Question

Would you please explain Right View? Thanks.

Answer

Right View includes understanding that there are results from good and bad Kamma, that is, everything follows according to Cause and Effect. Right View involves an understanding of the Four Noble Truths, this is a very important Right View. The Four Noble Truths: Dukkha exists, the cause of Dukkha being ignorance, unwise reaction and craving, and the ending of Dukkha, and the path leading to the ending of Dukkha. That is by letting go of ignorance, unwise reaction and craving.

Now Right View is very important because it can influence how we think and how we speak and how we act. If we're acting and speaking in ways that don't have Right View, we may start to be blaming everybody else for our Dukkha. We've got a problem, then it's their fault, rather than our own reaction to that, or it's the world's fault, rather than our own ignorance of impermanence. Or the world shouldn't give me bad luck like this, rather than understanding that Dukkha exists. Or getting upset when we start to see that things aren't really ours, rather than understanding the impersonal nature of things and that nothing is really ours.

Right View is very important, otherwise we may be acting and speaking and thinking in ways that cause us more Dukkha, and we're not taking responsibility for our own Dukkha and thinking somehow Dukkha is arising because of the world and because of others. Changing the world is impossible really, but this is what many people try to do, change other people and the world to bring forth their happiness. It's very, very frustrating if you have wrong view, because you're trying to change what is impossible to change. It's a lot easier to try to change ourselves, but a lot of people think that's too difficult, yet actually it's not as difficult as changing the world. This shows how much ignorance we have, right? That we somehow think it's easier to try to change the nature of things than to change ourselves. So Right View is very important, and it makes our path a little bit easier because we start to try to focus on intention and changing something that is easier to change.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.