Buddhist Hour
Script No. 455
Broadcast live on
3MDR 97.1FM
9 PM to 10 PM
On Friday 24 November 2006 CE 2550 Buddhist
Era
This script is
entitled:
"Lifetimes of
Learning "
Class 20 - Exploring the Perfection of
Determination
The eighth of the Ten
Perfections is the Perfection of Determination, or aditthana parami
in Pali.
Until we have developed determination and many other good mental qualities our ability to drop our views and opinions tends to be quite limited. Until our minds are well trained we will always find there are plenty of rational alibis and reasons for not practicing or not making a wholehearted effort in our practice. Our teacher Master John D. Hughes used to sum up a lack of determination to practice with the phrase:
"Too hot;
too cold;
too late;
too soon".
We are OK at responding to reasonable requests to help out - provided we are given plenty of notice, and what is being asked is not too inconvenient. However, step outside what we think is a reasonable request made of us and all of a sudden there is a barrage of reasons from our side why we should decline to provide our help.
You probably have to experience this for yourself quite a few times to recognise the pervasiveness of your own limitations to your generosity and will to give of yourself. Our Teacher John D. Hughes helped his students overcome these weaknesses in our effort and determination by making frequent and demanding requests of us which were designed to gradually extend the capacity of his students who really wanted to progress.
It was not unusual for John to ask a person to work until three or four in the morning to get something done for the next morning. People sometimes went to him complaining their workload was too much and they would walk out an hour later having agreed to take on extra responsibilities. Students would work long hours at the ‘Centre’ during the day and just when they were about to leave for home for a "deserved" rest John would say "have you got a moment?". Often he would then start explaining a new task or tasks or even a major event which needed to be organised.
When we were doing building projects we would come after work and often work well beyond daylight hours. John would start the next building project a few weeks before the current one was finished so that the momentum of our effort and merit making would not drop.
Often the difficulty we experienced as students was not in doing the extra task John had requested of us but going against our kammic and habitual ego views of what was a "reasonable" request or what was our preferred time to leave for home. Yet going against our own stinginess was the very thing that was of benefit to us.
John was a great salesman and he could get his students to agree to take on many times more than their own generosity with conditions and limitations attached would have allowed them to do. He knew his student's true capacity and allowed us to find out what we were capable of achieving without over doing it. And this is what has to happen if we are to progress as students in the Dhamma. How do we build stronger generosity if we repeat our existing version of generosity? How do we increase our capacity if we resist extending ourselves by doing more?
From Achariya Dhammapala's A Treatise on the Perfections:
The perfection of determination should be viewed thus: "Without firmly undertaking the practice of giving (and the other paramis), maintaining an unshakable determination in the encounter with their opposites, and practicing them with consistency and vigor, the bases of enlightenment - ie: the requisites of giving, etc - do not arise." (Dhammapala) 1.
We no longer have John Hughes skillful help to move us beyond our shortsighted fabricated concerns. So what can we use as a lever to ensure we continue to improve ourselves?
First, you have to decide that's for you. It needs to be your life's number one mission or your ego will not accept the price of going against its preferences and likes and dislikes. You need to jump in and get wet.
Of all the options available in this world from all the view points you can see, over and above everything else, you want to make yourself better, brighter and happier this life through the cultivation of wisdom.
You want to learn more and more how to improve your minds and put that learning into practice for the benefit of yourself and others. You must include others in the picture because many aspects of how you will improve depend on you being kind to others and helping others.
One word that could be used to describe this resolve to your Buddhist practice is "wholehearted". You are always prepared to give it your best. This does not mean make your biggest effort or try your hardest - this is too tight, too stressed, too much effort, for what is needed. It means don't accept your own alibis of "its too hot, it's too cold, it's too late, or it's too soon" to practice. Practice with resolve and determination in your heart.
Using the analogy of scaling a mountain, we recognize it is a tough thing to do. It's physically strenuous and requires great determination on behalf of the hiker. If, however, halfway up the hiker thought, "Oh, this is too hard. I will just give up now and go home," then chances are he would just go home, and the mountain would remain unclimbed. There may not have even been an impassable barrier to him achieving the goal of reaching the top.
Enlightenment, like the mountain, is difficult to scale. To reach the summit requires us to transform ourselves in a way that we have never done before. Thinking thus, we engage in the methods for developing the Perfection of Determination.
Nina Van Gorkom writes:
We read in the commentary to the Cariyapitaka (1) about the means by which the Perfections are accomplished, and it is said that they should be performed perseveringly without interruption, and that there should be enduring effort over a long period without coming to a halt half-way. The Bodhisattva did not come to a halt half-way. (Van Gorkom) 2.
Until we have reached some form of perfection of determination or resolution for ourselves we must use what we've got. We must build powerful skills such as time planning as our weapons to conquer weaknesses we have never been able to conquer before.
We need to examine what we are using at the moment to recognise our limitations. Ordinary determination works with the eight worldly conditions as its platform. These eight are praise and blame, gain and loss, happiness and unhappiness, honour and dishonour. This type of determination gives out when the going gets tough, or it gives out when the going gets good enough that you settle for some worldly comfort and happiness and couldn't be bothered to do the hard work of Buddhist practice.
Don't give up your resolve to become enlightened because some negative kamma from the past comes, or when your friends or family don't approve of what you chose to do, or when laziness or procrastination seem more inviting.
Base your determination on the secure platform of understanding the way the world works, and your confidence in the Buddha Dhamma Path out of suffering.
Human birth is difficult to obtain,
the life of beings is
uncertain,
the conditions you are experiencing at the moment are subject to
change,
cause and effect cannot be escaped.
These understandings remain regardless of what the eight worldly conditions are bringing to you. Therefore your determination is based on a realistic platform.
Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist Society of Australia, writes in his book ‘Meditations on the Path to Enlightenment’:
With the laziness of procrastination you have a willingness to practice Dharma but a sense that there is not time for it now. You postpone engaging in virtue until later. There are so many excuses! 'At the moment I do not have sufficient intellectual knowledge of the Dharma to be able to practice properly. I will wait until the children leave home and then do a degree in Buddhism so that, when I do come to practice, I will do so properly.' Another may think, 'If I do anything, I want to do it wholeheartedly. I'm too busy to devote a high level of effort now, so I will carry on with business until I amass a large amount of money and can retire. Then I will be able to devote myself to the Dharma.' Or else, 'You cannot gain realisations without doing a lot of meditation. I have no time at the moment to meditate because I have to nurse my sick old mother. When she has passed away I will have time to meditate, so I will practice Dharma then.' There is usually a major misconception of what Dharma is and how to go about it that supports the attitude of procrastination. (Loden 1996) 3.
Geshe Loden's writings continue:
Never fall into the trap of waiting for the right circumstances to be able to practice Dharma according to some pre-conceived notion as to what constitutes practice. Whatever your present circumstances they are perfect for you to apply the Dharma in the most effective manner according to your specific karma. You are a unique individual. Your circumstances are unique, and you can uniquely apply the Dharma according to those particular conditions. (Loden 1996) 3.
In other words there is determination to restrain ourselves from our unwholesome minds such as anger and stinginess. We do not let ourselves respond to others using these unwholesome minds. We abandon acting out thoughts of anger, we abandon not accepting an apology or not forgiving others who have been angry to us, and so on for all the 14 unwholesome mental states.
These two forms of determination are like the two wings of a bird and is the right basis for our practice of Right Effort which are:
to reduce the unwholesome minds which have arisen, to reduce the unwholesome minds yet to arise, to increase the wholesome minds which have arisen, and to increase the wholesome minds yet to arise.
References:
1. Acharya Dhammapala. 6th cent. A Treatise on the Paramis. Translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Published online at www.accesstoinsight.org. Originally published in The Wheel Publication No. 409/411 (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1978). Transcribed from a file provided by the BPS, with minor revisions in accordance with the ATI style sheet.
2. Nina Van Gorkom. The Perfections Leading to Enlightenment. Published online at www.abhidhamma.org.
3. Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden. 1996. Meditations on the Path to Enlightenment. Published by Tushita Publications, 1425 Mickleham Road, Yuroke, Victoria 3063, Australia.
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