The Eightfold Path, and its Connotations for Enlightened Leadership It is a set of practices that may or may not help you achieve enlightenment, but it will certainly make you a better person, and more enlightened leader. It's a list of "Dos" towards enlightenment, which is a matter of "Being". I believe that The Eight Fold Path was offered by Buddha for everyone who wants enlightenment (or even just more enlightenment), but for whatever reason, struggles with it.
#Dr signal path to enlightenment manual
So, for all of "the rest of us" he laid out the "Eight Fold Path", as a guide for good living - a sort of HR manual on being more enlightened, and in the context of this conversation, a more enlightened leader. That for most, even accepting that life is suffering, that I suffer because of attachment, that it doesn't have to be this way - and that the answer to a life in the absence of suffering is compassion is not enough for us to somehow magically become an enlightened being.įor some… for most… it just never clicks. He was not, and never claimed to be), and as a teacher he was well aware that, though many monks and laypeople would seek enlightenment, or simply a more enlightened life, not everyone was going to get what he got meditating under the Bodhi tree that day.įor many, simply staying consciously on the path to enlightenment would be a struggle. As the saying goes, "once you've seen the Dharma, you can't not see the Dharma".īuddha was a teacher (which is why people bow to him - not because he was a God. See, Buddha had to choose compassion in every moment, even after his enlightenment - especially after his enlightenment. And we're so anxious about the future, and making it better than our past that we're not present to the gift that is now.Įnlightened leaders live and lead through compassion, for themselves and for others, knowing that if there is this thing called "enlightenment", it's actually a journey - not a destination.
We're dragging so much suffering from our past into our present that we're not present to tending to our own need for compassion - compassion for our own self.
"Mankind" is sort of an oxymoron that way.Īnd worse, (and likely at the root of it all) is that many of us don't even have compassion for our Self. Heck, the truth is that for many people, we can't even find compassion for our own kin, more or less humankind. Try as we might to be more compassionate leaders, more "enlightened leaders", for the vast, vast majority of us spinning through infinity on this thing we call Earth, we struggle to make the leap from compassion for our own immediate beloved family, to our neighbors from our employees to our competitors, to our market from our bottom line to the planet's from "our kind" to "theirs" from "us" to "them". After all, you're leading a company, or division thereof, a non profit or NGO, a start-up, or a little league team - not a spiritual movement. He attained enlightenment when he found total, and complete compassion, and in that level of compassion he found the meaning of life.Īnd though we might all want to be more compassionate, and would certainly all benefit from being more compassionate leaders, that level of commitment isn't for everyone. Inside of him there was compassion for his people, and for all people, so he put down his crown, and took up the robes of a common monk, and began the search of enlightenment, finally finding it right where he began his spiritual journey - in compassion - but at a much deeper, more profound level. Until attaining enlightenment, Buddha struggled mightily through his life.Īs a young prince, his conscience couldn't bear the suffering and injustice he saw in the world in juxtaposition to the life of privilege he enjoyed.
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