The eight factors are traditionally grouped into three trainings rather than presented as eight sequential stages. Panna, wisdom, comprises right view, understanding the four truths and the working of karma, and right intention, a disposition free of ill will and cruelty. Sila, ethical conduct, comprises right speech, avoiding falsehood, divisive talk, harsh speech and idle chatter, right action, avoiding killing, stealing and sexual misconduct, and right livelihood, avoiding trades that cause direct harm, traditionally including the trade in weapons, living beings, meat, intoxicants and poison. Samadhi, mental discipline, comprises right effort, the sustained work of abandoning unwholesome states and cultivating wholesome ones, right mindfulness, sustained attention to body, feeling, mind and mental objects, and right concentration, the four absorptions, jhanas, that steady the mind.
The Pali term samma, usually rendered right, carries a sense closer to complete, thorough or well-directed than to a moral pass mark, and the eight factors are described as mutually reinforcing rather than sequential: right view orients the other seven, and progress in ethical conduct and concentration in turn deepens right view. The path is also called the Middle Way, positioned by the Buddha's own account between the sensual indulgence he left behind as a prince and the extreme asceticism he abandoned after nearly starving himself in pursuit of it.