BSRV 35.

1–2 (2018) 47–64 Buddhist Studies Review ISSN (print) 0256-2897

http://www.doi.10.1558/bsrv.36752 Buddhist Studies Review ISSN (online) 1747-9681

‘I’m Not Getting Anywhere with my Meditation …’:

Effort, Contentment and Goal-directedness in the
Process of Mind-training

Ajahn Amaro

Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, Hemel Hempstead

[email protected]

Keywords
Right Effort, right and wrong striving, expectation, contentment, goal-directedness,
passivity, chanda, bhava-taṇhā, vibhava-taṇhā, dhammānudhamma-paṭipatti,
iddhi-pāda, bojjhaṅga

This article draws on the teachings of the Pali Canon and the contemporary
lineages that are guided by its principles. In particular, reference is made to
the author’s mentors in the Thai Forest Tradition. It explores the respective
roles of goal-directed effort and contentment in the process of meditative
training, and skilful and unskilful variations on these. Effort is needed, but
can be excessive, unreflectively mindless, unaware of gradually developed re-
sults, or misdirected. Contentment can be misunderstood to imply that skilful
desire has no role in practice, and lead to passivity; though it is needed to
dampen down an over-energized mind, or motivation rooted in aversion or
ambition, and comes from insight-based non-attachment. Right effort avoids
the craving to become or to get rid of, but is associated with a skilful chanda/
desire that is an aspect of the iddhi-pādas, the Bases of Spiritual Power. Mind-
fulness aids the balance of energy and concentration in the Five Faculties, and
the energizing and calming qualities in the Seven Factors of Enlightenment.
In the end, from practising Dhamma in a way that is truly in accordance with
Dhamma (dhammānudhamma-paṭipatti), progress naturally flows from seeing
and becoming Dhamma.

1. Introduction
The words that form the start of the title of this article will be familiar to most peo-
ple practising meditation as well as those who are also teaching it in the West. We
are a pragmatic and goal-oriented culture, in the main part, so we put effort into
our jobs, our education, even our holidays and we expect to get certain results.
We can even assume that such results are our right: ‘I’ve paid my fee, now I want
my product.’ In many circumstances this is a fair enough assumption, but when it
comes to mind-training things are far less predictable. We can put in years of effort,

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48 Ajahn Amaro

faithfully and with vigour, yet feel that we are ‘not getting anywhere’. Our experi-
ences fail to match the glorious simplicity and fluidity of the stages of accomplish-
ment as described in the suttas, or the colourful and insightful stages of realization
as described by our mentors or by contemporary popular authors. ‘What’s going
wrong?’ we ponder, ‘why am I still struggling with x, y or z after all these years?’
As this is such a common experience it seems worthy of exploration and eluci-
dation. This essay will investigate some of the aspects of the relationship between
Right Effort (sammā-vāyāma), and the related qualities (at least within Buddhist
practice) of being focused on and directed towards a goal (niṭṭhā), and content-
ment (santosa). Both halves of this pair have positive and negative characteristics,
according to the Buddha’s teachings, thus it will be helpful to begin by clarifying
what these various attributes are.

2. The positive aspects of exertion and goal-directedness

2.1. Sutta quotes regarding striving

Throughout the suttas of the Pali Canon there are abundant passages that highlight
the fact that the Buddha’s Path is one pursued through making effort. For exam-
ple (at S 43.12):
And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Here, bhikkhus, a
bhikkhu generates desire (chandaṃ) for the nonarising of unarisen evil unwholesome
states; he makes an effort (vāyamati), arouses energy (viriyaṃ), applies his mind and
strives (padahati) … for the abandoning of arisen evil unwholesome states … for the
arising of unarisen wholesome states … for the continuance of arisen wholesome
states, … he makes an effort, arouses energy, applies his mind and strives: this is
called the path leading to the unconditioned.
(Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., p. 1376, Pali added)1
There are these four right strivings or exertions (sammā-ppadhāna); they are the
four qualities that constitute the fabric of Right Effort. In another discourse (S 49.1),
after describing these four, the Buddha uses the compelling image of the sloping
of the River Ganges inexorably toward the sea: ‘Bhikkhus, just as the River Ganges
slants, slopes and inclines towards the east, so too a bhikkhu who develops and
cultivates the four right strivings, slants, slopes and inclines towards Nibbāna.’
(Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., p. 1709).
In the Cetokhila Sutta, ‘The Wilderness of the Heart’ (M 16.26 (M I 103)), the
Buddha describes the energetic engagement required in the development of the
‘Four Bases of Spiritual Power’ or ‘Roads to Success’ (iddhi-pāda):
He develops the basis for spiritual power consisting in concentration due to zeal
(chanda) and determined striving (-padhāna-saṅkhāra-); … consisting in concentration
due to energy (viriya) and determined striving; … consisting in concentration due to
[purity of] mind (citta) and determined striving; … consisting in concentration due
to investigation (vimaṃsa) and determined striving. And enthusiasm (ussoḷhi) is the
fifth. (Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., p. 197)
1. Except where otherwise stated, translations are the author’s own.

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‘I’m Not Getting Anywhere with my Meditation …’ 49

2.2. ‘Just do it!’

As a more colloquial expression of the same principle, of the necessity for applica-
tion of effort in the realization of one’s spiritual aspirations, here are some words
from Ajahn Chah, one of the 20th century’s masters of Buddhist meditation:
So, do it. Follow it until you know in pace with the breath, concentrating on the
breath using the mantra ‘Buddho’. Just that much. Don’t let the mind wander off
anywhere else. At this time have this knowing. Do this. Study just this much. Just
keep doing it, doing it in this way. If you start thinking that nothing is happening,
just carry on anyway. Just carry on regardless and you will get to know the breath. …
  Our practice of the heart is like this. After a moment, it’s thinking of this and think-
ing of that. It is agitated and mindfulness is not continuous. But whatever it thinks
about, never mind, just keep putting forth effort. It will be like the drops of water that
become more frequent until they join up and become a stream. Then our knowledge
will be encompassing. Standing, sitting, walking or laying down, whatever you are
doing, this knowing will look after you.
  Start right now. Give it a try … if you try too hard, you won’t be successful; but if
you don’t try at all, then you won’t be successful either.
(The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, pp. 259-262)

3. The negative aspects of exertion and goal-directedness

The application of energy and goal-directedness are, accordingly, shown to be
essential elements of the Buddhist Path, so why do so many long-term meditators
report disappointment with their efforts in their practice?

3.1. Excessive ‘wrong striving’

A pertinent example to begin this section is the story of Bhikkhu Ānanda. On the
eve of the First Council, he needed to be liberated himself before he could attend,
and he had not yet attained full liberation. So he meditated strenuously in order to
end all traces of greed, hatred and delusion. Though, try as he might, he could not
do so. So he decided to lie down to sleep. Before his head hit the pillow and after
his feet left the ground, in the few moments when he had relaxed his trying-too-
hard mind-set, he attained liberation (CV XI.1.3.6).
The first problem is thus that of attaching to the idea of liberation, and ‘trying
too hard’ to achieve it. The Buddha described his own zealous but ultimately fruit-
less efforts (for example at M 36.20-30 (M I 242–246)), culminating in the insight
that:
I thought: ‘Whatever brahmans or contemplatives in the past … in the future … in
the present are feeling painful, racking, piercing feelings due to their striving, this
is the utmost. None is greater than this. But with this racking practice of austeri-
ties I haven’t attained any superior human state ... Could there be another path to
Awakening?’ (Bhikkhu Ṭhānissaro trans.)2

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50 Ajahn Amaro

In a similar vein there is the story in the Vinaya discipline (MV V.1.14–17) where
the delicately reared Soṇa Koḷivisa goes at his walking meditation with such gusto
that his feet are torn open and bleeding. The Buddha summons him to offer advice
and uses the example of tuning the strings of a vīṇā:
‘[W]hen the strings of your vīṇā were neither too stretched nor too loose, but fixed
in even proportion, did your vīṇā have a good sound then …?’
  ‘Yes, venerable sir.’
  ‘Just so, Soṇa — too eager a determination conduces to agitation, and too weak a
determination to slothfulness (accāraddhaviriyaṃ uddhaccāya saṃvattati, atilīnaviriyaṃ
kosajjāya saṃvattati).
  Therefore, Soṇa, be steadfast in cultivating evenness of determination, establish-
ing harmony of your mental powers. Let that [balancing] be the object of your con-
templation.’
Venerable Soṇa realized arahantship after receiving this teaching.
Even though roughly 2,500 years have gone by since that incident, we are still
making the same mistakes. Here is some advice from some experienced teachers
of this era, addressing the area of misdirected urgency and enthusiasm. Firstly,
Ajahn Mun, the reviver of the Forest Meditation tradition in Thailand, in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century:
Wanting what’s good, without stop:
That’s the cause of suffering.
It’s a great fault: the strong fear of bad.
‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are poisons to the mind,
like foods that enflame a high fever.
The Dhamma isn’t clear
because of our basic desire for good.
Desire for good, when it’s great,
drags the mind into turbulent thought
until the mind gets inflated with evil,
and all its defilements proliferate.
The greater the error, the more they flourish,
taking one further and further away
from the genuine Dhamma.
The Ballad of Liberation from the Five Khandhas, (Bhikkhu Ṭhānissaro trans.)
And then his student, Ajahn Chah:
[W]e’re all impatient, we’re in a hurry. As soon as we begin we want to rush to the
end, we don’t want to be left behind. We want to succeed. When it comes to fixing
their minds for meditation some people go too far. They light the incense, prostrate
and make a vow, ‘As long as this incense is not yet completely burnt I will not rise
from my sitting, even if I collapse or die, no matter what, I’ll die sitting.’ Having
made their vow they start their sitting. As soon as they start to sit, Māra’s hordes
come rushing at them from all sides. They’ve only sat for an instant and already they
think the incense must be finished. They open their eyes for a peek, ‘Oh, there’s still
ages left!’ …

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‘I’m Not Getting Anywhere with my Meditation …’ 51

Actually it isn’t necessary to go through all that. To concentrate means to concen-

trate with detachment, not to concentrate yourself into knots. But maybe we read
the scriptures about the life of the Buddha, how he sat under the Bodhi tree and
determined to himself:
  ‘As long as I have still not attained Supreme Enlightenment I will not rise from this
place, even if my blood dries up.’
  Reading this in the books you may think of trying it yourself. You’ll do it like the
Buddha. But you haven’t considered that your car is only a small one. The Buddha’s
car was a really big one, he could take it all in one go. With only your tiny, little car,
how can you possibly take it all at once? It’s a different story altogether.
Why do we think like that? Because we’re too extreme. Sometimes we go too low,
sometimes we go too high. The point of balance is so hard to find.
(The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, pp. 281–282)
Lastly Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Chah’s senior Western student, offers his perspec-
tive on this area:
The religious journey is what we call ‘inclining to Nibbāna’: turning away, inclining
away from the sensory world to the unconditioned. So it’s a very subtle kind of jour-
ney. It’s not something you can do as an act of will; you can’t just say, ‘I’m going to
realize the truth’ or: ‘I’m going to get rid of all my defilements and hindrances, get
rid of lust, hatred, all my weaknesses!’ — and actually do it. People who practise like
that usually go crazy. … (Ajahn Sumedho, The Anthology, Vol. 1. p. 75)

3.2. Mindless/unreflective ‘wrong striving’

The second aspect of what can be called ‘wrong striving’ is not trying too hard but
rather making effort in an unreflective, unmindful way. In this mode, persistence
is applied in a more balanced way but it is non-reflective insofar as it is based on
obedience to a method out of blind devotion: ‘The teacher taught me to do mind-
fulness of breathing so I have been doing it this way for twenty years, even though
I don’t see any benefits’; or ‘I have been a monk now for thirty years so I must be
closer to liberation, mustn’t I? After all, the Buddha said, “Patient endurance is the
supreme practice for incinerating defilements”’ (D 14.3.28).
There is a laudable patience and well-intentioned subservience to a system
but, lacking wise reflection (yoniso manasikāra), investigation of qualities (dhamma-
vicaya) or examination of results (vimaṃsa), those patient efforts can well be expe-
rienced as fruitless. To use the Buddha’s words, when describing the fruitlessness
of his own ascetic practices (at S 4.1):
I know these penances to gain the deathless —
Whatever kind they are — to be as vain
As a ship’s oars and rudder on dry land.
(The Life of the Buddha, Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli trans., p. 36)
It is like the gentleman who recently spent many hours driving round and round
the M25 (the 117 mile long motorway that circles London) whilst believing he was
on his way from London to Liverpool; he kept waiting for the familiar signs of

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52 Ajahn Amaro

approaching home territory but lacking them he just kept going until exhaustion
overtook him. He failed to notice that the signs were repeating themselves. It is
very easy with meditation practice to be similarly driving long and hard down the
wrong road, failing to read the signs and taking appropriate action.
Another example is diligently boiling sand in the hope of getting rice; no matter
how much effort we expend, or how careful we are in measuring it out and plac-
ing it on the hob, the efforts will not produce rice because the ingredients do not
provide that possibility.
Thus if a meditation practice is labelled ‘liberating’ or if a teacher tells us ‘this
is right for you’ or that ‘this is the best method for the development of insight’, it
should be recognized that these are only words. It is up to the individual to test
them out and see if the process does indeed work that way — is it rice or sand in
the packet?
3.3. Perception of poor or absent results

The third aspect of ‘wrong striving’ is believing in the perception of having received
poor results, or indeed that the mind is worse since beginning to practise medita-
tion. A frustrated or disappointed meditator can judge their practice as having been
fruitless when, without their realizing it, the truth is far from that. As a culture
we have strong habits of self-deprecation, and anything like acknowledging one’s
achievements or reflecting on one’s success (as in cāgānussati, recollection of one’s
generosity) is regarded with suspicion and looked upon with distaste as self-praise,
inflatedness or pomposity. For example, there was a dedicated and long-term prac-
titioner in the UK who habitually introduced himself as ‘a failed Buddhist’, albeit
with a smile.
The Buddha, however, pointed out that progress can be happening without our
realizing it. He gives a telling simile for this of the impressions slowly formed in
the handle of a tool (at A 7.71):
When a carpenter sees the impressions of their fingers and their thumb on the han-
dle of their adze, they do not know, ‘I have worn away so much of the adze handle
today …’ but when it has worn away, they know that it has worn away. So too, when
one is intent upon development, even though one does not know, ‘I have worn away
so much of the mental outflows (āsava) today … but when they are worn away, one
knows that they have worn away.’
One of the key elements in this simile is the noticing of the marks on the handle;
it seems we fail to appreciate these, usually because we are too busy attending to
the affairs of the day. For a meditator who makes the judgment that, ‘I’m not get-
ting anywhere in my practice’, it is often enough to ask them, ‘If you think back
five years, ten years, and you compare how you receive criticism, or how you deal
with angry feelings now, as compared to then — how do they compare? Has there
been a change?’ It is like asking the carpenter to look at the handle of the tool that
they have used for many years; they usually see at once, ‘Oh yes! I am much less
defensive/reactive than I used to be.’ It can be as obvious and distinctive as the
fingermarks pressed into the wood.

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‘I’m Not Getting Anywhere with my Meditation …’ 53

Another common experience is: ‘Since I started practising my mind has been get-
ting worse.’ Here is Ajahn Sumedho giving a description of the effects of meditation
in the opening stages of a year-long solitary retreat in Thailand:
I remember an experience I had in my first year of meditation in Thailand. I spent
most of that year by myself in a little hut and the first few months were really ter-
rible. All kinds of things kept coming up in my mind; obsessions, fears, terror and
hatred. I’d never felt so much hatred. I’d never thought of myself as someone who
hated people, but during those first few months of meditation it seemed I hated eve-
rybody. … Then one afternoon I started having this strange vision — I thought I was
going crazy, actually — I saw people walking off my brain. I saw my mother just walk
out of my brain and into emptiness, disappear into space. Then my father and my
sister followed. I actually saw these visions walking out of my head. I thought, ‘I’m
crazy! I’ve gone nuts!’, but it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. The next morning,
when I woke from sleep and looked around, I felt that everything I saw was beauti-
ful. Everything, even the most unbeautiful detail, was beautiful. I was in a state of
awe. The hut itself was a crude structure, not beautiful by anyone’s standards, but
it looked to me like a palace. The scrubby-looking trees outside looked like a most
beautiful forest. Sunbeams were streaming through the window onto a plastic dish,
and the plastic dish looked beautiful! (Ajahn Sumedho, The Anthology, Vol. 1 p. 157)
Such accounts demonstrate that the process of spiritual development can be a
struggle, but its fruits, in a mind-clearing letting go, can arise when one does not
expect them.
3.4. Misdirection of effort

The last of the negative aspects of energy and goal-directedness to address is what
might best be termed ‘misdirection of effort’.
3.4.1. ‘I shouldn’t be experiencing anger etc. ...’ — the need for peaceful coexistence/
radical acceptance
This misdirection has a couple of different dimensions, the first of which is more
mundane and can be summed up in the assumption, for example: ‘I shouldn’t be
experiencing this anger, this restlessness, and busy thoughts; I have to get rid of
them so I can practise properly. After all, it says this in the suttas repeatedly …’; such
as in the many passages describing the mindful overcoming of the five hindrances
and entry into the four jhānas (e.g. at M 27.18 (M I 181)).
Essentially what we are doing when we formulate such intentions (‘I have to get
rid of the hindrances (nīvaraṇa) so I can practise properly’) is that we are endeav-
ouring to climb over this in order to get to that; that is to say we unconsciously
cultivate fear and aversion towards the hindrances that we think of as ‘ours’, with
the aim of overcoming them and becoming a ‘me’ in some imagined better place
beyond ‘them’, purified, happy and free.
This rejection based on fear and aversion tends to exacerbate and reify the per-
ceived obstacles. In contrast, ironically, the best way to respond to the arising of
the hindrances is to begin by radically, whole-heartedly accepting their presence
— essentially to have loving-kindness (mettā) for them. In understanding the use of

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54 Ajahn Amaro

the word ‘accepting’ here, it is important to distinguish between ‘liking’ and ‘lov-
ing’. Ajahn Sumedho speaks on this issue thus:
Mettā means you love your enemy; it doesn’t mean you like your enemy. If some-
body wants to kill you and you say, ‘I like them’, that is silly! But we can love them,
meaning that we can refrain from unpleasant thoughts and vindictiveness …. That’s
what we mean by mettā.
Mettā means not creating problems around existing conditions, allowing them to fade
away, to cease. For example, when fear comes up in your mind, you can have mettā
for the fear — meaning that you don’t build up aversion to it, you can just accept its
presence and allow it to cease. …
But with mettā, you are not blinding yourself to the faults and flaws in everything.
You are just peacefully co-existing with them. You are not demanding that it be oth-
erwise. So mettā sometimes needs to overlook what’s wrong with yourself and every-
one else — it doesn’t mean that you don’t notice those things, it means that you don’t
develop problems around them. You stop that kind of indulgence by being kind and
patient — peacefully co-existing. (Ajahn Sumedho, The Anthology, Vol. 2, pp. 33–36)
Such peaceful co-existence, not dwelling in aversion, is an embodiment of the radi-
cal acceptance of the way things are in the present (paccuppanna-dhamma). Again
ironically, it is through this kind of radical acceptance that the hindrances seem to
be most effectively met, counteracted and transcended.
3.4.2. ‘We are not doing something now in order to become …’
The second type of misdirection of effort has a more supramundane focus, to do
with attachment to and identification with time, place and feelings of self (ahaṃ-
kāra, ‘I-making’, mamaṃ-kāra, ‘mine-making’). It can be best characterized by the
idea that: ‘I need to do something now in order to become enlightened in the future’.
Ajahn Sumedho reflects on this area:
‘If I practise hard, I might get enlightened in the future’ is another self-illusion,
isn’t it? … This is a creation: words, concepts about me as a person, what I think I
am and what I should do in order to become. This is all about time and personality,
not Dhamma. When I get caught in personality and the sense of time, there is no sati
anymore, but there is judgment, hope, despair — all this arises. So then sati is the
gate to the Deathless. That is why learning to recognize, to realize this natural state
of being, isn’t about becoming enlightened in the future. It is about being: being the
light itself, being awareness itself now, recognizing, not trying to become someone
who is aware anymore, but just this, this sense of openness, receptivity, attentive-
ness. (Ajahn Sumedho, The Anthology, Vol. 4, p. 90)

4. The negative aspects of contentment

4.1. ‘Buddhists shouldn’t have desires’

In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (S 56.11), and in many other places, the Buddha
points to craving (taṇhā) as being the cause of suffering, the painful and stressful
(dukkha):

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‘I’m Not Getting Anywhere with my Meditation …’ 55

This is the Noble Truth of the cause of dukkha: it is craving that leads to new birth and
is bound up with pleasure and lust, ever seeking fresh delight, now here, now there;
namely craving for sense pleasure, craving for existence/becoming, and craving for
non-existence/annihilation (non-becoming).
On account of taṇhā being named as the cause of dukkha, the erroneous message
gets transmitted that all forms of intending, directing of attention, desiring, choos-
ing, initiating of action, decision-making, indeed goal-directedness in all its forms
should be demonized; they are all grouped together as aspects of taṇhā and thereby
condemned as part of the problem of suffering. It as if by getting involved and
choosing some action one pollutes reality; as Shelley puts it in Adonaïs:
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity
Or as in T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
It is a commonplace for teachers of Buddhism to be asked, often with plaintive
earnestness, ‘Buddhists shouldn’t have desires, should they? I’m not supposed to
want anything, isn’t that right?’ Or in the workplace, when one’s colleagues are
aware that one is a practitioner of Buddhism, ‘You can’t ask for a raise — you’re
supposed to be a Buddhist!’ In the media Buddhist values are regularly represented
as fundamentally passive; for example, Buddhist teacher Ethan Nichtern describes
the views of the philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek:
[F]or Žižek, Buddhism, in the context of a Western consumer culture, allows the indi-
vidual to believe he is transforming his mind without actually changing the condi-
tions of suffering that shape the individual’s society.
(Ethan Nichtern, Huffington Post, 20-8-2010)
The demonizing of all forms of volition and desire then makes it seem as though
Buddhist practice should be thoroughly passive, a quietist one of only watching and
‘not doing’, as if any action was interfering with ‘the way things are’. This misin-
terpreting can then easily lead to, again, a well-intentioned but ultimately harmful
result — to wit a freezing of one’s natural responsivity to time, place and situation,
creating a falsely abstracted would-be observer who is unable to adjust that which
is being observed without feeling as though they are doing something wrong and
‘not following the practice’.
This is an unfortunate misunderstanding but, even though it is common, it
should be surprising that it happens at all. Why? Because of the evidence of the
life of the Buddha himself — the most eminent of enlightened beings. To be enlight-
ened is not to be devoid of intentions and interests, or the ability to act, otherwise
the Buddha would have never moved from the foot of the Bodhi tree and spent
decades teaching others. This fact is clear evidence that our intentionality is part
of ‘the way things are’ rather than an intrusion upon it.

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56 Ajahn Amaro

In addition — as with the reification of the hindrances through aversion toward

them — with respect to activity, contending against it to try to achieve some sort
of über-abstracted observer state only serves to reify the role of action and engage-
ment as the apparent disturber. One fails to realize that it is the attitude of conten-
tion that is causing the disturbance rather than the sense objects themselves. As
Ajahn Chah puts it:
It’s the same with saṅkhārā. We say they disturb us, like when we sit in meditation
and hear a sound. We think, ‘Oh, that sound’s bothering me.’ If we understand that
the sound bothers us then we suffer accordingly, if we investigate a little deeper, we
will see that it’s we who go out and disturb the sound! The sound is simply sound, if
we understand like this then there’s nothing more to it, we leave it be. (The Collected
Teachings of Ajahn Chah, pp. 6-7)
So, the sounds of the world and action in the world need not be a disturbance. Or,
to put it another way and to quote Seng-ts’an, in his ‘Verses on the Faith Mind’:
‘When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with
activity.’ (Richard B. Clarke trans.)

4.2. Passivity/habituation/numbness

There is another aspect of the unskilful application of contentment that will be

instructive to explore, this one related to the subject of §3.2, above — the making
of efforts in an unreflective, unmindful way.
This is the issue of habituation to following a practice in a state of spiritual
numbness — a blind belief that the method or practice will liberate and purify one
if one just adheres to the behaviours required. It is a plodding along half-heartedly,
dully content with the apparent lack of benefit. Whereas the subject of §3.2, above,
dealt with making vigorous effort but in a fruitless way, and was thus related to the
nīvaraṇa of restlessness (uddhacca), the present subject addresses practising with
an unskilfully placid contentment and is thus related to the nīvaraṇa of sloth and
torpor (thīna-middha). It is a kind of contentment but it is one that can be obstruc-
tive since it eschews reflection on experience; it leads to engaging with medita-
tion as a learnt behaviour that is followed out of mere habit, rather than being a
method of genuine transformation. It is a kind of inept saddhā unbalanced by the
faculty of paññā.
That said, there are times when a lessening of mental sharpness can be appro-
priate:
I also used to think: ‘My mind is too alert and bright; I’ve got so much restless move-
ment in my mind.’ Because I had always wanted to have an interesting personality, I
trained myself in that direction and acquired all sorts of useless information and silly
ideas, so I could be a charming, entertaining person. But that doesn’t really count, it’s
useless in a monastery in North-East Thailand. … Instead of becoming fascinating and
charming … I started looking at the water buffaloes, and wondering what went on in
their minds. … I’d think: ‘That’s what I need, to sit in my kuti, sweating through my
robes, trying to imagine what a water buffalo is thinking.’ So I’d sit and create in my
mind an image of a water buffalo, becoming more stupid, more dull, more patient

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and less of a fascinating, clever and interesting personality.

(Ajahn Sumedho, The Anthology, Vol. 1, p. 57)
Similarly, Venerable Sāriputta once observed:
Having attained the perfection of wisdom, having great discernment and great
thought, not dull (but) as though dull, he always wanders, quenched. (Thag. 1015,
Norman trans.)
To the undiscerning, a person of great calm and equanimity can seem to have a
dull mind.
5. The positive aspects of contentment
5.1. Aggi Sutta: the roles of tranquillity, concentration and equanimity

The Buddha describes the Seven Factors of Enlightenment (bojjhaṅga) using the
symbol of tending a bonfire (S 46.53):
‘On an occasion, bhikkhus, when the mind is excited, that is the wrong time to
develop investigation of qualities …, energy …, rapture as a factor of enlightenment.
Why is that? The excited mind is difficult to calm down by those things. Just as if a
person, wanting to extinguish a great bonfire, were to place dry grass, dry cowdung
and dry sticks on it … Is it possible that they would be able to extinguish that great
bonfire?’
‘No, venerable sir.’ …
‘On an occasion, bhikkhus, when the mind is excited, that is the right time to develop
tranquility …, concentration …, equanimity as a factor for enlightenment. Why is
that? The excited mind is easy to calm down by those things. Just as if a person,
wanting to extinguish a great bonfire, were to place wet grass, wet cowdung and wet
sticks on it … Is it possible that they would be able to extinguish that great bonfire?’
‘Yes, venerable sir.’
Thus these three mental attributes — tranquillity (passaddhi), concentration
(samādhi) and equanimity (upekkhā) — embody the calming and peaceful aspects of
the enlightened mind, the mind that is free of all greed (lobha), hatred (dosa) and
delusion (moha). This shows that, though contentment can have its drawbacks when
wrongly applied, such calm and peaceful qualities must necessarily be in accord
with Dhamma as well and, accordingly, should be considered as a sine qua non of
the Buddhist path and goal.

5.2. Dhammānudhamma-paṭipatti — means and ends unified in Dhamma

The Buddha defines the first stage of enlightenment by using various criteria in the
Pali Canon. One format that he employs is to speak of ‘the four factors for stream
entry’. These are listed (at S 55.5) as:
Association with superior persons, Sāriputta, is a factor for stream-entry. Hearing
the true Dhamma …. Careful attention …. Practice in accordance with the Dhamma
is a factor for stream-entry. (Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., p. 1792)

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The fourth on this list is dhammānudhamma-paṭipatti. This quality is of particular sig-

nificance here as it echoes the point made above at §3.4.2, of not practising Dhamma
with attitudes based on worldly principles. In the political and other spheres it is
often touted that ‘the end justifies the means’, alongside such chestnuts as ‘you
have to be cruel to be kind’ and ‘all’s well that ends well’.
According to the principle of dhammānudhamma-paṭipatti (‘practising Dhamma in
accordance with Dhamma’) the opposite is held to be true; that is to say, if you use
a forceful, contentious, agitated means, you cannot receive a peaceful result. The
means and the end are directly related, unified, so that if a peaceful and energetic
result is wished for, a means that matches that must be employed.
We can, correspondingly, go about our meditation with the same conflictive
attitudes and find a similar result. If we try to wipe out the hindrances with aver-
sion, or to become enlightened through ambitiousness, we will surely experience
weariness and disappointment. Instead, if the qualities of contentment and goal-
directedness are fully balanced and embodied in accordance with Dhamma — i.e.
devoid of the biases (agati) of desire (chanda), hatred (dosa), delusion (moha) and fear
(bhaya; D 33.19) — one is using a peaceful and harmonious means so a correspond-
ing result is likely to follow.

5.3. Contentment through seeing all wholesome states as impermanent and

subject to cessation, that is, via insight
As the suttas indicate, one way that the mind can be trained both energetically
and contentedly is through the direct application of reflective wisdom (yoniso
manasikāra, paññā) — the wisdom that keeps the making of effort in the context
of Dhamma. This process is described in the Aṭṭhakanagara Sutta (M 52.4–14 [M I
350–352]).3 Here the teaching elucidates how a deep contentment is continually
refreshed through seeing all the wholesome states, of increasing refinement, as
‘impermanent and subject to cessation’ and thereby the mind is freed from attach-
ment to them:
Here, householder … a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhāna …. He con-
siders that and understands it thus: ‘This first jhāna is conditioned and volitionally
produced (abhisaṅkhataṃ abhisañcetayitaṃ), but whatever is conditioned and volition-
ally produced is impermanent, subject to cessation.’ Standing upon that, he attains
the destruction of the āsavas (mental outflows).
This pattern is repeated in the sutta for all the jhānas, up to the third of the arūpa-
jhānas, as well as including the sublime abidings (brahma-vihāra). All the way along,
as the mind deepens its concentration, those states are mindfully recollected in the
context of their essential nature — as impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha)
and not-self (anattā) — as defined by the analysis of the Buddha in the ‘Discourse
on the Characteristic of Not-Self’, the Anattālakkhaṇa Sutta (S 22.59, MV I.6.38–47).
The reminder that each state is impermanent, unsatisfactory and empty of self and
what belongs to a self brings a cooling, settling quality, even as the states develop
in splendour and vastness.
3. Cf. Harvey paper in this collection, p. 24.

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This is a contentment founded upon penetrative wisdom. Since it is based upon

and incorporates wisdom, it embodies a subjective calmness, a coolness in the atti-
tude, as well as a mundane calmness due to lack of disturbance in the objective
world.

6. Right Effort (sammā-vāyāma) as the skilful alternative to bhava-

taṇhā and vibhava-taṇhā

6.1. Four aspects of Right Effort — right/left hand analogy

The presence of the positive aspects of goal-directedness and contentment out-

lined above (in §2 and §5 respectively) indicate that there are ways that effort can
be made that are in accord with Dhamma and that don’t contribute to greater dis-
content. The factor of the Noble Eightfold Path called Right Effort (sammā-vāyāma)
comprises the essence of these ways.
Right Effort is made up of four qualities called, as mentioned above (S 43.12 and
S 49.1 in §2.1), the four Right Strivings or Exertions (samma-ppadhāna). They are
summarized as follows:
i. ‘restraining’; directed at the nonarising of unarisen unwholesome states
(saṃvara-padhāna)
ii. ‘letting go’; directed at the abandoning of arisen unwholesome states
(pahāna-padhāna)
iii. ‘developing’; directed at the arising of unarisen wholesome states (bhāvana-
padhāna)
iv. ‘maintaining’; directed at the continuance of arisen wholesome states,
for their nondecay, increase, expansion and fulfilment by development
(anurakkhana-padhāna)
In the exploration of the negative effects of misapplied goal-directedness and
contentment, there are two qualities that can be identified as underpinning most
of these unsatisfying outcomes. These two are ‘craving for existence/becoming’
(bhava-taṇhā) and ‘craving for non-existence/becoming or annihilation’ (vibhava-
taṇhā). The four samma-ppadhāna are the liberating counterpoint to the afflictive
bhava-taṇhā and vibhava-taṇhā.
Whereas bhava-taṇhā and vibhava-taṇhā are permeated by conceit (māna) and
self-view (sakkāya-diṭṭhi), the four Right Strivings are free of them, otherwise they
would not be ‘Right’ (sammā). Vibhava-taṇhā is an unskilful parallel to the first two
of the Right Strivings; there is a restraining of the unwholesome that has not yet
arisen and a letting go of anything unwholesome that has arisen, but no sense of
I-making or mine-making obtrudes. It is not ‘me’ restraining or letting go, rather
those actions are guided by mindfulness and wisdom (sati-paññā) attuned to the
present reality. Similarly, bhava-taṇhā is an unskilful parallel to the second two of
the Right Strivings; there is a deliberate bringing of the wholesome into being and
the effort to maintain wholesome qualities that have arisen. Again, it is not ‘me’

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rousing and sustaining anything in order for ‘me’ to get somewhere or be some-
thing but, guided by sati-paññā, those efforts are made according to time and place
and situation, conducing all the while to liberation.
Even though these qualities can bear a striking resemblance to each other —
restraining and letting go can look like the desire to get rid of, while developing
and maintaining can seem identical to the desire to become — they are rather
understood to be like the leaves of the stinging and the dead nettle, they look alike
but they are quite different plants. Perhaps a better simile is that of being like the
left and right hand, exactly like each other in one way yet completely opposite in
another.

6.2. Chanda compared to taṅhā and related to the four iddhi-pādas

It was suggested above (in §4.1) that it was a mistake to consider all forms of intend-
ing, directing of attention, desiring, initiating of action or decision-making as being
inimical to peace and liberation — even though that is a common misconception.
This confusion has been exacerbated by the fact that two different words in the
Pali have historically been translated into English as ‘desire’. These are taṇhā, which
we have already been looking at closely, while the other word is chanda. This latter
term has variously been translated as ‘desire’, ‘zeal’, ‘intention’, ‘will’, ‘interest’,
‘impulse’, ‘excitement’, ‘resolution’, ‘wish for’ and ‘delight in’. Chanda, in contrast
to taṇhā, is essentially a neutral term, it signifies a directedness of interest or action
but one that can be wholesome (e.g. dhamma-chanda, ‘virtuous desire’), unwhole-
some (e.g. kāma-chanda, ‘excitement of sensual pleasure’, or chanda as one of the
agatis, see above, §5.2) or neutral (e.g. as consent to the results of a community
meeting). Thus one can have a wholesome desire for liberation, for example.
Since taṇhā is almost invariably unwholesome in nature, a better English word to
use for it would be ‘craving’ as this latter term conveys a sense of self-centred agita-
tion. One can have a craving for food or a cigarette but, if one is ‘practising Dhamma
in accordance with Dhamma’ (dhammānudhamma-paṭipatti), one can’t have a crav-
ing for enlightenment, at least not in the author’s understanding of English usage.
Some of the misunderstandings about desire, goal-directed action, and their
relationship to liberation have come about through the effects of translation but
some have been there since ancient times. Here is a dialogue that took place in
Kosambi between Ānanda and a layman called Uṇṇābha (at S 51.15). The layman
asks Ānanda what the purpose of the holy life taught by the Buddha is. Ānanda
explains that it is for the abandoning of ‘desire’ (chanda), and that the path that
leads to this is the Four Bases of Spiritual Power, namely striving and concentration
due to either desire (chanda), energy, mind or investigation. The laymen responds
by saying, ‘Such being the case, Master Ānanda, the situation is interminable, not
terminable. It is impossible that one can abandon desire by means of desire itself.’
Ānanda replies by asking him whether, before coming to the park where they were,
did he not have a desire, energy, thought and investigation related to going to the
park, which then all subsided once he had reached the park? The layman accepts

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that this was so, and Ānanda then says that it is the same with the desire etc. for
arahantship.
The four qualities that Ānanda highlights here, when questioning Uṇṇābha and
elucidating this area so skilfully, are the ‘Four Bases of Spiritual Power’ or ‘Roads
to Success’ (iddhi-pāda) mentioned above in §2.1 (M 16.26 [M I 103]):
i.  chanda = desire, zeal, interest
ii.  viriya = energy, persistence
iii.  citta = consideration, examination, planning
iv.  vimaṃsa = investigation, review, reflection on results
In order to succeed at any task, the Buddha’s teaching suggests that four factors
need to be employed; (i) we need to be interested in the matter, (ii) we need to apply
energy to getting it done, (iii) we need to think about how to best go about achiev-
ing the wished for result, and last and by no means least, (iv) we need to investi-
gate if we have achieved our goal — this final factor provides the crucial feedback
as to whether the action can be beneficially repeated in the future or some other
action taken instead. These principles apply, again, irrespective of whether the
task is wholesome (e.g. freeing the citta all of greed hatred and delusion), unwhole-
some (e.g. setting a bomb to go off in a public place) or neutral (e.g. baking a cake
or going to visit a park).

6.3. The role of sati in the bojjhaṅgas and indriyas

As referred to above (at §3.4.2 and §6.1) mindfulness (sati) is a significant agent in
the chemistry of liberation. Along with its role previously described, in the guiding
of action that is free from self-view and conceit, it is the factor that balances the
seven factors of enlightenment (bojjhaṅga): the three rousing ones — investigation
of qualities (dhamma-vicaya), energy (viriya) and rapture (pīti); and the three calming
ones — tranquillity (passaddhi), concentration (samādhi) and equanimity (upekkhā).
In the Aggi Sutta (S 46.53 — at §5.1), the discourse employing the image of tending
the bonfire and the pertinence of particular enlightenment factors in different situ-
ations, at its very end the Buddha concludes his description by declaring that: ‘But
mindfulness, bhikkhus, I say is always useful.’ (Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., p. 1607). In
his endnote to this sentence (p. 1910), Bhikkhu Bodhi quotes the Sāratthappakāsinī,
the Commentary to the Saṃyutta Nikāya:
It is desirable everywhere, like salt and a versatile prime minister. Just as salt
enhances the flavour of all curries, and just as a versatile prime minister accom-
plishes all tasks of state, so the restraining of the excited mind and the exerting of
the sluggish mind are all achieved by mindfulness, and without mindfulness this
could not be done.
Another instance of mindfulness (sati) being the great balancer is in the func-
tioning of the Five Faculties, the indriya. The group is traditionally divided into the
pairs of:

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i. faith (saddhā) and wisdom (paññā)

ii. energy (viriya) and concentration (samādhi)
Mindfulness has the role of balancing the effects of these faculties with each
other (Visuddhimagga IV.45–49). Thus it integrates how faith and wisdom need to
inform each other; likewise it orders how energy and concentration work together
to help the mind be both alert and tranquil simultaneously. The five together are
sometimes compared to the wings of a bird, with faith and energy as one wing, while
concentration and wisdom form the other, and with mindfulness in the centre as
the life-source and integrative principle.
In the context of working with Right Effort and the Bases of Spiritual Power,
it is mindfulness (sati) — often conjoined with its supportive collaborators ‘full
awareness’ or ‘clear comprehension’ (sampajañña), and wisdom or understanding
(paññā) — that interprets the moment-by-moment changes in subjective attitude
and objective experience. It attunes the mind to the present experience and con-
tinually guides its intentions and actions, in order that all efforts made conduce to
realization and liberation.
7. Making progress in accordance with Dhamma
7.1. Progress along the path: Being Dhamma
The progress along the path that most of us are familiar with, at least in its initial
stages, is described in the Kīṭāgiri Sutta (at M 70.23 (M I 479–480)):
Monks, I do not say that the attainment of final knowledge is all at once. Rather, the
attainment of final knowledge is after gradual training, gradual practice, gradual pro-
gress. … There is the case where, when faith has arisen, one visits [a teacher]. Having
visited, one grows close. Having grown close, one lends an ear. Having lent an ear, one
hears the Dhamma. Having heard the Dhamma, one remembers it. Remembering it,
one gains a reflective acceptance of those Teachings. When one has gained a reflec-
tive acceptance of those Teachings, zeal arises. When zeal has arisen, one applies
one’s will. When one applies one’s will, one contemplates. Having contemplated,
one strives. Having striven, one realizes with the body the ultimate truth and, hav-
ing penetrated it with wisdom, sees it.
This description shows the natural unfolding of progress, based on interest, faith,
reflection and effort. It was characteristic of Ajahn Chah to take a classical formu-
lation like this from the scriptures and to add his own flavour to it:
First one learns Dharma, but does not yet understand it; then one understands, but
has not yet practiced. One practices, but has not seen the truth of Dharma; then one
sees Dharma, but one’s being has not yet become Dharma. (Being Dharma, p. xx, Paul
Breiter trans.)
This insightful addition is of such significance that it provided the title to this par-
ticular collection of Ajahn Chah’s teachings. It underscores the relative nature of
all concepts of progress and degeneration and articulates the need for the realiza-
tion of Dhamma to ripen to the point where, as it were, it is ‘the Dhamma realizing
what this apparent “me” is, rather than “me” realizing the Dhamma.’

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7.2. How to embody this principle?

So, how can one best embody this principle, use it to inform one’s efforts and facili-
tate progress in accordance with Dhamma? The Buddha summed the core issue up
in four words, for example in the ‘Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving’,
the Cūḷataṇhāsankhaya Sutta (at M 37.3 (M I 251), cf A 7.61 and S 35.80):
Here, ruler of gods, a bhikkhu has heard that nothing is worth adhering to (sabbe
dhammā nālaṃ abhinivesāya). When a bhikkhu has heard [this], he directly knows eve-
rything; … he fully understands everything; … whatever feeling he feels, … he abides
contemplating impermanence in those feelings … Contemplating thus, he does not
cling to anything in the world. When he does not cling, he is not agitated. When he
is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbāna.
(Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., p. 344)
As long as that principle of non-grasping is sustained, and applied in every dimen-
sion, then progress will develop as fully and swiftly as possible and will be enacted
with an attitude of restful ease along the way. The urge to grasp anything should
be restrained (saṃvara) and if anything has been grasped, in the sense of clung to,
it should be let go of (pahāna).
If the ideas of ‘me progressing’ or ‘not progressing’ are let go of with wisdom,
then progress happens in accordance with Dhamma. Eventually all that remains
is Dhamma aware of its own nature, the felt sense of which is called Nibbāna. This
is the end.
Abbreviations
A Aṅguttara Nikāya; translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Numerical Discourses of the
Buddha, Boston, Wisdom, 2012.
CV Cullavagga; translated by I. B. Horner, The Book of the Discipline, Part 5, London, Pali
Text Society, 1952.
D Dīgha Nikāya; translated by M. Walshe, Long Discourses of the Buddha, 2nd revised edi-
tion, Boston, Wisdom, 1996.
M Majjhima Nikāya; translated by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Middle
Length Discourses of the Buddha, Boston, Wisdom, 1995.
MV Mahāvagga; translated by I. B. Horner, The Book of the Discipline, Part 4, London, Pali
Text Society, 1951.
S Saṃyutta Nikāya; translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the
Buddha, Boston, Wisdom, 2005.
Thag. Theragāthā; translated by K.R. Norman, Elders’ Verses I: Theragāthā, London: Pali
Text Society, 1969.
References to A and S are to nipāta or saṃyutta and sutta number. References to D
and M are to sutta number and section within these as demarcated in the Walshe
and Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi translations. As the M section numbers are not marked in
other translations and the PTS Pali edition, Pali volume and page number are also
given for M references. References to MV are to chapter, section and sub-section
as marked in Horner’s translation.

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64 Ajahn Amaro

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Amaro Bhikkhu is a Theravāda Buddhist monk and abbot of the Amaravati mon-
astery in Hertfordshire. He has taught all over the world and is author of several
books published by the monastery or associated ones: Small Boat, Great Mountain
(2003), Rain on the Nile (2009) and The Island — An Anthology of the Buddha’s Teachings
on Nibbāna (2009) co-written with Ajahn Pasanno, and a guide to meditation called
Finding the Missing Peace (2011).

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