Whether you look upon Buddhism as a religion or as a way of life underpinned by a philosophy – which is my way – you will probably take the ‘Four Noble Truths’ and the ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ as the foundations of your practice. By way of analogy, the Noble Truths are often presented as the medical diagnosis of an illness, with a prognosis and a treatment plan. The mapping goes something like this:

1. The diagnosis (dukkha)
   • All living beings share a sickness that leads to suffering through the perception of an inherent unsatisfactoriness of life.
2. The causes of the illness (samudaya)
   • Such suffering is the self-imposed product of cravings, attachments, and ignorance.
3. The prognosis (nirodha)
   • The illness is treatable, resulting in the restoration of health (Nirvana). The cessation of suffering can be felt.
4. The cure (magga)
   • By actively adopting an eightfold path of practice, the patient can make a full recovery.

The individual strands of the Eightfold Path are frequently grouped as a ‘Threefold Way’ or ‘Three Trainings’ under the umbrella terms of:

• Ethics (sīla) – Right Speech, Conduct & Livelihood.
• Meditation (samādhi) – Right Effort, Meditation & Concentration.
• Wisdom (paññā) – Right View & Intent.

The patient’s prescription requires neither pharmacy nor hospital – it requires practical action (which leads to a changed relationship with reality). The eightfold path is integrated, so that unless you are pursuing a wholly secular Mindfulness Practice for stress reduction, etc. (which can be valuable on its own terms), it is necessary to engage with the other factors too, or you lose the Buddhism. So far, I’ve been reflecting on meditation, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

If you enjoy labels, Western philosophy would call Buddhism ‘Process Philosophy’, along with helpings of ‘Phenomenalism’ (focusing on immediate experience); ‘Nominalism’ (denying the existence of abstract universals in favour of individual moments); and Pragmatism (prioritising what works to achieve liberation over absolute ontological truths). These are ‘heavy’ ideas. I am neither qualified nor competent to unbundle them very far (and I’m not about to try), but it’s easy enough to explore them if you wish.

In the early period of a meditative practice, the cultivation of calm abiding (shamatha) provides a lens through which we begin to see more clearly. Without the quieting effect of shamatha, our attempts at insight (vipassanā) are like trying to see to the bottom of a lake while the surface is whipped up by a storm. It is in the stillness that the fruits of sitting begin to ripen; clarity is not just the absence of noise, but the beginning of an entirely new way of seeing. Abiding isn’t just calmness – or zoning out – it’s stability and vividness; its fruit is an energised awareness.

The two principal branches of traditional practice, Theravāda and Mahāyāna, have different approaches to meditation. Historically, where you lived determined which system was most dominant, and an individual would be unlikely to have any choice, but now, we can follow a pragmatic path that suits our temperament and methodology.

The older Theravāda way could be described as a methodical ‘top-down’ path to mind training, using highly structured object-oriented concentration (usually based on the breath). The initial goal is to suppress the ‘Five Hindrances’ (desire, ill-will, sloth, restlessness and doubt) until the mind becomes steady and quiet (shamatha). When the mind is steady, the method uses a ‘scaffold’ of increasingly refined absorption states (jhanas) to stabilise the mind before actively investigating the nature of reality. The goal is to dismantle the Self through a process of active deconstruction focused on the ‘Three Marks of Existence’: Impermanence anicca), Suffering (dukkha) and No-Self (anatta).

Mahāyāna offers a radically different path, shifting from object-oriented concentration to objectless awareness. ‘Just Sitting’ (shikantaza) simply allows everything to be; a ‘bottom-up’ non-linear and organic process. It is an embodied practice; the body is more than a host for the mind, so the correct posture is important. You sit as a Buddha, not to become one. The key method is non-thinking (hishiryō), allowing thoughts to arise and pass, neither seeking to indulge them nor chasing them away. There is no goal; not ‘getting’ calm, ‘achieving’ insight, nor ‘reaching’ a jhana. Insight is not cultivated, but it arises in the realisation that there is no separation between the practice and the goal.

In practical terms, a Theravāda practitioner asks, “What is this sensation’s nature?” while a Zen practitioner simply embodies the sensation’s nature without asking at all. The end result is the same – but the route is different – samatha quietly rewires the mind such that insight (vipassanā) can arise.

Insight is the direct, experiential understanding of reality. Rather than being an intellectual matter, it is ‘clear seeing’, allowing a practitioner to perceive mental and physical phenomena as they actually are, beyond their surface appearances. This can sound scary and baffling. You have to sit and be patient.

When I began sitting, I wondered whether everyone else was experiencing dramatic and life-changing revelations about life, the universe and everything. I don’t think they were; that isn’t how it works – for the mind of awakening is also the ordinary mind – the sort that I’ve got, and that you’ve got. Ultimate reality relates directly to everyday reality – and that’s not a glib platitude; it lies at the absolute heart of awakening. You can hold it as a belief, readily enough (if it’s the sort of belief you want to hold) – but the ‘prize’ is to see it, directly through your own insight. If you do, you are well on the way.

There is nothing about the unbounded grandeur and yet sheer ordinariness of the final realisations to be attained that can’t be seen from where your cushion is on the floor, right in front of you. The fruit is just there to taste and know.

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Two – Reflections

• Ground (11 Mar)
  • Setting out the ground you stand on: a rational, modern Buddhist who respects tradition without swallowing it whole, takes experience as primary, and treats logic as a safeguard. Neither traditionalist nor secular reductionist – just honest about the position from which you practise.
• Line (25 Mar)
  • Tracing the line of your own practice: not fully traditional, not fully secular, but somewhere between. You weigh the major Buddhist schools, reject both rigid certainty and hollow modernism, and settle into agnostic practice – a seat with no safety net, where “not knowing” becomes the method.
• Between (8 Apr)
  • Looking at the major Buddhist schools, you reject both institutional weight and secular revisionism. You take a middle seat – not indecisive, but honest – using Not Knowing, Great Doubt, and Huxleyan agnosticism as checks and balances. You practise without lineage, holding tradition lightly and refusing easy certainties; “between” is simply the only place you can stand without lying to yourself.
• Practice (22 Apr)
  • A clear outline of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, seen through a modern, experiential lens. You describe how calm abiding steadies the mind, how insight arises from stillness, and how Theravāda and Zen offer different routes to the same clarity. Awakening isn’t dramatic – it’s ordinary mind seen clearly, right where you sit.
• Truths (6 May)
  • A clear look at Buddhism’s Two Truths: the conventional and the ultimate, not as separate realms but as two ways of seeing the same reality. You follow Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way, showing how the sacred shines through the ordinary, how doctrines fall away, and how emptiness means relationality, not void. Different traditions rhyme here – the ultimate quietly present in the everyday, recognised when concepts loosen, and immediacy is allowed to speak.