The Noble Eightfold Path is one of the principal teachings of Buddha and serves as a path to obtain or reach enlightenment. Buddha defined enlightenment as the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. From my experience, public service can cause a lot of suffering at times and Buddha’s teachings provide a great toolset to make it through those times. During this journey I ask you to please be open-minded to a new way of thinking about public service and life in general. The Eightfold Path is not religious dogma but rather its teachings can apply and often overlap many religions and ideologies.
I first heard about the Eightfold Path as a way to combat stress in playing the high variance game of Texas Hold’em poker. While I do not play poker that often anymore, the principles have stuck with me to this day and I have found that they apply to all areas of life. That is why I thought this would be a relevant topic for the GovLoop community and the high stress environment of public service.
In this three part series I will apply Buddha’s teachings to public service and hopefully along the way provide some good tips to integrate them into your daily routine. It is a complex topic and often very difficult to articulate in small blurbs so please do not hesitate to ask questions in the comment section or do further research online.
The path is split into three sections and eight elements. I will cover one section in each part of this series.
Eightfold Path
However, let’s begin with a basic understanding of suffering before we begin to talk about our first segment, Wisdom.
Suffering
The primary goal of the Eightfold Path is to eliminate suffering. There are so many factors in the world today that contribute to suffering and the United States scores high in this category. As public servants we have the responsibility of helping alleviate the suffering of our constituents and the personal responsibility of limiting our own suffering. Suffering can be caused by societal pressure, finances, health, preconceived notions and a long list of other things. Reaching enlightenment allows us to eliminate suffering by choosing how we view and respond to the world around us. The path to enlightenment is a lifelong journey but eliminating even a little bit of suffering in our lives can go a long way.
Wisdom
When I think about wisdom the word understanding comes to mind. This is what this section is about. Seeing reality for what it is and understanding how our thoughts and actions impact ourselves and others. Wisdom can be considered as a combination of Right View and Right Intention which I’ve expanded upon below.
Right View
You will often hear the elements defined as right is anything that is not wrong. For example, right view is anything that is not wrong view. This is quite confusing so I will try to provide a better explanation although I will use the shorthand throughout to signify when something is “right” or “wrong”.
Right view is seeing things as they really are both internal and in the world around you. It is a view without biases, judgment or intentions. This will take a while to develop but as you work on the other areas, especially mindfulness, it will become more natural. Practicing right view requires that you evaluate your thoughts and remove any baggage. It is the understanding that we are all human and our actions are often a reflection of our circumstances and thoughts. This makes us unpredictable and understanding this will help rid ourselves of a victim mentality and allow us to more easily put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.
Take for example the person in traffic who cuts you off. The person that cut you off may be late, may have not seen you or may just be having a terrible day. By viewing that situation with compassion and understanding it is much less likely to have an impact on you. The moment we let others take control of our frame of mind we are giving them the ability to cause us suffering and that should be a trigger that we are not using right view.
Right Intention
Right intention is similar to right view but is primarily an internal focus. This is where you look at yourself and resolve to eliminate any qualities that cause suffering in yourself or others. This includes any personal intentions or motivations that we have that could be perceived as wrong.
Gossiping is a great example. Everyone has gossiped at one time or another and by recognizing that gossiping causes suffering, you can work on eliminating it.
Right View in Public Service
In public service you deal with politics, constituents, co-workers and your own expectations. With all of these differing interactions, there is a high likelihood of conflict and biases. This leads to suffering because people will not get their way, people will have to do things they do not agree with and problems are often dropped into your lap. By treating each situation with no preconceived notions or biases you can handle them in the best likely manner and minimize suffering downstream.
It is also important to realize that this also prevents additional suffering for yourself. Here is a couple common examples of wrong view and how we might practice right view:
- Wrong View: This person is an idiot and I can do their job better than them.
- Right View: This person may not fully understand their role so what can I do to help them.
- Wrong View: This constituent is a jerk and I do not want to help them.
- Right View: This constituent is angry and probably has a reason to be. I should find out why they are angry and see if I can assist in resolving their issue.
Right Intention in Public Service
Practicing right intention means looking inwards as to why you do what you do. In public service this is crucial because we have to do things for the right reason to maintain public trust and fulfill the responsibilities we have been entrusted with. Take a look at the things you do that you would not be proud of if someone else knew that is why you did it. Some examples of wrong intention are:
- Gossiping
- Complaining
- Putting personal interests over the public’s
- Expecting things in return
Conclusion
Thank you for joining me on this journey through a conceptual Eightfold Path to Public Service Enlightenment. Please leave a comment if you found something particularly interesting or have a question. See you next week for part 2: Morality!
Tim Howell is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.
Wow – what a great post. Looking forward to your future blogs in this series. I particularly enjoyed this passage:
“Right view is seeing things as they really are both internal and in the world around you. It is a view without biases, judgment or intentions. This will take a while to develop but as you work on the other areas, especially mindfulness, it will become more natural. Practicing right view requires that you evaluate your thoughts and remove any baggage. It is the understanding that we are all human and our actions are often a reflection of our circumstances and thoughts. This makes us unpredictable and understanding this will help rid ourselves of a victim mentality and allow us to more easily put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.”
Sometimes I feel like we jump to assumptions, and then react based on them. Maybe your assumption is right and no damage is done – but taking a moment to really think about a situation, understanding the complexity of it..or just the factors involved…can help you learn how to address a situation the right way, and engage with people in a more personal, constructive way.
Awesome post, got me thinking! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Patrick
Kind of relating it back to a popular post on song lyrics, there is a song by Eyedea called “Here For You” and in the opening part of the song he compares life to a river. The river flows with the land taking the least path of resistance. As soon as we expect the river to go straight our expectations cause suffering and/or disappointment because that is not how things work. Some see this as passive and in a way it is, but It often takes more courage to not react or to persist in spite of things than it does to fight back.
The goal here is to not get sucked in to the waves of politics, rivalries, destructive behavior or egotism. It is to balance out life (being a public servant) by limiting the highs and the lows. These highs and lows are often a result of our expectations, distorted views on reality and lack of self-awareness (according to the teachings of Buddha).
The quickest way you can see this in action is the traffic example. When you start driving (if you drive) say to yourself “By driving in this vehicle on public streets there are inherent risks. I will likely be cut off, tail-gated and even possibly get in an accident. These are risks I accept for the freedom to drive and it is my responsibility to drive with care for others as if they were my friends and family.” Then if any of these things happen (hopefully not an accident) see how different your react. I can almost guarantee you will not react negatively to the situation. You will also not get to work and tell every person you see about how this driver nearly killed you. You have set a clear reality of the situation you are in when you take a hold of the wheel and that same thing can be done in our jobs.
I loved this post! This line especially resonated with me: “By viewing that situation with compassion and understanding it is much less likely to have an impact on you.”
I’ve tried to practice this the past few years in my life and the benefit it’s had on my own mental health and well-being has been enormous. I’m just much generally less stressed. Great tips!
Excellent info. Can’t wait for the next round. All who call themselves public servants need to adopt these principles to really understand the meaniing and benefit of true servanthood.
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