Dr. Jay Forrest

The Eightfold Noble Path is the Buddha’s guide to ending suffering. It includes Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

These are not separate steps taken one by one. They work together like spokes in a wheel, each supporting the others. For practical purposes, they are often grouped into three trainings: ethical conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom.

Ethical conduct includes right speech, right action, and right livelihood. This means speaking truthfully, acting harmlessly, and earning a living in a way that does not cause harm.

Mental discipline includes right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. This is the heart of meditation practice, training the mind to let go of unwholesome habits and cultivate awareness, calm, and clarity.

Wisdom includes right view and right intention. Right view begins with understanding karma, suffering, impermanence, and non-self. Right intention means purifying motivation so that actions arise from compassion, not greed or harm.

The path is not just something to study. It is something to live.

Plotinus was a Platonist philosopher who combined insights from Aristotle and the Stoics into a unique interpretation of Plato. Because his interpretation was a significant departure from other readings of Plato, later scholars called it Neoplatonism.

Neoplatonism was a highly influential philosophical and mystical system that emerged in the 3rd century CE. It reinterprets Plato’s teachings, proposing that all of reality “emanates” from a single, supreme, and ineffable source known as “the One.” The ultimate goal of the soul is a spiritual return to this divine origin.

Plotinus is considered the founder of Neoplatonism, but he had a number of followers. Unfortunately, they did not always understand him or remain faithful to his teaching. Iamblichus, in particular, distorted Neoplatonism into a more religious and occult system. He introduced theurgy (ritual practices and divine magic) into the philosophy, wrongly arguing that humans cannot unite the soul with the One without divine intervention, whereas Plotinus’s philosophy makes such intervention unnecessary.

After Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus is arguably among the greatest philosophers of antiquity, and certainly one of the most influential. We would be wise to take Plotinus as our primary guide to Neoplatonism.

We often live behind a veil of concepts. From childhood onward, we are taught to trust our ideas about reality, and over time those ideas can feel more real than direct experience itself.

Buddhism warns us not to confuse the map with the journey, or the menu with the meal. Concepts can be useful, but they are not the thing itself. Meditation helps us step outside the habit of labeling everything and notice life as it actually unfolds.

This matters because the mind constantly filters experience through liking and disliking. We grasp at what feels pleasant, resist what feels unpleasant, and keep strengthening our own mental patterns. In doing so, we stop seeing clearly.

The path to freedom is not more opinion, but more awareness. When the mind becomes still, the veil of concepts begins to thin. Then we can directly perceive impermanence, dissatisfaction, and the changing nature of self. To awaken is to see beyond thought and meet reality without distortion.

Understanding the universe not as a collection of substances but as a stream of events shifts our perspective. Science, by its very method, studies events. An experiment is not performed on a static “thing,” but on something that happens—something repeatable. It is precisely this repeatability that allows science to establish reliable knowledge.

In this sense, the “what” of science concerns what is occurring and what its measurable components are. The “how” concerns the mechanisms, the patterns, the laws by which these events unfold. But the “why” lies beyond its reach.

Science can describe the conditions under which a phenomenon arises and the processes through which it operates, yet it cannot speak to purpose, meaning, or ultimate cause. These are not experimentally testable; they are not repeatable events.

Recognizing this does not diminish science, it clarifies it. Science is a powerful instrument for understanding processes, but it is silent on the question of why there is anything at all, or why events occur as they do at the deepest level.

Ego is the root of many of our problems. It is fragile and wants to protect itself. We do not want to look stupid, so we remain stupid. So we avoid asking questions. We avoid asking for help.

The problem is that we do not know everything. At times, we need help, direction, and teachers. We need others to guide us, yet we resist asking because we fear appearing foolish, ignorant, or incapable.

This is the ego trap. Ego refuses to ask for help and, in doing so, stunts our spiritual and intellectual growth. We would rather remain ignorant than risk embarrassment.

One thing you learn with age is that everyone is improvising. No one has all the answers. We are all, in some sense, feeling our way forward. Some look to the great teachers of the past for guidance, but even then, we remain beginners. It is okay not to know. It is okay to ask questions. It is okay to struggle to understand.

We must understand that no one has deceived us as often as we have deceived ourselves. It is precisely when we believe we cannot be deceived that we are most vulnerable to deception.

One reason for this tendency is confirmation bias. Once we hold a belief, we look for evidence that supports it—and, of course, we tend to find what we are looking for.

The key is to question our beliefs. The ones we cherish most are the ones we must examine most critically. When something feels off-limits to question, it becomes dangerous, because if it is wrong, we have no way to correct it.

One way to overcome self-deception is not to try to prove our beliefs right, but to try to prove them wrong. In other words, take the opposing viewpoint and attempt to argue for it. You will quickly discover that alternative perspectives have reasons behind them, and some of those reasons may even be stronger than your own. This openness creates the possibility for change, growth, and even enlightenment.