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E-mail: bdea@buddhanet.net

Web site: www.buddhanet.net

Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc.

Jack Kornfield

The Eightfold Path

for the Householder

The Eightfold Path

for the Householder

About this Book

Ten Dharma Talks

Transcribed and edited from audio tape by Evelyn Sweeney



1995 Jack Kornﬁeld DharmaNet Edition 1995

This electronic edition is offered for free distribution via DharmaNet by arrangement with

the author, Jack Kornfield.

DharmaNet International P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley CA 94704-4951

DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT

TITLE OF WORK: The Eightfold Path for the Householder: Ten Talks (Transcribed from

audio tape)

FILENAME: JKHOLDER.ZIP AUTHOR: Jack Kornﬁeld

AUTHOR’S ADDRESS: Spirit Rock Meditation Center

PO Box 909

Woodacre,CA 94973

PUBLISHER’S ADDRESS: N/A

COPYRIGHT HOLDER: Jack Kornﬁeld (1995)

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1995

RIGHTS AND RESTRICTIONS: See paragraph below.

DATE OF DHARMANET DISTRIBUTION: February,1995

ORIGIN SITE: Access to Insight BBS,Pepperell MA * (508) 433-5847 (96:903/1)

The copyright holder retains all rights to this work and hereby grants

electronic distribution rights to DharmaNet International.This work may

be freely copied and redistributed electronically,provided that the ﬁle

contents (including this Agreement) are not altered in any way and that it

is distributed at no cost to the recipient.You may make printed copies of

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requires permission from the copyright holder.If this work is used by a

teacher in a class,or is quoted in a review,the publisher shall be

notiﬁed of such use.See the title page of this work for any additional

rights and restrictions that may apply.

It is the spirit of dana,freely offered generosity,which has kept the

entire Buddhist tradition alive for more than 2,500 years.If you ﬁnd

this work of value,please consider sending a donation to the author or

publisher,so that these works may continue to be made available.May your

generosity contribute to the happiness of all beings everywhere.

DharmaNet International,P.O.Box 4951,Berkeley,CA 94704-4951

Contents

Chapter 1.Right Understanding .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1

Chapter 2.Right Attitude .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 16

Chapter 3.Right Speech .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 27

Chapter 4.Right Action .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 38

Chapter 5.Right Livelihood .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 51

Chapter 6.Right Effort .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 63

Chapter 7.Right Concentration .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 77

Chapter 8.Right Awareness .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 97

Chapter 9.Hinderances of the Householder .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 109

Index .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 140

Chapter 1. Right Understanding

This meditation practice, as many of you have done with this day of

sitting and walking,was actually quite a lot. Some people will start with

a 20-minute sitting and do that for a number of months, or go to a class

and have some instruction and sit for a little bit. There are people who

alsowillcome toa ten-dayretreat. We’veevenhad a fewkindof unusual

people sign up for a three-month retreat who had never meditated before,

and say, “Well, I guess I’ll just do it.” But as you can discover, even in

just one day of sitting, though some things are interesting and you learn

some from it, it’s also not so easy. There aren’t a lot of distractions and

diversions here. It’s pretty simple. All that’s really left for you in this

place is your own body and mind, and there’s not a lot to take one away

from that.

What is the essence of meditation practice? Here is a story. After

the Buddha was enlightened he was walking down the road in a very

happy state. He was supposed to have been quite a handsome prince

before going off to be a monk. So here’s this handsome prince now

recently enlightened, wearing golden robes and obviously quite happy,

and very special from all accounts. And he met some people and they

said,“You seem veryspecial. What are you,are some kind of an angel or

a deva?” He seemed inhuman in some way. “No.” “Well,are you some

kind of a god then?” “No.” “Well, then are you some kind of a wizard

or magician?” “No,” he replied. “Well, are you a man?” “No,” he said.

“Then what are you?” And he answered, “I am awake.”

And in those three words —“I am awake”— he gave the whole

teaching which Buddhism contains. To be a Buddha is to be one who

has awakened, awakened to the nature of life and death and the world

in which we live, awakened to the body and mind. So the purpose of

practicingmeditation,the Buddhist and other traditions,isnot to become

a meditator, or a spiritual person, or a Buddhist, or to join something.

Rather, it is to understand this capacity we have as humans to awaken.

What is that which we can awaken to,what is theDharma which we

can awaken to? Dharma is the Sanskrit word and Dhamma is the Pali

word which refers to that which is universal, to the laws of the universe,

teachings which describe it. The Dharma as a law is that the way things

work are always here to be discovered; they’re quite immediate.

1

2Chapter 1. Right Understanding

There’s a story of a pious man who very much believed in God.

One day, at the place where he dwelled, it started to rain heavily and it

rained and rained, and a big ﬂood came. He went from the ﬁrst ﬂoor to

the second ﬂoor of his house and the water rose until he was on the roof.

Someone rowed by and said, “Get in, my friend, I’ll save you; the water

is rising.” He said, “No, I believe in God; I really have faith; I believe.”

So he sent the rowboat away. It rained more and the water got all the

way up to his neck. Another rowboat came by, picking up people. “Get

in, my friend, I’ll save you.” “No, thank you. I have trust. I have lived

my whole life. I believe in God; no need.” The rowboat went away. It

got up to his nose so he could just barely breathe. And a helicopter came

over and lowered down a rope.“Come up,myfriend,I’ll saveyou.” “No,

thank you. I believe, I have faith, I trust.” So the helicopter went away.

It rained some more and he drowned. He goes to heaven after that.

Soon after that he gets an interview with God. So he goes in, and he sits

down and pays his respects, and then he says, “You know, I just don’t

understand. Here I was your faithful servant. I was so trusting, and

prayed, and so believing, and I just don’t understand what happened to

me.” And he recounts all of his circumstances. “Where were you when

I needed you?” God looks up and kind of scratches his head and says,

“I don’t understand it either. I sent you two rowboats and a helicopter.”

We wait for God to come in some big ﬂash or our spiritual awaken-

ing to be some wonderful other worldly experience. What the Dharma

is, and what we can awaken to, is the truth that is here when we leave our

fantasies and memories and things behind and come into the present.

What are these laws, what is it? First, there is the Dharma which

is described as the law of cause and effect, or Karma, which means by

one teacher’s deﬁnition,“To keep it simple, ’karma’means you don’t get

away with nothin’.” But in a more explicit way,it means that we become

what we do, or we create how our future will be. For example, if we

practice being angry all the time, in a while, when a situation arises, that

will be our response to it, and it will create that in other people; that will

be the kind of society we end up in. If we practice being loving, that

becomes the way of what will happen to us in the future.

When the Buddha spoke topeople whowereinterested in happiness

— which some people are — they said, “How can we be happy?” He

said, “Well, one way is to understand the law of karma. If you cultivate

generosity, kindness, awareness and giving. you will be happy because

you’ll learn that it’s pleasant, and also the way that karma works is that

your world will become more of a cycling rather than fear and holding.

You will discover happiness in this generosity.”

3

He said, “If you’re kind to people, if you maintain a basic level of

non-harming — what’s called Virtue — if your words are honest and

helpful, if your actions are truthful and helpful and based on kindness,

your world will start to become kind. Inside you’ll feel kinder and

happier;outside people will treat you that way. The law of Karma is one

of the ﬁrst thingsyou observe if you practicemindfulnessand awareness.

This is one thing you can discover through practice.

A second thing you can discover is that there are two places that we

can live. There are many places, but one is to live in our fantasy, in our

thoughts about things; and the other is to be more here in our bodies, in

our eyes, our nose, in our senses, and the direct experience of things.

For me —says Don Juan —the world is incredible because it is

stupendous,mysterious,awesome,unfathomable. My interest has

been to convince you that you must learn to make every act

count.You must learn to assume responsibility for being here in

this marvelous world,in this marvelous time,for in fact you

will learn that you are only here for too short a time,a very

short while,too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.

So one way is to be kind of lost in thoughts and fantasies, and the

other is that while we have this life,to come into it;to live in our physical

bodies, to be aware of the senses; to open, to see what they have to teach

us. When we do that and we pay attention, we start to see some of the

characteristics of the Dharma or the life in which we live.

One characteristic is impermanence.

Thus shall you think of this ﬂeeting world —it says in one

Buddhist sutra —a star at dawn,a bubble in a stream,a ﬂash

of lightning in a summer cloud,an echo,a rainbow,a phantom

and a dream.

That as you look, the more closely you observe, the more you re-

alize that everything you look at is in change. Seeing changes, hear-

ing changes, smelling, tasting and physical sensations are changing; all

the experiences in the body and mind, all the experiences of the sens-

es change.

It seems solid — That’s the illusion of santati. — It’s like a movie.

And when you watch the screen and get caught in the story, it seems like

4Chapter 1. Right Understanding

it’svery real. But when youturn your attentiontotheprojector,or slowit

down,or focusyour awarenessverycarefully,youstart toseethat it’sone

frame after another, one appearing and dissolving and the next arising.

It’s so for our life; it’s really a process of change. That’s so because

things don’t last. If you have something that lasts in your life, please

raise your hand. Has anyone gotten any mental states of any kind to last

very long? Someone once raised a hand and said, “Yes, ignorance. It’s

lasted my whole life.” But basically it’schange. You sit here for one day

— you don’t even have to be a very adept meditator to get the point that

it moves all the time, that it changes. And because things don’t last, if

we’re attached to them being a certain way, what happens? This is one

of the laws. What happens? We suffer, or we get disappointed — not

because we should. You can be attached as much as you like, but even

though you’re attached, does it stop it from changing? You have a nice

mental state and you try and hold on to it, does it last anyway?

You start to see the laws of things,that things are impermanent,that

attachment doesn’t work, and that there must be some other way. There

isactually what Alan Wattscalled,“the wisdom of insecurity,”the ability

to ﬂow with things, to see them as a changing process. You also see not

only are they impermanent and ungraspable, but that there’s suffering if

we’re attached to them, and that there’s pain as well as pleasure in this

world;it’spart of what we were born into.If you decide to get off on this

planet and get one of these things with ten little things on the end here

and ten little things on the end there, that grows for awhile, and that you

put old dead plants and animals in, and mush them up in order to get it

to kind of move around — if you choose one of these things which you

have, it’s too late already. What is the nature of it? It grows up, it grows

old,it dies. Sometimesit getssick,sometimesit feelsgood,sometimesit

hurts;there’spleasure and pain in it. Anybody have one that doesn’t hurt

sometimes? If you don’t want that, you’ve got to go to another planet

because it’s not the way things are here.

You sit,and you say, “I’m just going to be with my body and mind,”

and what do you ﬁnd? Sometimes you ﬁnd it’s pleasant and sometimes

it’spainful;sometimesit’squiet,sometimesit’srestless,and you begin to

relate to what Zorba called, “It’s the whole catastrophe,” all of it, instead

of fearing the painful thingsand running away all the time, and grasping

after pleasant things, hoping that somehow by holding them they’ll last

and seeing that they don’t.

My teacher, Achaan Chah used to wander around the monastery at

times and talk to people and just say, “Are you suffering much today?”

And if you said, “Yes,” he said, “Oh, you must be quite attached,” and

5

kind of giggle and go along. There wasn’t much more to say. You come

to see that you don’t own this body because it changes by itself, that you

rent this house;you get it for a little while,and you can honor it and feed

it and walk it, and jog it if you want, but it’s not yours to possess. You

can begin to see,in fact,that none of these thingsare possessiblebecause

the nature of life is nonpossession. You’re an accountant in the ﬁrm —

you get to count it for awhile and that’s all.

We sit to awaken, and we awaken by coming into our bodies and

our senses,and we start to see thelawswhich govern life sowe can come

intoa wiser relationshipwith it. What doesthismean for our lives?Well,

this really teaches a way of wholeness and awareness, of bringing our

body and mind together,our heart and actions, being consciouswith our

speech,consciouswith our eating,consciouswith walking,making them

each a part of what allowsusto growand live.To dothismeansaccepting

the fact of impermanence, and of some pain and suffering, and the fact

that wedon’t control it very much. Imean,you controlsome of it,but not

very much, and in a really limited way. If you can’t accept those things,

then you will probably want to stay in your fantasy,because they’re what

you encounter when you come here.

Some people might ask, “Doesn’t meditation fragment us away

from the world? You say that it makes us more present.” It can if we

become attached to solitude, if we sit and try to get quiet and block

everything out, close our eyes and ears and nose or go into a cave.

There’s another story of an elderly woman in New York who goes

to a travel agent and says, “Please get me a ticket to Tibet. I want to go

see the guru.” The travel agent says, “You know, it’s a long trip to Tibet.

You’d be much happier going to Miami.” She says “I insist. I want to

go.” So this old lady gets a ticket,brings her things with her, gets on the

plane and goes to India, gets the visa and the pass, takes the train up to

Sikkim, gets a border pass, takes the bus up to the Tibetan plateau, and

gets out. And they’re all saying, “Where are you going?” “I must go see

the guru.” They say, “It’s such a long way. You’re an old lady. It’s up

in the mountains.” She says, “I’m going. I have to see the guru.” They

say,“You know, you only get three words with him.” “It doesn’t matter,

I am going.” So she goes, and she gets on the horse in Tibet, because

there are no roads in this part, gets to the foot of this large mountain, and

all these pilgrims are saying, “Where are you going?” She says, “I want

to see the guru.” They say, “Remember, you get just three words.” She

says, “I know, I know.” She gets in line, gets up there, ﬁnally past the

guards at the door who say, ’Three words.only.” She goes in and there’s

the guru sitting in his robes with a kind of scraggly beard. He looks up

at her and she looks at him, and she says, “Sheldon, come home.”

6Chapter 1. Right Understanding

I tell it mostly for a laugh but the fact is that for us who live in the

Bay Area, the spirituality that’s going to work for us is not a spirituality

of ﬁnding peace by leaving the world. It’s not to say you shouldn’t go

and take a vacation in Yosemite or have periodic retreats. But funda-

mentally,for spiritual practice to be vital in our lives,it has to be what we

can use in the supermarket, while we drive, when we’re walking, when

we’re dealing with our families; to make everything a part of it, and not

to escape.

Someone might ask in the same vein,“Doesn’t meditationfragment

us from the world?” It can if one tries to escape, but what we’re training

here is an awareness that can be used throughout our day.

Whataboutsocialresponsibility? We’reonthebrinkof nuclearwar.

There is exploitation and injustice in every country. There are 40 wars

going on right now,in Iraq,Iran,El Salvador,Nicaragua,Guatemala,Jor-

dan, Israel, Lebanon, Cambodia, Laos, Libya, Angola, Afghanistan, all

these places, and God knows where else. And it’s not just a story. It’s

painful for millionsof people,asisstarvation,as are 50,000 nuclear war-

heads which could literally destroy most of the human beings and many

or most of the major animalsthat live on the planet in a painful way, eas-

ily, quickly.

Onemustlistentoone’sheartinthis. It’sinteresting. Youcanmake

a compelling case for different sides. From that point of view you see

that what’snecessaryisnot to sit but toact. There isstarvation. Nuclear

war is imminent if we don’t do something. There is compelling need,

even in this very rich and afﬂuent society, of people who are suffering

in many ways. And what are we doing sitting around? It’s quite con-

vincing.

There is another side which is equally convincing, and that is:What

is the cause of that starvation and all those wars, and that suffering?

What do you think isthe source of it? There’senough oil,there’senough

food, there’s enough resources on this planet. The cause of it is greed,

and the cause of it is prejudice and hatred. We hate people of different

religions,different skin color,different customs;we like our country,our

family, our religion, our type. So there’s hoarding, and there’s grasping,

and greed and hatred and ignorance. We’ve tried revolutions for many

centuries. It’s helped in some ways but in others it just keeps going

around because we haven’t touched the root of the problem. The way

out of the root of the problem is for someone to discover what it means

to not be caught up by anger, what it means to be free from that fear or

that prejudice which arises in human hearts and minds, what it means to

be unafraid of that which is painful as well as that which is pleasant —

7

to have the heart open to all of what the world presents.

We don’t need more oil and food as much as we need somebody

who understands how to avoid getting caught in anger and fear and

prejudice. And that somebody is you. So instead of it being a luxury to

meditate,from another pointof view,it’saresponsibility foranyonewho

can, to ﬁgure out in their own being, in their own life, what it means not

to be caught by these forces, to learn some new way — and then bring

that to bear on the economic and social and political kinds of suffering

as well in the world.

There’s a favorite letter of mine from a Nobel Prizewinner named

George Wald,who isa biologist at Harvard. He wrote it in response to an

argument about the starting of a Nobel laureate sperm bank. Some irate

feminist wrote into the paper saying, “Sperm banks, they should have an

egg bank. Why just sperm?” He says:

You’re right,Pauline. It takes an egg as well as a sperm to

start a Nobel laureate. Everyone of them has had a mother as

well as a father. Say all you want of fathers,their

contribution to conception Is really rather small.

Nobel laureates aside,there isn’t much technically in the way

of starting an egg bank.There are some problems but nothing so

hard as involved in the other kinds of breeder reactors.

But think of a man so vain as to insist on getting a superior

egg from an egg bank.Then he has to fertilize it.And when it’s

fertilized,where does he go with it,To his wife? “Here,dear,”

you can hear him saying,“I just got this superior egg from an

egg bank and just fertilized it myself. Will you take care of

it?”“I’ve got eggs of my own to worry about,”she replies.“You

know what you can do with your superior egg. Go rent a womb,

and while you’re at it,you better rent a room too.”

You see,it just won’t work.For the truth is that what one

really needs is not Nobel laureates but love.How do you think

one gets to be a Nobel laureate? Wanting love,that’s how.

Wanting it so bad one works all the time and ends up a Nobel

laureate.It’s a consolation prize.

What matters is love.Forget sperm banks and egg banks.Banks

and love are incompatible.If you don’t know that,you don’t

know bankers.So just practice loving.Love a Russian.You’dbe

surprised how easy it is,and how it will brighten up your

morning.Love whales,Iranians,Vietnamese,not just here but

everywhere.When you’ve gotten really good you can even try

ritepath

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