The Noble Eightfold Path: The Eight Factors Explained

The noble eightfold path, the Buddha's middle way to the end of suffering, explained factor by factor with everyday examples

The noble eightfold path is the practice in eight parts that the Buddha taught as the way to the end of suffering. It is the fourth of the four noble truths, and the middle way that leans neither towards sensual indulgence nor towards self-torment. Its eight factors are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. This page explains the noble eightfold path factor by factor from the suttas, shows how it groups into virtue, meditation and wisdom, and gives everyday examples and an easy way to remember it.

What is the noble eightfold path?

Magga means path. The full Pali name is ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo, 'the noble path with eight factors'. A factor here is a component, like a rope twisted from eight strands, not eight separate roads to choose between. The word sammā in front of every factor means right, proper or complete: right in the sense that it leads out of suffering, not right according to anyone's opinion.

In English the usual name is the Noble Eightfold Path, and the factors are called right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Some translators prefer right resolve or right purpose for the second factor, and right immersion for the last.

The Buddha first proclaimed the path in his first sermon, where he called it the middle way:

Katamā ca sā, bhikkhave, majjhimā paṭipadā tathāgatena abhisambuddhā
cakkhukaraṇī ñāṇakaraṇī upasamāya abhiññāya sambodhāya nibbānāya saṁvattati?
Ayameva ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo, seyyathidaṁ:
sammādiṭṭhi sammāsaṅkappo sammāvācā sammākammanto
sammāājīvo sammāvāyāmo sammāsati sammāsamādhi.

And what, mendicants, is the middle way that the Realised One woke up to, which gives vision and knowledge and leads to peace, direct knowledge, awakening and nibbāna? It is just this noble eightfold path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

SN 56.11

The middle way does not mean doing things half-heartedly. It means a path that goes to neither extreme: following every want, or being so strict that you harm yourself. Before his awakening the Buddha had known both, a life of comfort in the palace and years of harsh austerities, and found that neither led to the end of suffering.

The eight factors of the noble eightfold path

Here are the eight factors with the meanings the Buddha gives in the Analysis sutta (SN 45.8) and the longer Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (DN 22):

1. Right view (sammādiṭṭhi): knowing suffering, its origin, its cessation and the way to its cessation, that is, the four noble truths.
2. Right intention (sammāsaṅkappa): thoughts of renunciation, of good will and of harmlessness.
3. Right speech (sammāvācā): refraining from false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle chatter.
4. Right action (sammākammanta): refraining from killing, stealing and sexual misconduct (the Analysis sutta, spoken to monks, has refraining from sex altogether).
5. Right livelihood (sammā-ājīva): giving up wrong ways of earning a living and living by right livelihood.
6. Right effort (sammāvāyāma): striving to prevent unwholesome states that have not arisen, to give up those that have, to bring about wholesome states that have not arisen, and to keep and grow those that have.
7. Right mindfulness (sammāsati): observing the body, feelings, mind and mental phenomena, keen, aware and mindful, which is the four foundations of mindfulness.
8. Right concentration (sammāsamādhi): a mind settled in the four jhanas, from the first absorption to the fourth.

The Navakovada, the standard first-level Dhamma textbook in Thailand, lists the eight factors in its section on groups of eight, in slightly different words. Its text, quoted as it stands, reads:

• Sammādiṭṭhi, right understanding: seeing the four noble truths.
• Sammāsaṅkappa, right thought: the thought of leaving sensual pleasures, the thought free of ill will, and the thought free of harming.
• Sammāvācā, right speech: refraining from the four kinds of wrong speech.
• Sammākammanta, right action: refraining from the three kinds of wrong bodily conduct.
• Sammā-ājīva, right livelihood: refraining from earning a living in wrong ways.
• Sammāvāyāma, right effort: effort in the four areas.
• Sammāsati, right mindfulness: mindfulness in the four foundations of mindfulness.
• Sammāsamādhi, right concentration: developing the four jhānas.
• Of these eight factors, right understanding and right thought belong to the training in wisdom; right speech, right action and right livelihood belong to the training in virtue; right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration belong to the training of the mind.

The Navakovada's explanations point back to other lists a student already knows. The four kinds of wrong speech are lying, divisive speech, harsh speech and idle chatter; the three kinds of wrong bodily conduct are killing, stealing and sexual misconduct; and the effort in four areas is the fourfold effort of the sixth factor. The last line, which sorts the factors into the three trainings, is explained in the next section.

Three groups: virtue, meditation and wisdom

The eight factors fall into three groups, which match the three trainings:

• Wisdom (paññā): right view and right intention, understanding rightly and intending rightly.
• Virtue (sīla): right speech, right action and right livelihood, speaking, acting and earning without harm.
• Meditation (samādhi): right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, the training of the mind.

The order we recite begins with wisdom, but the order of training begins with virtue. The two do not conflict. To start keeping precepts you need at least a basic right view, for example that actions have results. When virtue is steady, the mind is calm enough for meditation; when the mind is settled, wisdom sees more clearly; and that deeper view in turn makes virtue and meditation steadier still. So the noble eightfold path is not a ladder climbed one rung at a time and then finished, but a rising spiral. The eight factors are trained together and support one another.

Wisdom: right view and right intention

Katamā ca, bhikkhave, sammādiṭṭhi?
Yaṁ kho, bhikkhave, dukkhe ñāṇaṁ, dukkhasamudaye ñāṇaṁ,
dukkhanirodhe ñāṇaṁ, dukkhanirodhagāminiyā paṭipadāya ñāṇaṁ:
ayaṁ vuccati, bhikkhave, sammādiṭṭhi.

And what, mendicants, is right view? Knowing about suffering, about its origin, about its cessation, and about the practice that leads to its cessation. This is called right view.

SN 45.8

At a basic level, right view is understanding that good and bad actions have results, which makes us take responsibility for our own lives (see karma in Buddhism). At a deeper level, it is seeing the four truths for yourself, not merely remembering them. Right intention is the direction of our thinking: thoughts not caught in craving, that wish no harm and that do not set out to hurt anyone. If someone pushes in front of you in a queue, right intention is not letting the mind spin a revenge story, and thinking instead that they may be in a hurry, or asking politely for your place back.

Virtue: right speech, action and livelihood

These three factors are the part others can see. Right speech has four parts: no lying, no divisive talk, no harsh words and no idle chatter. Now that so much of our speaking is done by message and social media, the same rule applies to everything we type, forward and share. Right action is not killing, not stealing and no sexual misconduct, which matches the first three of the five precepts.

Right livelihood is earning a living honestly and without harm. A sutta in the Numbered Discourses (AN 5.177) names five trades a lay follower should not engage in: weapons, human beings, animals for slaughter, intoxicants and poisons. Beyond the job itself, the way you work matters too. Cheating on weights, deceiving customers or exploiting employees falls outside right livelihood even when the trade itself is honest.

Meditation: right effort, mindfulness and concentration

Right effort is not forcing yourself hard. It is tending the mind like a garden: keeping out weeds that have not yet sprouted, pulling up those that have, planting good things, and watering what you have planted so it grows. Right mindfulness is being mindful of body, feelings, mind and phenomena just as they are, as the Buddha teaches in the same Analysis sutta:

Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu kāye kāyānupassī viharati
ātāpī sampajāno satimā, vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṁ.

Here, mendicants, a mendicant meditates observing an aspect of the body, keen, aware and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.

SN 45.8

The sutta says the same of feelings, mind and phenomena. Right concentration is a mind that is unified, calm and clear enough to see the truth. The suttas define it as the four jhānas, from the first, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion, to the fourth, with pure equanimity and mindfulness. For a beginner the easiest place to start with this group is a few minutes of mindfulness a day, such as sitting meditation with the breath after waking, then carrying the same mindfulness into the day.

The eightfold path and the four noble truths

The path is the fourth noble truth, the way that leads to the end of suffering, and the task with it is to develop it, to practise it a great deal. In SN 38.14, when Venerable Sāriputta is asked whether there is a way to fully understand the three forms of suffering, he says there is, and that it is:

Ayameva kho, āvuso, ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo,
etāsaṁ dukkhatānaṁ pariññāya.

Reverend, it is just this noble eightfold path that is the way to fully understand these forms of suffering.

SN 38.14

It also helps to know that the path has two levels. The everyday level, keeping precepts and meditating, builds up the causes little by little. At the moment wisdom fully breaks through, the Abhidhamma explains, all eight factors arise together in a single moment of mind, called path consciousness. Daily practice prepares the conditions for the eight to come together completely one day.

The noble eightfold path in daily life

Try looking at one ordinary day through the eight factors:

• Waking up (right view): remind yourself that what you do and say today has results for you and for others.
• Before leaving home (right intention): set the intention not to harm anyone today, in word or deed.
• At a meeting (right speech): say what is true, do not run down colleagues, and do not talk at length for no reason.
• When something isn't yours (right action): don't take it, and don't use shared property for private business.
• At work (right livelihood): do work worth your pay and don't deceive customers.
• When irritation starts (right effort): catch it early, before it grows into anger.
• Eating or walking (right mindfulness): know that you are eating, that you are walking, instead of letting the mind drift all the time.
• Before sleep (right concentration): sit quietly for ten minutes and let the mind gather on the breath.

No one manages every factor from day one. Practising the noble eightfold path in daily life means seeing that each factor is present in ordinary things and improving a little at a time. On a day you slip, you can begin again the next morning.

An easy way to remember the eightfold path

Many students have to learn the noble eightfold path for an exam. A method that works is to remember the groups first as 2-3-3: wisdom two, virtue three, meditation three. Then remember the key word of each factor as one line: view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration. Put 'right' in front of each word and you have all eight English names; then match them with the Pali names, which all begin with sammā. Another way is to picture your own body: the head is wisdom, the mouth and hands are virtue, and the heart is meditation.

The noble eightfold path in summary

In short, the noble eightfold path is the middle way the Buddha discovered: eight factors trained together. Wisdom leads the way, virtue keeps life clean, meditation gives the mind strength, and together they lead to the end of suffering. If you can do only one thing today, pick the factor closest to hand, such as telling the truth all day or sitting with the breath for five minutes. That is already a step onto the path.

Based on: Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11) · Vibhaṅga Sutta, analysis of the eightfold path (SN 45.8) · Dukkhapañhā Sutta, a question about suffering (SN 38.14) · Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta (DN 22) · Vaṇijjā Sutta, on trades (AN 5.177) · Navakovada (public domain) · Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha