I’m sure you’ve come to this practice because you want to achieve something. Each of you has your own goals.
The Buddha described four mental qualities we need to achieve something from practice, which he called the Four Bases of Success: Chanda, desire; Viriya, energy; Citta, mind; and Vīmaṃsā, wisdom.
Growing up in Africa, before I became a Buddhist, we used to go with my mother to the market to buy papaya fruits. I remember visiting my grandma and seeing a papaya on a tree for the first time. I said, “Wow, I want one!”
You see, my desire came. I wanted to “achieve” a papaya!
After that desire, I had to follow it with energy. I had to climb to the papaya. Climbing is a skill that you have to learn, and you have to use energy to do it. You also have to have the mind to stay focused as you are climbing a tree, otherwise you’re going to fall off.
Now as a young boy, I didn’t know about the law of gravity. I climbed to the papaya, and then I reached the papaya! Then, the branch broke, and I fell together with my papaya. Don’t worry, I didn’t hurt myself.
I was missing wisdom. That’s the fourth one. It’s called Vīmaṃsā. I had the desire, I had the energy, and I had the mind, keeping focused and engaged, but I missed the wisdom. I fell down. So that was the last time I climbed a papaya tree.
I asked my sibling, and they told me that we never climb papaya trees because they actually have very weak branches. Just a mere touch, and you fall off.
As a Buddhist practitioner, I have to apply the same principles. I have to apply desire to practice, then effort to practice, then stay focused, which is in the mind, and also I have to have wisdom to practice.
This is what we are going to talk about today. It’s a very interesting topic, because I’m sure each of you wants to achieve something from this practice.
So if we want to succeed, we must cultivate Dharma Chanda – desire to practice the dharma. Then we need to sustain it. Dharma Chanda alone, without energy, it’s like day dreaming. We need the next one: energy.
Viriya, energy, is very important. Whenever you have Dharma Chanda, it will activate effort. There’s that kind of motivation to achieve our goal, desire to achieve our goal, and also the energy towards getting that goal.
That energy was my climbing. Maybe your energy’s coming and listening to a Dharma talk. Maybe it’s waking up and practicing, or going to attend a retreat. There are a lot of things we can do with Dharma Chanda. All of it requires energy.
I found that Dharma Chanda without energy is like a rocking chair. You’re rocking all the time, but not moving anywhere. In practice, if I actually desire to attain anything, without effort, I think you’re not going to go anywhere. You’ll stay in one place.
Here’s another important thing: let’s say you go to the retreat, and then you expect to attain concentration. Whenever you plan to go for a retreat or come for the sit, it’s good to have expectation, but once you’re on the cushion, turn your expectations into aspirations.
Aspire. It’s okay, because aspiration is about process. You focus on the process. But expectation is a form of desire that becomes a hindrance, and actually it gets in the way.
That’s because expectation is just actually focusing on the goal. “Okay, I’m going to get concentration. I’m going to get insight.” You are focused on the goal, but meanwhile are not focusing on the process.
The process is very important. The process is the energy. We need to have energy.
It’s also important to connect the two, cause and effect. When we have desire, that’s the cause, and it will have effect with the energy. If we don’t do that, and we have one without the other, we will have a problem.
Energy without desire is like a roller coaster. You don’t know where the destination is. You go up and down. So the two should be combined: desire and energy, and then you move forward.
I’ll share with you three kinds of energy that you need to keep going.
The first energy is to start, which is called. There’s a saying that says that in order to succeed, you need two things. One is to start, another one to continue. So, even in our practice, Dharma practice, we need to start and continue.
This initial application, or what you call initial energy, is really the spark of the energy we start with, but we should not stop. We should continue on.
This is called sustained effort. We sustain that effort.
And then, when we sustain the effort, then there’s also the third kind of effort. We call it non-stop effort. That means don’t stop until you attain your goal.
Whatever that goal is, don’t stop.
But there is a problem that I found. Most people don’t want to put the effort. They have the desire, but the effort is too hard.
“I’ll do it when I retire.” “I’ll meditate when my children go to college.” “Now I’m too busy.” So it’s actually lacking effort.
And also, there are people who do what I call microwave practice.
The first time I came to USA was in 1999. And the microwave was something fascinating for me, because in Africa, it would take us, like, 30 minutes to prepare a cup of tea. You have to go fetch water, then put in the kettle, then start fire…I’m telling you, 30 minutes, if you’re lucky. So, for us, it’s a process.
When I came to Massachusetts in 1999, it was for a three-month retreat. I was so surprised to find that you can make a cup of tea within one minute. It was a new thing to me.
And I’m telling you, some people come to meditation, they want also to get enlightenment in one minute.
Many people come to me as a teacher saying, “But I cannot concentrate. I cannot concentrate.”
Well, that is a process!
It takes time. Some people also calibrate their progress in terms of days. “Oh, today’s the first day of the retreat, third day, second—maybe on the fifth day, I should be somewhere.”
That’s what people think, and they get so frustrated. On the 50 day retreat, it’s worse!
So, anyway, the message is very clear. Our progress in a practice doesn’t conform to a clock. It doesn’t conform to a calendar. But we subject our practice to these measurements, and we forget the process.
We think that within one month, I should be really getting the fourth jhana. No, you could get it anywhere! Anytime!
So, what I’m telling you is that put in whatever it takes. And the results will come by themselves.
I like the analogy the Buddha gave. Whenever I teach people, I say, you should meditate like chickens. I love chickens. I grew up seeing chickens hatching their eggs. So now, what happens with chickens?
They lay the eggs, and then they go and sit on them. They have the intention, they have the desire, they have the energy. They walk there and sit there and give the eggs enough heat. They walk, walk, walk, then come back and sit, just like meditators.
But I think chickens are smarter. What I’ve seen with chickens, at the point of the eggs hatching, they don’t poke them. Chickens don’t poke the eggs for chicks to come out. No. For me, it was amazing to see this.
They just leave the eggs alone. So the chicks, because they have been given enough heat, and now they have a sharp beak, they knock themselves out of the egg.
I think this you should learn from chickens. Most of our meditators, they poke the eggs.
“Okay, where is my concentration? Where is my insight?”
They keep on poking. Eggs which are not ready. But I can assure you, if you do the practice as it’s laid out, it will come by itself.
Cause and effect.
Even the Buddha said that somebody who is free from remorse, somebody who is free from defilements, they will get what we call gladness. And then, somebody who has gladness, they’ll get joy. And then somebody who has joy, they will have a calmness. And then from calmness, happiness.
The Buddha was saying that for somebody who has gladness, they don’t have to wish, “May I have joy?” Because it is cause and effect. Somebody who has happiness, they don’t have to say, “May I gain concentration?” No. If you’re happy, naturally the mind will be concentrated.
The Buddha kept on saying, if somebody gains concentration, they don’t have to wish, “May I have wisdom?”
The Buddha said, with a concentrated mind, you will see things as they really are. These are natural processes.
But we fight a lot because we fail to see cause and effect. So please don’t try to microwave your meditation.
Just do the Dharma Chanda, and apply the energy. The initial energy, sustained energy, and non-stop energy.
May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful. May all beings be free from suffering and its causes.
Thank you for reading,
Bhante Buddharakkhita
This is an excerpt from Bhante Buddharakkhita’s dharma talk on the Four Bases of Success. For the full talk, please listen here: youtube.com/watch?v=ChVdRlvQZZI&feature=youtu.be