this the happiness and fulfilment that everyone is looking for?

By Andy Ng, Chief Trainer at Asia Trainers.  Related articles:

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