Which candidates follow Right View, Intention, Action, and Speech?
The Buddha taught that the way to end suffering in our lives and others is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path. We’ll look at the first four elements of the Eightfold Path as they apply to the presidential candidates (in alphabetical order) Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama. The elements we’ll be looking at are:
1. Right View — do they have right understanding of the issues?
2. Right Intention — are their intentions noble?
3. Right Action — are they proposing the right action for the situation?
4. Right Speech — are they honest and what do they lie about?
Obviously, if the candidate doesn’t have correct understanding of the issues, it doesn’t matter if they have noble intentions, they’re not going to take the right action. If they don’t have noble intentions, we can’t count on them to take the right action in any case. We’ll also look at their honesty.
For those interested, the other four elements of the Noble Eightfold Path are:
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Concentration
8. Right Mindfulness
#6, 7, & 8 are related to the practice of meditation and mindfulness.
The Issues
The issues we’ll be looking at are Abortion, Economic stimulus, Education, Energy, Environment, Free trade, Guns, Health care, Homeland security, Housing, Immigration, Iran, Iraq, Same-sex marriage, Social Security, Stem cell research, and Taxes. That should keep us busy for a while.
Tags: Add new tag, Buddhism, Life, politics
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