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commit to development...it's all you need
Sep. 1st, 2019 02:43 pmI was just reading the Bhāvanā Sutta, AN 7.71, and thought I'd share a few thoughts on it, because it's my general approach to my path. I know in my last post I set stream entry as a goal for myself, but the question is, how do you get there?
You obviously can't just wish yourself there. I can't just say, "I wish I were free from all defilements!" and suddenly be so liberated. Nope. There's only one way to do it, and that's through cultivating the basics, the 37 wings.
In AN 7.71, the Buddha talks about a hen brooding on her eggs. The chicks won't hatch because of her wishes. No matter how hard she wants it, the eggs will only hatch once the chicks have sufficiently developed. Until then, all she can do is create the conditions for that development.
So that's what we have to do in the Dhamma. We can't force awakening to happen. We can, at best, help it along by setting up the right conditions. We cultivate mindfulness and concentration, ethics and energy. We keep plodding away. We can't get to the mountain peak by wishing ourselves there, only by walking the path to the top of the mountain. And if we spend all of our time paying attention to our destination, we won't be watching our footing, and we might slip and break a leg or accidentally take a wrong turn and be headed some other direction, or encounter some other setback. We have to pay attention to the path as we're walking it, occasionally catching glimpses of our destination between breaks in the canopy, but trust that the map will lead us there.
Really, it doesn't matter if I set for myself the goal of Supreme Arahantship or just Stream Entry or nothing at all. The only thing I can do to work towards any of these goals is cultivate the 37 factors, which will improve life no matter what.
And what are the 37 factors?
You obviously can't just wish yourself there. I can't just say, "I wish I were free from all defilements!" and suddenly be so liberated. Nope. There's only one way to do it, and that's through cultivating the basics, the 37 wings.
In AN 7.71, the Buddha talks about a hen brooding on her eggs. The chicks won't hatch because of her wishes. No matter how hard she wants it, the eggs will only hatch once the chicks have sufficiently developed. Until then, all she can do is create the conditions for that development.
So that's what we have to do in the Dhamma. We can't force awakening to happen. We can, at best, help it along by setting up the right conditions. We cultivate mindfulness and concentration, ethics and energy. We keep plodding away. We can't get to the mountain peak by wishing ourselves there, only by walking the path to the top of the mountain. And if we spend all of our time paying attention to our destination, we won't be watching our footing, and we might slip and break a leg or accidentally take a wrong turn and be headed some other direction, or encounter some other setback. We have to pay attention to the path as we're walking it, occasionally catching glimpses of our destination between breaks in the canopy, but trust that the map will lead us there.
Really, it doesn't matter if I set for myself the goal of Supreme Arahantship or just Stream Entry or nothing at all. The only thing I can do to work towards any of these goals is cultivate the 37 factors, which will improve life no matter what.
And what are the 37 factors?
- The Four Kinds of Mindfulness Meditation. Body, feeling-tone, mental quality, and mental processes.
- The Four Right Strivings. Preventing unarisen unskilled states from arising, abandoning already arisen unskilled states, cultivating unarisen skilled states, and keeping already arisen skilled states.
- The Four Bases of Success. Desire, effort, mind, and discrimination (of what brings about success versus what impedes success).
- The Five Faculties. Faith, effort, mindfulness, samādhi, and discernment.
- The Five Powers. Same list as the five faculties, except they have become strengthened and operate as strengths rather than mere capacities.
- The Seven Factors of Awakening. Mindfulness, curious investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, samādhi, and equanimity. (A list generally put in opposition to the five hindrances, and one I'd like to dive much more deeply into.)
- The Noble Eightfold Path.