The Tough Mountain Lookout Analysis

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Right View: understanding the first 3 Noble Truths; seeing that the conditioned world we live in is impermanent; it is in a constant state of change.
Right Intention: no self, seeing that we are all connected, interbeing, Indra’s net. Realizing our actions affect all others, we have the intention of being more understanding and compassionate.
Right Speech: using our speech to help rather than to harm; to listen
Right Action: abiding by percepts including no killing, no stealing, no lying, no inappropriate sexual conduct, no abuse of intoxicants.
Right Livelihood: to earn our living in a way that does not promote harmful activities
Right Effort: mental energy or effort, to abandon unwholesome thoughts, to mediate
Right Concentration: complete absorption in meditation. (YS Dharma Center, 1)
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In the poem, “Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout,” the elements of right intention show as he remembers his friends and connect them to his experience even though “they are in cities,” right concentration shows through his “still” mediating, right view shows that he is understanding that things change and still accepts it, right action shows through the ideal of detoxing itself, since the poem is a poem about detoxing, the is following the element of ridding the body of intoxicants, right livelihood also shows through his mediation, he is showing the right way of doing things and the right way of getting rid of the junk the mind can have, and right mindfulness shows through his awareness of what’s going on around him, such as “swarms of new flies” or “I cannot remember things I once read,” and even the line “looking down for miles.” And in poems like “A Stone Garden,” the elements of right view, right intention, right action, right livelihood, and right mindfulness are present, and so