Buddha proposed an eight fold path to end suffering: Right Understanding, Right Mindedness, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Attentiveness, Right Concentration. Now then, how do we know what 'right' is? Who do we ask?

No one, of course, for only we know the answer true for ourselves. Of course everyone will offer advice on what is 'right' for us. But, curiously, if we closely observe them, we see they have ample difficulty resolving the issue of 'right' in their own lives. In fact, I suspect that all such advice we give others simply mirrors our own life's quest. That's sure true for me!

So we don't really know what is 'right'. Others don't really know what is 'right'. So, what do we do? I have found that simply slowing down enough to sincerely ask myself the question in stillness points me toward an answer matched perfectly to that moment. This is the closest I have come to following the way and the way only.

The main trouble we have in knowing what is 'right', is jumping ahead of ourselves, and contending with how things are. We simply play one set of desires off against another. We pit our beliefs about what should be against reality - the image that is without substance. Thus, in this context, 'right' has no 'wrong'. 'Right' is just returning to our roots - to selfless integrity. Only then are we able to accomplish our private ends.