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There is the story of the blind men and the elephant and each of the men had varying views of the elephant. Since none of them had the ability to have a complete view, they had differing right views.
right view in the context of many views?right views?right view?How does one develop right view in the context of many views?
By asking yourself what is your goal? When you know what is your goal, what do you want, a view will be formed that will help you achieve that goal.
How does one determine right views?
There are right views as many as there are beings in the universe. Each has it's own right view. Which view is right? It depends what your goal is.
If your goal is to experience the truth and become liberated from future deaths and births, there is only one right view to accomplish this.
What are examples of right view?
If your goal is liberation from future deaths and births, right view would be: to know the origin of suffering, to know the cessation to suffering and to know how to completely cease suffering within you. By having this right view ignorance would be removed, suffering would cease and you would be liberated.
Ballanced skepticism.
You cannot force yourself to believe in rebirth. You can only educate your mind not to grasp firmly to the view that there isn't. If you adopt a ballanced attitude, that considers the several options without being partial to any option, then I think it's close to the best possible attitude. The true right view, of believing in rebirth, non material worlds, the existence of arahats, and so on, can only arise when you verify it yourself, beyond doubt. Until then, it's all provisional. So don't grasp views, especially those that might become an obstacle to liberation. Because I believe this is actualy the main point.
For the point reffering to examples of right view
I recommend you fully reading the sutta Apannaka Sutta http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.060.than.html
this is just a piece of it as an example of right view.
Action & non-action
A. "There are some contemplatives & brahmans who hold this doctrine, hold this view: 'In acting or getting others to act, in mutilating or getting others to mutilate, in torturing or getting others to torture, in inflicting sorrow or in getting others to inflict sorrow, in tormenting or getting others to torment, in intimidating or getting others to intimidate, in taking life, taking what is not given, breaking into houses, plundering wealth, committing burglary, ambushing highways, committing adultery, speaking falsehood — one does no evil. If with a razor-edged disk one were to turn all the living beings on this earth to a single heap of flesh, a single pile of flesh, there would be no evil from that cause, no coming of evil. Even if one were to go along the right bank of the Ganges, killing and getting others to kill, mutilating and getting others to mutilate, torturing and getting others to torture, there would be no evil from that cause, no coming of evil. Even if one were to go along the left bank of the Ganges, giving and getting others to give, making sacrifices and getting others to make sacrifices, there would be no merit from that cause, no coming of merit. Through generosity, self-control, restraint, and truthful speech there is no merit from that cause, no coming of merit.'[3]
B. "Some contemplatives & brahmans, speaking in direct opposition to those contemplatives & brahmans, say this: 'In acting or getting others to act, in mutilating or getting others to mutilate, in torturing or getting others to torture, in inflicting sorrow or in getting others to inflict sorrow, in tormenting or getting others to torment, in intimidating or getting others to intimidate, in taking life, taking what is not given, breaking into houses, plundering wealth, committing burglary, ambushing highways, committing adultery, speaking falsehood — one does evil. If with a razor-edged disk one were to turn all the living beings on this earth to a single heap of flesh, a single pile of flesh, there would be evil from that cause, there would be a coming of evil. If one were to go along the right bank of the Ganges, killing and getting others to kill, mutilating and getting others to mutilate, torturing and getting others to torture, there would be evil from that cause, there would be a coming of evil. If one were to go along the left bank of the Ganges, giving and getting others to give, making sacrifices and getting others to make sacrifices, there would be merit from that cause, there would be a coming of merit. Through generosity, self-control, restraint, and truthful speech there is merit from that cause, there is a coming of merit.'
"What do you think, householders? Don't these contemplatives & brahmans speak in direct opposition to each other?"
"Yes, lord."
A1. "Now, householders, of those contemplatives & brahmans who hold this doctrine, hold this view — 'In acting or getting others to act, in mutilating or getting others to mutilate, in torturing or getting others to torture... one does no evil... Through generosity, self-control, restraint, and truthful speech there is no merit from that cause, no coming of merit' — it can be expected that, shunning these three skillful activities — good bodily conduct, good verbal conduct, good mental conduct — they will adopt & practice these three unskillful activities: bad bodily conduct, bad verbal conduct, bad mental conduct. Why is that? Because those venerable contemplatives & brahmans do not see, in unskillful activities, the drawbacks, the degradation, and the defilement; nor in skillful activities the rewards of renunciation, resembling cleansing.
A2. "Because there actually is action, the view of one who thinks, 'There is no action' is his wrong view. Because there actually is action, when he is resolved that 'There is no action,' that is his wrong resolve. Because there actually is action, when he speaks the statement, 'There is no action,' that is his wrong speech. Because there actually is action, when he says that 'There is no action,' he makes himself an opponent to those arahants who teach action. Because there actually is action, when he persuades another that 'There is no action,' that is persuasion in what is not true Dhamma. And in that persuasion in what is not true Dhamma, he exalts himself and disparages others. Whatever good habituation he previously had is abandoned, while bad habituation is manifested. And this wrong view, wrong resolve, wrong speech, opposition to the arahants, persuasion in what is not true Dhamma, exaltation of self, & disparagement of others: These many evil, unskillful activities come into play, in dependence on wrong view.
A3. "With regard to this, an observant person considers thus: 'If there is no action, then — with the breakup of the body, after death — this venerable person has made himself safe. But if there is action, then this venerable person — on the breakup of the body, after death — will reappear in a plane of deprivation, a bad destination, a lower realm, hell. Even if we didn't speak of action, and there weren't the true statement of those venerable contemplatives & brahmans, this venerable person is still criticized in the here-&-now by the observant as a person of bad habits & wrong view: one who holds to a doctrine of non-action.' If there really is action, then this venerable person has made a bad throw twice: in that he is criticized by the observant here-&-now; and in that — with the breakup of the body, after death — he will reappear in a plane of deprivation, a bad destination, a lower realm, hell. Thus this safe-bet teaching, when poorly grasped & poorly adopted by him, covers (only) one side, and leaves behind the possibility of the skillful.
Unfortunately I do not think that a view can be completely right. Although some views can be more right than others. You can explain this in terms of strength, with some views possessing greater degrees of strength and others possessing lesser degrees of strength.
So the obvious question is, what makes a view more right? Well the first part of your question already answers this "How does one develop right view in the context of many views?" For the very fact that human beings communicate to develop their skills in language and intellectual understanding suggests that views are created through the mergence of two views. This is especially interesting when people exercise their views against each other (otherwise known as an 'argument') where people can sometimes literally not stop going at each other until an appropriate view has been reached. Fortunately the view that is created will be stronger, as it transcends the two initially opposing views. To answer your question, one develops right view through the mergence of many views.
To answer the second part of your question: right view is only a notion. Right view should really be called better view or greater view as it is only understood by more people. To illustrate this, one can examine history where people thought that the world was flat. This view was 'right' because most people thought that this was the truth, until of course Columbus proved that world was actually round. Ironically, even though this is true, right view for the time back then claimed that it was not true, that the world was flat. This would therefore show that 'right view' is only produced because most people think that it is 'right' even though it might not be. So how does one determine right view? Well it depends on whether you rely on your own judgement of what is right or the judgement of others. In the case of Columbus, sometimes its better to explore right view for yourself :)
To answer the third part of your question, would be to say that the best examples of right view come from the acceptance of many views mixed with your own. To develop this right view, you need only to communicate with as many people about their views while also putting in an effort to create your own right view. The end product should be a view that can stand the test of time and is accepted as 'right' in the eyes of many. Hope this helps :)
