Living The Path: A Personal Inventory
When I wrote about simplifying the Eightfold Path yesterday, I promised myself I’d check back in this morning, to consider how I was actually living these principles.
To that end, I checked in with Claude, my favorite AI assistant, using my simplified Path as a framework for taking inventory. I asked Claude to engage in a dialog with me about each principle and how it showed up (or didn’t show up) in my life.
Here’s what I found:
Years ago, Clear Vision showed up in an unexpected lesson shared with my oldest son on the basketball court. When he’d get frustrated missing shots, we came up with a plan to always think “next play.” Make or miss, just “next play.” That became my mantra too — “onward” — a reminder that nothing, good or bad, is permanent.
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For Honest Motivation and Focused Mind, I’ve learned to trust my body as much as my mind, maybe more. It’s like having an internal compass that tells me when I’m aligned with my values. Sometimes I just “sit with” things, noticing how my body reacts. I’ve found it’s an incredibly sensitive, accurate instrument, much more reliable than my intellect.
Beneficial Work has meant transforming my role in advertising — saying no to certain accounts and assignments, but also finding ways to make the work more meaningful through mentoring younger colleagues and advocating for better conditions, trying to shift the culture toward something more humane. Although I’m part of a large, global corporation, I always retain the sense of myself as a free agent of sorts, and one who is reponsible for the impact of his actions.
Clean Speech emerged as a family practice during our European travels this past summer: before speaking, we’d ask ourselves if our words would darken or brighten someone’s day. Simple, but it works. Though I still catch myself being unnecessarily critical sometimes — recently about some of the political goings-on in this country, and with some of my perceptions of the people who have, in my opinion, opted for a soulless autocrat to lead us — I try to remain kind, even when the other folks might not deserve it. (See? I get worked up. But hey: We’re all works in progress.)
Present Attention and Steady Practice show up in my attraction to spaces of “collective solitude” — coffee shops, public plazas, the Chicago lakefront. There’s something powerful about being alone together, about finding the sacred in these everyday temples. My poetry has become another form of practice, a way of paying attention to how grace shows up in unlikely places.
Careful Action remains my daily challenge. I’m certainly no model Buddhist. I still seek validation (like right now, writing this). I still struggle with the same human stuff as everyone else. But I’m learning to hold all of it more lightly, as I said yesterday.
After four decades of being a “bookshelf Buddhist,” I’m finally understanding that the path isn’t about perfection — it’s about staying aware, staying real, and when we stumble, just saying “onward” and taking the next step.
