As a Westerner, trying to develop on the eightfold path can be a head-scratching process. The Buddha’s teachings to renounce pleasure-seeking and the craving to “become” run contrary to our cultural conditioning and the economic system we’re currently entangled in.
As someone who’s personally navigating these circumstances, I’ve found five ways you can effectively incorporate Buddhist principles into your routine. (Of course, nothing beats listening to the words of our present-day teachers like the Canadian Ajahn Viradhammo, who posts his Dhamma talks on YouTube.)
When waiting—just wait
Contrary to the Western view that success is a result of productivity, the Buddha and his disciples taught that non-doing is necessary to enlightenment. In the Metta Sutta, the Buddha describes one who is perfectly enlightened as, “contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.”
These aren’t the qualities we’re typically taught to aspire to in the West, as they run contrary to our economic system, but they’re qualities that bring about peace; thus, Buddhist practitioners aspire to embody them.
Time spent waiting is non-doing that is already built into your schedule, and it offers the opportunity for you to practice renunciation and develop mindfulness. While waiting in line or elsewhere, instead of checking your smartphone or getting lost in a daydream, observe the mood of your mind and the sensations in your body. Observe your breath and the sounds around you.
If boredom, frustration or anxious thoughts arise, remember that this is just the natural way of the mind—it’s constantly searching for stimulation. Keep bringing your attention back to the present moment until the wait is done.
Be generous every day
Generosity (or dana in Pali, meaning “giving of oneself”) is a foundational practice in Buddhism that liberates us from alienation and nourishes our spiritual growth. It’s the first of the Paramis, which are 10 noble virtues that must be cultivated on the path to spiritual awakening, otherwise known as the extinction of suffering (nirvana or nibbana). Stinginess is generosity’s inverse and a spiritual hindrance.
As well as material goods, dana encompasses giving our kindness and compassion, as well as our time and skills. In the words of Lion’s Roar, a Buddhist non-profit organization, “it is about embodying an open-hearted and selfless attitude in our daily interactions with others.” Cultivating dana is a way of life that leads to great peace and happiness.
There’s an infinite number of ways to integrate dana into your life. Volunteering and donations are obvious methods, in accordance with your schedule and financial situation. Furthermore, make it your habit to actively seek out ways to be giving of yourself, perhaps by setting a goal to seek out a novel way to be generous each day. Even being an attentive and curious listener in conversation can mean more to the people around you than you know. Aspire to be generous with forgiveness and patience when dealing with others.
Take the time to set intentions
Cultivating “right intentions” is one part of following the eightfold path, which is the Buddha’s fundamental teaching and acts as a guide to the extinction of suffering. It offers a set of interconnected practices that make up the Buddhist’s path of practice.
Intention drives the course of our lives. It lies behind the choices we make and influences their outcome. For instance, if I enter a confrontation with the intention of being proven right, the confrontation will go very differently than if I’d entered it with the intention of making peace and finding a way forward.
By reflecting upon our intentions before acting, we can understand whether our actions will have a positive or negative outcome and adjust our behaviour accordingly. If we do this regularly, we can ensure that our lives stay on the right track.
In Buddhism, right intentions are those of renouncing harmful actions, developing goodwill and compassion towards all beings, and practicing non-harming when it comes to ourselves and others. This is easier said than done, but following the eightfold path takes a lifetime, and the first person we can practice having compassion towards when we make mistakes is the self.
Ask yourself: Why is it that I do the things that I do? What are my motivations? How is it working out for me? This is an ongoing dialogue that will give you insight into your behaviour.
On a day-to-day basis, before entering stressful situations, you can check that your intentions are aligned with harmlessness and compassion.
Adopt an attitude of friendliness
Metta, which is commonly translated as loving-kindness, benevolence and friendliness, is a brahmavihara in Theravada Buddhism. For Buddhist practitioners, a brahmavihara refers to a sublime attitude that’s divine-abiding.
Due to the prevalence of the modern practice of loving-kindness meditation, metta is often thought of as something you do or energy you send. However, the Buddha suggested that it’s actually an attitude to adopt and cultivate, and that it’s best to aspire to approach every aspect of life with metta.
I, for one, can’t see myself facing all parts of life with loving-kindness. To me, the wording of that Pali translation implies an amount of passion I can’t reasonably see myself summoning consistently. Approaching life with an attitude of friendliness and benevolence is much more attainable, though.
Maintaining a friendly and benevolent attitude towards yourself as well as others is crucial, as we aspire to cultivate metta until our attitude of friendliness is boundless and perfectly indiscriminating. Even temporary acceptance results in temporary freedom, so the process is essential to pursue.
So how can you approach your own daily routine with more benevolence and friendliness? It’s good to start cultivating friendliness and benevolence within your daily routine, as it’s a dependable opportunity for practice and can be a simple place to start. A spiritual friend mentioned developing metta towards bad drivers that would normally give her road rage. Think about it for a minute: What attitude do you bring to your commute, if you have one?
An excellent method of developing metta in your daily life is recalling that all beings experience suffering, even spiders you might feel the urge to kill and people you don’t like. The urge to do harm seems to fall away when we remember our mutual bond of suffering.
Practice meditation
It goes without saying, and yet it needs to be said. Meditation gives you a chance to practice mindfulness, hone your concentration, experience the peace of renunciation, gain insight, stop “self”-ing, and much more.
If you don’t have much time to meditate, a useful reference might be the booklet Clarity and Calm For Busy People by Ajahn Sucitto, which is available as a free PDF. It offers meditation techniques that take as little as three minutes to practice, so busy people can integrate meditation into their lives in a meaningful way. These techniques are useful to have on hand even if you do have a full meditation routine.
The aim is for meditation to become a habit. My alarm is set for 6 a.m. daily to ensure I attend my community’s 7 a.m. silent meditation session over Zoom. That voluntary early start may seem unpleasant, and trust me, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t find that it noticeably improved the quality of my day.
I started off by just attending the meditation on days when I happened to be awake and caffeinated at 7 a.m., and increasingly prioritized it as I experienced its benefits. This structured routine suits my whimsical nature, because if I were to just meditate “when I feel like it,” it might not happen at all.
What works for you will depend on your schedule and preferences, and it can take some experimentation. Getting to see the faces of my Kalyanamittas (spiritual friends) over Zoom motivates me to meditate, and if you can find a way to make meditation inspiring, that’s all the better for you.
Buddhist principles are about letting go
The Buddha taught that peace isn’t something to be obtained or earned, but rather, a state of being one can return to when a person lets go of the burdens they picked up and never stopped carrying. Peace isn’t a matter of starting anything; it’s a matter of stopping.
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