The Noble Eightfold Path is one of Buddhism's most essential teachings — but what does it actually look like in daily life?

In this talk, Travis Hicks walks through the Eightfold Path in a practical, grounded way, drawing on his year of Upasaka training with Birken Forest Monastery and two books he has returned to again and again: Bhikkhu Bodhi's The Noble Eightfold Path and Bhante Gunaratana's Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness.

Rather than going factor by factor, Travis groups the path into its three main areas — ethical conduct, meditative concentration, and wisdom — and shows how they support and reinforce each other over time. He covers how we speak to others and ourselves, how the five precepts show up in everyday choices, and why livelihood is part of a spiritual path at all. The weekly meditation practice we do together, he reminds us, is just one piece of a much larger whole.

This is a good introduction for anyone new to Buddhist teaching, and a useful refresher for those who have been practicing for a while.

About Travis Hicks

Travis Hicks is a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher through the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, trained under Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, and has completed the Upasika program for dedicated practitioners at Birken Forest Monastery under Abbot Ajahn Sona. He has been offering talks and leading retreats at Insight Meditation Houston since 2017 and has served as its Guiding Teacher since 2025.