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cattasallaTo be successful at any endeavor, there are four basic things required. These constitute the list that is the topic of today's post: The Four Bases of Success. Note that this is a title for the list I found elsewhere, it's more literally "four bases of power" or even "four bases of superpowers" would probably do, because it's usually framed as a way to do that. But it also pops up in the list of the four strivings.
Before we get into it, some quick housekeeping, if you happen to be coming into this post without any context. I'm doing a series of posts exploring SN 48.10, which is an elaboration of the five spiritual faculties, traditionally translated as "faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom," in Buddhist Hybrid English. I've kept the first one as "faith", but chose "vigor" for the second. Still kind of deciding on the next three, but I'm liking "recollection", "stillness", and "discernment". Aaanyway, here's the list so far:
I chose this particular sutta because of these embedded lists. There's a sort of meta-list called the 37 factors of awakening that pretty much covers most of the most important parts of Buddhist practice, but the lists are all interconnected, so if you pick one you end up with at least a few others. This list of the five spiritual faculties includes the four right strivings under vigor. And under the four right strivings? The four bases of success.
Let's go back to the text. My translation:
What I'm interested in, here, is that repeated part of the sentences: "generate desire, try, arouse vigor, apply the mind and heart, and strive." The words for "try" and "strive" are, near as I can tell, synonyms, and my Pāli is not good enough to know if there are any particular nuances. But the other phrases contain three of the four bases.
In order to be successful at anything, you have to actually want to do it. You have to desire it. It's often mistakenly said, in popular treatments of Buddhism, that all desire is bad. This is not at all the case. There are skillful desires and unskillful desires. There are desires that create more suffering, and there are desires that lead you out of suffering. Now, it's true that eventually all desires must be abandoned, but we're not at that point, yet, are we? I, for one, still desire a better life, so I commit to the practice.
For me, there are two main ways I have of generating desire. One is to simply talk myself into it. That is, to reason with myself that doing the practice does make things better. If I want to get up before the chime rings to end my meditation session, I ask myself what better thing I could possibly be doing with my time.
But reasoning with myself is never enough. After all, my unwholesome desires are capable of pulling out entire teams of lawyers to argue their cases, and if I rely on reason alone, I seldom win. So the other is to reflect on what successes I've had so far in the practice, and how great they are. I have touched places of calm, of peace and joy, deep within myself, and I can only get to those places by being adequately settled. And I can only get adequately settled if the rest of my life is arranged to support that calm. It goes both ways, too, not simply that I want to arrange my life to support my on-the-cushion (or bench, in my case) practice, but my on-the-cushion practice supports me off-the-cushion, too. If I'm having difficulties with mood or emotion, I can rely on the techinques I've developed in my practice to get me through them. Indeed, this is where faith can come in handy: My previous experiences give me faith in the practice and my ability to do it, but the only way I can get those benefits is by actually doing it. At any rate, this leads me to want to practice.
Once this desire is in place, next comes the commitment. I want to do this thing, so I commit to doing it. I put in the effort. I arouse vigor for it. And I persist. I know that I may fail in various ways, but every failure is an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and come at it again with new knowledge, renewed vigor. Wanting to do something is energizing, and one strives for what one wants.
With the desire, and energy, and interest, comes applying the heart and mind. The actual word is citta, which is difficult to translate and can mean a couple of different things, among them both what we would call heart and mind. It's also the process of cognizing itself. When we apply our effort, we apply them using the heart and mind as our instruments. We apply our hearts and minds to the task, and this is the case whether we want to learn to code in R, play the piano, or achieve liberation of that very heart and mind.
So there's three of the bases. The fourth is discrimination. That is, knowing what will help, and what will hinder. Being able to discern the skillful from the unskillful, and what supports the development of the skillful and abandonment of the unskillful. (In terms of the passage, this is implicit in distinguishing the qualities for the four strivings.) And this is wisdom.
This is the final post on vigor. Next we'll talk a bit about "mindfulness" and "concentration" as they are traditionally understood, before moving into those topics into some detail.
Before we get into it, some quick housekeeping, if you happen to be coming into this post without any context. I'm doing a series of posts exploring SN 48.10, which is an elaboration of the five spiritual faculties, traditionally translated as "faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom," in Buddhist Hybrid English. I've kept the first one as "faith", but chose "vigor" for the second. Still kind of deciding on the next three, but I'm liking "recollection", "stillness", and "discernment". Aaanyway, here's the list so far:
- introduction
- faith
- vigor [1]
- vigor [2] -- the four right strivings
- vigor [3] -- strategies for the four right strivings
- vigor [4] -- cultivating and keeping good qualities
I chose this particular sutta because of these embedded lists. There's a sort of meta-list called the 37 factors of awakening that pretty much covers most of the most important parts of Buddhist practice, but the lists are all interconnected, so if you pick one you end up with at least a few others. This list of the five spiritual faculties includes the four right strivings under vigor. And under the four right strivings? The four bases of success.
Let's go back to the text. My translation:
And what, O monks, is the spiritual faculty of vigor?
Here, O monks, a noble disciple dwells with vigor aroused for the abandonment of unskillful qualities, for the attainment of skillful qualities, strong, fortified, not casting off the yoke in good qualities.
For the non-arising of unarisen evil, unskillful qualities, they generate desire, try, arouse vigor, apply the mind and heart, and strive.
For the abandoning of already arisen evil, unskillful qualities, they generate desire, try, arouse vigor, apply the mind and heart, and strive.
For the arising of unarisen skillful qualities, they generate desire, try, arouse vigor, apply the mind and heart, and strive.
For the persistence, certitude, increase, abundance, development, and completion of already arisen skillful qualities, they generate desire, try, arouse vigor, apply the mind and heart, and strive.
This is called, O monks, the spiritual faculty of vigor.
What I'm interested in, here, is that repeated part of the sentences: "generate desire, try, arouse vigor, apply the mind and heart, and strive." The words for "try" and "strive" are, near as I can tell, synonyms, and my Pāli is not good enough to know if there are any particular nuances. But the other phrases contain three of the four bases.
In order to be successful at anything, you have to actually want to do it. You have to desire it. It's often mistakenly said, in popular treatments of Buddhism, that all desire is bad. This is not at all the case. There are skillful desires and unskillful desires. There are desires that create more suffering, and there are desires that lead you out of suffering. Now, it's true that eventually all desires must be abandoned, but we're not at that point, yet, are we? I, for one, still desire a better life, so I commit to the practice.
For me, there are two main ways I have of generating desire. One is to simply talk myself into it. That is, to reason with myself that doing the practice does make things better. If I want to get up before the chime rings to end my meditation session, I ask myself what better thing I could possibly be doing with my time.
But reasoning with myself is never enough. After all, my unwholesome desires are capable of pulling out entire teams of lawyers to argue their cases, and if I rely on reason alone, I seldom win. So the other is to reflect on what successes I've had so far in the practice, and how great they are. I have touched places of calm, of peace and joy, deep within myself, and I can only get to those places by being adequately settled. And I can only get adequately settled if the rest of my life is arranged to support that calm. It goes both ways, too, not simply that I want to arrange my life to support my on-the-cushion (or bench, in my case) practice, but my on-the-cushion practice supports me off-the-cushion, too. If I'm having difficulties with mood or emotion, I can rely on the techinques I've developed in my practice to get me through them. Indeed, this is where faith can come in handy: My previous experiences give me faith in the practice and my ability to do it, but the only way I can get those benefits is by actually doing it. At any rate, this leads me to want to practice.
Once this desire is in place, next comes the commitment. I want to do this thing, so I commit to doing it. I put in the effort. I arouse vigor for it. And I persist. I know that I may fail in various ways, but every failure is an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and come at it again with new knowledge, renewed vigor. Wanting to do something is energizing, and one strives for what one wants.
With the desire, and energy, and interest, comes applying the heart and mind. The actual word is citta, which is difficult to translate and can mean a couple of different things, among them both what we would call heart and mind. It's also the process of cognizing itself. When we apply our effort, we apply them using the heart and mind as our instruments. We apply our hearts and minds to the task, and this is the case whether we want to learn to code in R, play the piano, or achieve liberation of that very heart and mind.
So there's three of the bases. The fourth is discrimination. That is, knowing what will help, and what will hinder. Being able to discern the skillful from the unskillful, and what supports the development of the skillful and abandonment of the unskillful. (In terms of the passage, this is implicit in distinguishing the qualities for the four strivings.) And this is wisdom.
This is the final post on vigor. Next we'll talk a bit about "mindfulness" and "concentration" as they are traditionally understood, before moving into those topics into some detail.