KARMA: The 10 Courses of Action

Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth) UPDATED AN D EXPANDED by Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu

 

Mental-karma is important as are deeds.

"Karma" refers to deeds able to produce results in the future.

 

"Courses of Action" (karma-patha) are a little different. This is a name for a group of ten kinds of karmic actions -- either unwholesome or wholesome -- the Buddha taught as particularly important to living beings.

 

The Buddha was not known as the Buddha, one of his many epithets, in ancient India. Nor was he "Buddhist," a "god" (deva), or a Brahmin (priest). He was known as a karma-vadin ("teacher of karma," teacher of the efficacy of deeds to produce results).

 

The Buddha's teaching concerning karma is that deeds have the efficacy to produce corresponding actions, effects, consequences, results. This is not cause-and-effect, however, if only because the results are usually exponentially larger than the original deed. One "killing" does not produce one "being killed" later on.

 

How well the Buddha knew! (xiangjiaocao)

That is because the seed, potentially, or karma laid down in the mind/heart is a citta, of which there are countless millions in a moment. Cittas have the potential to act as death-proximate karmas leading to rebirth, and when they serve this function, the result is very bad. Similarly, all skillful karma produces disproportionate results as well, which is beneficial and welcome by living beings experiencing the result.

 

Not all karmas can serve as death-proximate karmas (the thought-moment passing through the mind at the exact moment of passing from one life to yet another life), but "courses of action" (karma-pathas) can. That is why they are called "courses." Like corridors or pathways, they can lead to a consequence, welcome or unwelcome, directly.

 

There are three kinds of deeds -- those of body, speech, and mind -- be they unskillful or skillful:

 

I. Ten Unwholesome Courses of Action

• There are 3 bodily actions: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct;
  
• 4 verbal actions: perjury, slandering, harsh speech, babble;
  
• 3 mental actions: covetousness, ill-will, wrong views.
  

Unwholesome mental courses of action comprise only extreme forms of defiled thought: The greedy (rapacious) wish to appropriate others' property, the hateful (antagonistic) thought of harming others, and the holding or clinging to pernicious wrong-views.

While milder forms of mental defilement are also unwholesome, they do not constitute "courses of action."

 

Karma "courses"

Karma is following us everywhere we go. It's everywhere we're going to be.

 

The American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi -- the most famous translator of large collections of Buddhist sutras -- explains (in "Rebirth and Karma," from Recording 5 of The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is) that these ten are called "courses" of action rather than ordinary karma.

 

As mentioned above, this is because they have the power, in and of themselves, to lead to rebirth. They are courses or corridors leading to particularly unfortunate or fortunate future states.

For example, even a relatively minor good intentional-action can lead -- IF it serves as the death-proximate karma -- has the power to get one into a heaven. There are many heavens, and not a single one of them is eternal, so rebirth in a heaven is not the goal of Buddhism. But it is a welcome rebirth, a fortunate destination, while cycling through samsara. Samsara is the ongoing Wheel of Rebirth and endless disappointment.

II. Ten Wholesome Courses of Action

• There are 3 bodily actions: avoiding killing, stealing, sexual misconduct (or preserving life, protecting what belongs to others, avoiding harm);
  
• 4 verbal actions: avoiding perjury, slandering, harsh speech, foolish babble (or honest, reconciling, gentle, and wise speech);
  
• 3 mental actions: unselfishness, goodwill, right views.
  

Both lists repeatedly occur in the texts (e.g., in AN X.28, 176; MN 9), and they are explained in detail in MN 114 and in the Commentary to MN 9 (R. Und., p. 14), Atthasālini Tr. I, 126ff.

Ven. Saint Sivali

Ven. Sivali: shining example of good karma

An enlightened monastic from the time of the Buddha, Venerable Sivali, is remembered and venerated as having unbelievably good karma -- a store of "merit" (punya) that benefited many and for everyone to emulate.

 

There is no reason to "envy" Ven. Sivali his good fortune because he created it, and we ourselves can also create it. We can accrue a vast store of merit by good mental, verbal, and physical deeds, actions that benefit ourselves and others. Such deed will follow us through this life and future lives, redounding with welcome results whatever we are doing almost anywhere we find ourselves, until we realize enlightenment. They also help in this realization. Karma, it's everywhere you want to be (and it will even be there helping everywhere you don't want to be).

 

We are always generating karma, albeit we are rarely doing it consciously or with any appreciation of what we are doing and what the result will be when our deeds come to fruition for us.

 

And we are always passing away and being reborn. But a rebirth as a human is extraordinarily rare. It is a precious opportunity to make merit with reverberating with pleasant, pleasurable, and welcome karmic-results and effects (vipaka and phala).

 

"King of the 'Gods'"

Sakka is St. Michael (saintmichaelwarrior)

Sakka, the king of the devas, also made incredibly good karma -- sufficient not only to be reborn in a celestial world in space (one of the many "heavens") but as king of it and king of the four kings in the celestial world just below his world. In his world, he is lord of lords, the "lords" being the 33 deva rulers he oversees as chief among more or less equals.

 

Wisdom Quarterly has often shown that Sakka's fame extends around the Earth, a terrestial world in space which he protects from titans and nagas and other inimical forces. Why does he visit Earth, assign the regents of the Catumaharajika-deva-loka to guard, and get updates on human progress every fortnight?

 

It is because Sakka is a stream enterer devoted to the Buddha and the protection of the Dharma in the world for as long as possible. In Christendom he is known as Saint or Archangel Michael, in India as Indra (in fact the name "India" may derive from Indo, one of Sakka epithets), in Taoism as the Jade Emperor, in the Yarsanism (Islam) religion of Iraq and Iran Pir Dawud the deva (called Yazidis or Yezidis)...

What is Mindfulness Meditation? (video)

(meditationrelaxclub) New Age mantra relaxation music for the early stages of meditation

Defining Mindfulness

Ven. Thanissaro edited and expanded by Wisdom Quarterly

What does it mean to be mindful of the breath? It is something very simple: keeping the breath in mind.  How do we keep remembering (which is the literal meaning of sati) the breath each time we breathe in, each time we breathe out, and -- during intensive practice -- all the time in between?

 

The British scholar who coined the translation of the Pali word sati as “mindfulness” was probably influenced by the Anglican prayer to be ever mindful of the needs of others -- in other words, to always keep others' needs in mind. Even though the word “mindful” was probably drawn from a Christian context, the Buddha himself defined sati as the ability to remember (be vigilant, conscientious, conscious, and have presence of mind), illustrating its function in meditation practice with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (satipatthanas). 

“And what is the faculty of sati? A meditator, a disciple of the noble (arya, the enlightened) ones, is mindful, highly attentive, remembering, able to call to mind even things that were done and said long ago. [And here begins the Four Foundations of Mindfulness formula:] One remains focused on the body in and of itself -- ardent, alert, and vigilant -- setting aside greed and grief with regard to the world. One remains focused on feelings (sensations not emotions, which come under formations or sankaras) in and of themselves... the mind in and of itself... mental objects (or qualities) of themselves -- ardent, alert, and vigilant -- setting aside greed and grief with regard to the world” (SN 48.10).
 

The full discussion of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (DN 22) starts with instructions on the simplest exercise of 14 mentioned to be ever mindful of the breath.

Directions such as “bring bare attention to the breath,” or “accept the breath,” or whatever else modern teachers tell us that mindfulness is supposed to do, are actually functions for other qualities in the mind. They're not automatically a part of sati but should nevertheless be brought along wherever they are appropriate.

 

One quality that is always appropriate in establishing mindfulness is being watchful or alert, attentive or vigilant. The Pali word for alertness (sampajañña) is another term that is often misunderstood. It does not mean being choicelessly aware of the present or comprehending the present. Examples in the Pali canon show that "clear comprehension" (sampajañña) means being aware of what we are doing in the movements of the body as well as the movements in the mind.

 

After all, if we are going to gain insight into how we cause suffering (disappointment, distress, dissatisfaction, ill, woe), our primary focus always has to be on what we are actually doing. This is why mindfulness and alertness should always be paired as we meditate.

 

Thai meditation hut, or kuti, turned into a devotional shrine (Richard-Perry/flickr)

.

In the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra (Satipatthana Sutta, literally the "Discourse on the Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness") they are combined with a third quality, ardency. Ardency means being intent on what we are doing, doing our best to do it skillfully. This does NOT mean straining and overexerting -- which is out of balance and retards and often derails practice -- just that we are persistent, dedicated to continuously developing skillful habits and as well as abandoning unskillful ones.

Bear in mind that, in the Noble Eightfold Path to freedom, right mindfulness grows out of right effort, which itself has four features. Right effort is exerting ourselves skillfully (with balanced effort). Mindfulness helps that effort along by reminding us to stick with it without lapsing, without letting it drop. We would not be able to sustain overexertion and would instead lapse, but balanced effort can be maintained until it is brought to fruition, to culmination, to perfection.

 

All three of these qualities get their focus from what the Buddha called "wise attention" (yoniso manasikara). Wise attention is appropriate attention, not bare attention, which is mindfulness free of evaluation, thinking, and judging. The Buddha discovered that the way we attend to things is determined by what we see as important, such as the questions we bring to the practice, the problems we want the practice to solve. No act of attention is ever completely bare.

If there were no problems in life we could open ourselves up to choiceless awareness of whatever came along. But the fact is there is a big problem in the middle of everything we do -- the suffering that results from acting in ignorance. This is why the Buddha does not tell us to view each moment with a beginner's eyes. We have got to keep the issue of suffering and its cessation ever in mind.

 

Otherwise inappropriate attention will get in the way, focusing on questions like, “Who am I?” “Do I have a self?” -- questions that deal in terms of being and identity. Such questions, according to the Buddha, lead us straight into a meandering thicket of views soon stuck on thorns.

The questions that lead to freedom, on the other hand, focus on comprehending suffering, letting go of the cause of suffering, realizing that there is indeed freedom from suffering, and developing the path that leads to the cessation of suffering.

Our desire for answers to these four ennobling questions is what makes us alert to our actions -- our thoughts, words, and deeds -- and ardent to perform them skillfully (beneficial or at least harmless to ourselves and others).

Mindfulness is what keeps the perspective of wise attention in mind. Modern research in psychology shows that attention comes in discrete (separate, distinguishable, composite) moments. We can be attentive to something for only a very short period of time and then we have to remind ourselves, moment after moment, to return to it if we want to keep being attentive. In other words, continuous attention -- the type that can observe things over time -- has to be stitched together from short intervals. This is what mindfulness is for. It keeps the object of our attention and the purpose of our attention in mind.

 

Popular books on meditation, however, offer a lot of other definitions of mindfulness, a lot of other duties it is supposed to fulfill -- so many that the poor word gets stretched completely out of shape, becomes a catchall term, and loses meaning. In some cases, it even gets defined as enlightenment or awakening, as in the phrase, “A moment of mindfulness is a moment of awakening” -- something the Buddha never said nor would say, because mindfulness is conditioned whereas nirvana is not.

 

These are not merely minor matters for nitpicking scholars to argue over. If we do not see the differences among the qualities we are bringing to our meditation, they glom together, making it hard for liberating insight to arise. If we decide that one of the factors on the path to enlightenment is awakening itself, it is like reaching the middle of a road and then falling asleep right there. We will never get to the end of the road, and in the meantime we are bound to get run over by old age, sickness, and death (which are also manifestations of suffering). So we need to get our directions straight, and that requires, among other things, knowing what mindfulness is and is not.

 

Some even refer to mindfulness as “affectionate attention” or “compassionate attention,” but affection and compassion are not the same as mindfulness. They are separate things. If we bring them to our meditation, let us be clear about the fact that they are acting in addition to mindfulness, because skill in meditation requires seeing when qualities like compassion are helpful and when they are not. As the Buddha says, there are times when affection is a cause of suffering, so we must watch out.

 

Sometimes mindfulness is even defined as appreciating the moment for all the little pleasures it can offer, the taste of a raisin in the sun, the feel of a warm cup of tea in our hands, and so on. In the Buddha's vocabulary, this kind of appreciation is called contentment. Contentment is useful when we are experiencing physical hardship, but it is not always useful in the area of the mind. In fact, the Buddha once said that the secret to his own enlightenment was that he did not allow himself to rest contented with whatever attainment he had so far reached. He kept reaching for something higher when there was something higher yet to attain until there was no higher to reach. So contentment has a time and place: coming too soon, it may way derail our efforts. Mindfulness, not mismatched with contentment, can help keep that fact in mind.

 

Other teachers define mindfulness as “non-reactivity” or “radical acceptance.” If we look for these words in the Buddha's vocabulary, the closest we find are equanimity and patience. Equanimity means learning to set aside our preferences so that we can watch what is actually there. Patience is the ability to refrain from getting worked up over the things we dislike, to stick with difficult situations even when they do not resolve as quickly as we would like them to. But in establishing mindfulness we stay with, tolerate, and stand by unpleasant things not only to accept them but to watch and understand them. Once we have clearly seen that a particular state, like aversion or lust, is harmful to the mind/heart, we do not stay patient or equanimous about it. We have to make whatever effort is needed to rid  ourselves of it and to nourish skillful qualities in its place by bringing in other factors of the Noble Eightfold Path like right resolve and right effort. More

"Effort" to practice Buddhism (sutra)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka Thera, Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (4th Edition edited by Ven. Nyanaponika, BPS.lk)

The Buddha in gold, brass, and stone, Thailand (MarmaladeToast flickr.com)

  

Under a sprawling pipal tree -- bodhi!

The Four Right Efforts (samma-padhāna), which together form the sixth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, are the effort: (1) to avoid, (2) to overcome, (3) to develop, and (4) to maintain. That is to say:

One endeavors, strives, makes an effort to avoid unwholesome states (generally, those states motivated by greed, hatred/fear, or delusion/wrong view) that are not yet present.

One endeavors to overcome unwholesome states that arise. 

One develops wholesome states (generally, those motivated by nongreed, nonhatred/nonfear, and nondelusion) -- such as the Seven Factors of Enlightenment.

 

One endeavors to maintain (and consummate, bring to culmination, fruition) wholesome states that have arisen. 

SUTRA 

"Numerical Discourses of the Buddha" (Anguttara Nikaya)

Intensive sitting meditation is one kind of striving (meditationguidance.com)

 
"The meditator rouses the will to avoid the arising of harmful, unwholesome things not yet arisen... to overcome them... to develop wholesome things not yet arisen... [and] to maintain them, without allowing them to disappear, to bring them to growth, to maturity, and to the full perfection of development. One makes (a balanced) effort, rouses energy, exerts mind/heart, and strives" (AN IV, 13).  
 
NOTE: It is critical to bear in mind that overexertion is not right effort. The Buddha did not succeed under the Bodhi tree by overexerting as so many assume by not reading carefully. It is exactly because of struggling and overexertion that he could not succeed. Only when Siddhartha relaxed and began making a balanced-effort, which included the purifying meditative-absorptions (jhanas) he had fearfully been avoiding for years, did he finally reach the path to insight and enlightenment. He let go, allowed bliss of absorption and, remaining attentive, emerged to practice Dependent Origination -- the systematic pursuit of the 12 causal links that make up suffering. Siddhartha had set originally off to find the solution to the problem of suffering, so he asked: "Why is there suffering?" The practice of Dependent Origination answers this question through mindful application, insight-practice (vipassana), which begins as the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (on body, feelings, mind, and mind states). In this connection, the Buddha once taught a famous lute player to neither over-tighten nor under-tighten the strings of the instrument. Balance is the way to get the right sound -- balance between overexerting and underexerting.

Hi, I'm meditating (Kirsten Johnson)

(1) "What now, O meditators, is the effort to avoid? Perceiving a form, or a sound, or an odor, or a taste, or a bodily or mental impression, the medtitator neither adheres to (clings to, is entranced by) the whole nor to its parts. And one strives to ward off that through which harmful and unwholesome things might arise, such as greed and sorrow, if one remained with unguarded senses. And one watches over the (six) senses, restrains the senses. This is called the effort to avoid.

 

(2) "What now is the effort to overcome? The meditator does not retain any thought of sensual lust, or any other harmful, unwholesome states that may have arisen. One abandons them, dispels them, destroys them, causes them to disappear. This is called the effort to overcome.

 

(3) "What now is the effort to develop? The meditator develops the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, bent on solitude, on detachment, on extinction, and ending in liberation (deliverance, emancipation, nirvana), namely: mindfulness, keen investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration (collectedness of mind), and equanimity. This is called the effort to develop.

 

OK, breaktime! (Vincenzo Rossi/flickr)

(4) "What now is the effort to maintain? The meditator keeps firmly in mind (attention) a favorable object of concentration, such as the mental image (nimitta) of [light, or the cemetery meditations of] a skeleton, a (very repulsive) corpse infested with worms, a corpse blue-black in color, a festering corpse, a corpse riddled with holes, a corpse swollen up. [In this way, one frequently given to lust is temporarily freed of lust so insight may dawn and permanently free one of hindrances, fetters, and defilements.] This is called the effort to maintain" (AN IV, 14).

Hiking to Native American Los Angeles

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Arroyo Seco Foundation; SaveHahamongna.org

Which "devil"? Hungry Sasquatch, angry watershed floods, silly rock formation? (ASF)

Pasadena opposes what LA proposes: future site after removal of all life and silt (ASF)

  

L.A. watershed (savehahamongna.org)

HAHAMONGNA, Arroyo Seco - "Learn to identify local native plants on this hike through the Arroyo, along with the various food, medicinal, spiritual, and practical uses that this rich habitat provided to the area's original inhabitants" screamed the poster.

 

Tongva villages of the Los Angeles basin

We were in! We met up at the world-famous Rose Bowl Stadium ready to hike to the Jet Propulsion Lab site Saturday morning. Everyone gathered, eager to learn, socialize, and smell the aromatic chaparral, flowers, and berries. 

  

Volunteering to clean the Arroyo (ASF)

There are Hollywood (toyon), elder, and manzanita berries. Wild buckwheat and a variety of acorns are staple foods. Coyote bush cures poison ivy and oak rash. Mule fat wood is best for fire sticks, and mugwort gives sweet dreams and keeps embers burning. Outreach Coordinator Tim Martinez taught us well. Meanwhile, on another ridge miles to the east, the Colby fire was smoldering and only 30% contained.

Tongva/Los Angeles River, foothills, and San Gabriel Valley (Hometown-Pasadena.com)

   

Who were the Native Americans here, the First Nation people of Los Angeles? They were the Tongva (Gabrieliño, Fernandeño, Nicoleño -- Europeanized names after Spanish colonization). The name is disputed; the people are not. There were various minor tribes, and everyone fled to Mexico to save their lives from the Anglo invaders from the east coast.

WILD PLANTS: In Australia, a walkabout is a sacred rite of passage one undergoes to find oneself by being immersed in nature. In SoCal, the Hahamongna Walkabout, hosted by Tim Martinez (ASF), seeks to inspire by guided tours through this rare spot near JPL (kcet.org).

 

Healing With Medicinal Plants

Save Hahamongna from bulldozers!
HOW TO: Wilderness Survival Skills (PrimitiveWays.com)
Healing with Medicinal Plants of the West: Cultural and Scientific Basis for Their Use (by Chumash healing woman)
Medicinal Plants of the American West 

Study proposes L.A. River/Arroyo Seco confluence urban riverfront

WITS (Minn. Public Radio)

First Buddhist University, USA

ZEN: Roshi Joan Halifax (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Krista Tippett (onbeing.org, 12-26-13), Roshi Joan Halifax (upaya.org)

"The craft of loving-kindness is the everyday face of wisdom and the ordinary hand of compassion. This wisdom face, this hand of mercy, is never realized alone but always with and through others." - Roshi Joan Halifax (upaya.org)

 

Joan Halifax on Compassion's Edge States and Caring Better

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the bad news and horrific pictures in the world. This is a form of empathy, Joan Halifax says, that works against us. The Zen abbess (Upaya.org) and medical anthropologist has bracing, nourishing thoughts on finding buoyancy rather than burnout -- or compassion fatigue -- in how we work, live, and care.

• Unedited interview: Joan Halifax
• Radio Show/Podcast (MP3, 51:06) 
• Learn More about the Show

(Library of Congress) Joan Halifax talks about empathy and compassion

on the part of caregivers who are tending to the ill and dying. 

Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priestess, medical anthropologist, and author. She is founder, abbess, and head teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has worked in the area of death and dying for over 30 years and is director of the Project On Being with Dying. For the past 25 years, she has been active in environmental work.

• Free energy will transform and save the world
• Guardian angels (devas) or psychological aberration?
• Padmanadi vegan restaurant Edmonton, Alberta

Explaining "Right View" (sutra)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; John Bullitt (Access to Insight), "Right View"

The Buddha overlooking Thailand (theskamantues'dayglory/flickr.com). NOTE: There is preliminary right view as distinguished from final knowledge or liberating right view.

 

Right view is the first of the eight factors in the Noble Eightfold Path, and belongs to the wisdom division of the path.

Definition

"And what is right view? Knowledge with regard to disappointment, knowledge with regard to the origin of disappointment, knowledge with regard to the cessation of disappointment, knowledge with regard to the path of practice leading to the cessation of disappointment -- this is called right view" (DN 22).

Right view's relation to the path

"And how is right view the forerunner? One discerns wrong view as wrong view, and right view as right view. This is one's right view. What is wrong view? 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no [special significance to things done to] mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no Brahmins or wandering ascetics who, faring and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves.' This is wrong view...
 
"One abandons wrong view to enter into right view: This is one's right effort. One is mindful to abandon wrong view to enter and remain in right view: This is one's right mindfulness. Therefore, these three qualities -- right view, right effort, right mindfulness -- run and circle around right view" (MN 117).

Buddhist novices practicing in Lamayuru monastery, Ladakh, India (Dietmar Temps/flickr)

 
Consequences of wrong view

"In a person of wrong view, wrong intention comes into being. In a person of wrong intention, wrong speech. In a person of wrong speech, wrong action. In a person of wrong action, wrong livelihood. In a person of wrong livelihood, wrong effort. In a person of wrong effort, wrong mindfulness. In a person of wrong mindfulness, wrong concentration. In a person of wrong concentration, wrong wisdom. In a person of wrong wisdom, wrong liberation. This is how from wrongness comes failure, not success" (AN 10.103).

Results of right view

Borobudur, Java, Indonesia (TrevThompson/flickr)

"When a person has right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right wisdom, and right liberation, whatever bodily deeds one undertakes in line with that view, whatever verbal deeds... whatever mental deeds one undertakes in line with that view, whatever intentions, whatever vows, whatever determinations, whatever formations all lead to what is welcome, agreeable, charming, profitable, and pleasing. Why is that? It is because the view is auspicious.

"Just as when a sugar cane seed, a rice grain, or a grape seed is placed in moist soil, whatever nutriment it takes from the soil and water, all conduces to its sweetness, tastiness, and unalloyed delectability.
 
Why is that? It is because the seed is auspicious. In the same way, when a person has right view... right liberation, whatever bodily deeds one undertakes in line with that view, whatever verbal deeds... whatever mental deeds one undertakes in line with that view, whatever intentions, whatever vows, whatever determinations, whatever formations -- all of them lead to what is welcome, agreeable, charming, profitable, and pleasing. Why is that? It is because the view is auspicious" (AN 10.104).
 
A thicket of wrong views

Bamboo thicket (Maxwell Holden/flickr)

"There is the case where an uninstructed, ignorant worldling... does not discern what ideas are fit for attention and what ideas are unfit for attention. This being so, one does not attend to ideas fit for attention, and instead one attends to ideas unfit for attention... This is how one gives attention unprofitably:

• 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past?
• What was I in the past? How was I in the past?
• Having been what, what was I in the past?
• Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future?
• What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future?
• Having been what, what shall I be in the future?'

Or one is perplexed about the present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'

 

"As one attends unprofitably in this way, one of six kinds of view arises: 

• the view I have a self arises in one as true and established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or
• the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises as true and established, or
• the view: This very self of mine -- the knower who is sensitive here and there to the ripening of good and bad actions -- is the self of mine who is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will endure as long as eternity.'

Meditation (health.indianetzone.com)

"This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed, ignorant worldling is not freed from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair. One is not freed, I tell you, from suffering and disappointment.

 

"The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones... discerns what ideas are fit for attention, and what ideas are unfit for attention. This being the case, one does not attend to ideas unfit for attention, and instead gives attention to ideas fit for attention... One attends profitably, This is disappointment... This is the origin of disappointment... This is the cessation of disappointment... This is the way leading to the cessation of disappointment. As one attends appropriately in this way, three fetters [obstacles to enlightenment and liberation from suffering] are abandoned: identity-view, doubt, and clinging to rites and rituals [as if they had the power to lead to enlightenment]" (MN 2).

 

Knowing and seeing for oneself

Novice meditating (alibaba.com)

[Kaccayana:] "'Right view, right view,' it is said, venerable sir. To what extent is there right view?"
 
[The Buddha:] "By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (a false dichotomy) a polarity -- that of existence and non-existence (being and nonbeing, the twin wrong views of eternalism and annihalationism).

"But when one sees the origin of the world as it actually is with right view, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right view, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.
 

Meditation (SeekingHeartwood/flickr)

"By and large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings, and biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of mind, biases, or obsessions, nor is one resolved on 'my self.' One has no doubt or uncertainty that, when there is arising (origination, becoming, being), only unsatisfactoriness is arising. And when there is passing away, only unsatisfactoriness is passing away. In this, one's knowledge is independent of others. It is to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view" (SN 12.15).

Abandoning the unskillful

                                  ...Cultivating the skillful

Meditation superhero (msnbc.msn.com)

"Do not go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scriptures, by logical speculations, by inferences, by analogies, by agreement through pondering, by probability, or by the thought, 'This monastic is our teacher.'

"[Instead,] when you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, they lead to harm and to suffering' -- then abandon them...
 
"When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness' -- then enter and remain in them" (AN 3.65).

• Sutra on Views (AN 10.93)
• The Four Noble Truths
• The Fourth Noble Truth
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"Ode to Failure" (short film)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly and Tamara Levitt (BeginWithin.ca)

Written, illustrated, produced by Tamara Levitt with audio recorded by Peter Willis, digital painting by Natalia Shevcun and Tamara Levitt

 

BeginWithinTV

Imagine a short film that involved themes of acceptance, compassion, and self-awareness. How lovely to share an "Ode to Failure" with all who strive, those who have fallen, those who have yet to fall. Who among us will be getting up again? Worldly success, meditative success, ego accomplishments, selfless accomplishments, there are many things to move toward energetically. Gratitude can follow failure, just as expectations are likely to be followed by resentments. We try and we try, muscling it rather than enjoying effortful-ease (sthirasukha, strong-flexibility, soft-strength) all the time forgetting that Happiness Doesn't Come from Headstands.