Understanding the noble path
Often it seems that modern Buddhists dont properly understand the Buddhas noble (arya) eightfold and tenfold path (mrga) beginning with samyag-drishti, i.e., right view. This is because modern Buddhists are unaware that the bulk of the Buddhas teachings pertain to arya as in aryan, often translated by the word, noble.
According to the Nikayas profane persons (prithagjana) cannot take the noble path because they still cling to the world as a suitable refuge. This path is only for arya-sravaka or in Pali, ariya-savaka who have had supermundane insight (M. iii. 72), this being an insight which sees nirvana (P., nibbanadassanam). It is instructive to point out that an inferior path is laid out for them in the Mahacattarisaka Sutta beginning at M. iii. 72. We recognize in this same Sutta that the noble or arya eightfold path is a transcendent path (P., lokuttara-maggo)not a worldly one.
I should mention, too, that it is a huge mistake to take the eightfold and tenfold noble path to be something like the Ten Commandments. Moral injunctions are not paths or marga.
Both the noble eightfold path and tenfold path begin with right-view. Right-view races ahead (S. i. 33) which means it leads all the rest. This is also to say, no aryan right viewno path. From the canon we are to understand that the view of nirvana is the price of admission for entering the noble path which is a progressive path. Without it there is no right resolve, no right speech, etc.
An important aside to the above, samyak as in right-view contains more than the English word right can convey. Samyak is generally applied to the direction of citta or mind. It is about orientation, in other words. When mind is turned to the transcendent this is samyak or in Pali, samm; when it is turned to the lower it is asamyak or in Pali, m! icch which means wrong as in wrong view (micchditthi) (cp. M. Falk, Nama-Rupa and Dharma-Rupa, p. 79).
