The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering

The ten courses of wholesome kamma are the opposites of these: abstaining from the first seven courses of unwholesome kamma, being free from covetousness and ill will, and holding right view.

The ten courses of unwholesome kamma may be listed as follows, divided by way of their doors of expression:

The most basic defilements are the triad of greed, aversion, and delusion. Greed (lobha) is self-centered desire: the desire for pleasure and possessions, the drive for survival, the urge to bolster the sense of ego with power, status, and prestige. Aversion (dosa) signifies the response of negation, expressed as rejection, irritation, condemnation

The goal here is the end of suffering, and the path leading to it is the Noble Eightfold Path with its eight factors: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

The unwholesome roots are the three defilements we already mentioned—greed, aversion, and delusion. Any action originating from these is an unwholesome kamma. The three wholesome roots are their opposites, expressed negatively in the old Indian fashion as non-greed (alobha), non-aversion (adosa), and non-delusion (amoha). Though these are negativel

What we are, the Buddha teaches, is a set of five aggregates—material form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness—all connected

kilesas, usually translated “defilements.”

impenetrable barrier. It can become a matter of direct seeing. Through the attainment of certain states of deep concentration it is possible to develop a special faculty called the “divine eye” (dibbacakkhu),

the Buddha’s own words in explanation of the path factors, as found in the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pāli