Initiative

The forest ajaans always had a very strong response to the accusation that Buddhism teaches people to be lazy: that we should simply accept everything; that all we need is a paradigm shift in our minds; how realizing that there’s nobody here doing anything somehow should solve the problem; that we should be content with whatever mind states come up, and not think that we have to do anything about them. They would have no time for that kind of thinking.

Ajaan Fuang would quote the passage where the Buddha says that it’s through effort that suffering is overcome: viriyena dukkhamaccheti. Ajaan Suwat would point out the fact that the Buddha’s teachings on how to find happiness in this lifetime start with initiative: rolling up your sleeves—if you have sleeves—and plunging right in to do what needs to be done.

It’s part of a longer list of the things that you need to do to be happy in this lifetime. You start with initiative. You realize that if you’re going to gain any wealth or security in this lifetime, you’ve got to do the work. You’ve got to be willing to sacrifice present comfort for the sake of future well-being.

Like the story of the ant and the grasshopper: The grasshopper is singing, singing, singing away in the summer. The ant is very busy finding food and storing it. The grasshopper says to the ant, “Why are you working so hard? It’s so nice outside. Enjoy the warmth of the summer.” The ant says, “No, I have to prepare for the winter.” Of course, when the winter comes, the grasshopper dies, but the ant is secure.

That’s the attitude that the forest ajaans would hold. Many of them came from poor families, and they had a very strong sense that they needed to do something to get out of that poverty. It wasn’t going to happen on its own, so they did what had to be done.

That’s the meaning that they derived from the phrase, “practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma.” The Canon says it’s referring to the fact that you practice for the sake of dispassion. But for the forest ajaans, it also meant that whatever was required to develop the mind, you’d do it. If they had ever heard that saying from the third Chan patriarch, “The Great Way is not hard for those with no preferences,” they would have understood what it meant.

Of course you prefer wealth over poverty. Of course you prefer gaining freedom from suffering over suffering. But whatever you have to do to get there, you’re not going to let your preferences get in the way.

You don’t say, “Well, I don’t like doing that. That sounds too hard for me or too harsh for me.” You do what needs to be done. As long as your efforts are in line with right effort, right livelihood, and all the other right factors of the path, then really devoting yourself to that is not greed. It’s initiative, energy.

That’s the first principle for happiness.

The second principle is that whatever you’ve gained, you look after it. You maintain your wealth well. Whatever you have, you don’t just treat it casually.

There was one time when I almost dropped a cup, and Ajaan Fuang asked me, “What would you have done if the cup had actually dropped?”

I said, “We could get a new one.” I got a very strong and stern lecture about that. If something is breakable, you hold on tight. You worked hard to gain these things, so you don’t want to add more work for yourself by having to replace them. So you maintain your belongings, look after them well, and treat them with care.

The third principle is keeping your spending in line with what you’ve earned. Not too frugal, and certainly not spendthrift.

You might be surprised that the Buddha warned against being too frugal. If you’re stingy—like the people who make money, make money, but are afraid to spend it at all, and get no enjoyment out of it—you’re going to look down on people who do enjoy their wealth. The concept of mudita, being happy for the happiness of others, just doesn’t occur to you. It doesn’t get developed. If you don’t allow yourself to be happy, you don’t want anybody else to be happy, either. So you gain some joy from your wealth, but you don’t squander it.

And finally, the fourth principle is having admirable friends—but not only having admirable friends. You engage in admirable friendship, which means that if they have good qualities, and the Buddha gives a list—conviction, virtue, generosity, discernment—you try to emulate those qualities. You actually ask them, “How do you do this?”

If you have trouble being generous, ask people who are generous, “How do you do this? What is your way of thinking that allows you to be generous?”

If you have trouble sticking with the precepts, ask people who can stick with the precepts, “How do you go about this?” You engage in this kind of friendship so that you can be an admirable friend for yourself. After all, these are the qualities, the Buddha said, that lead beyond happiness in this lifetime and go into the next lifetime.

You can actually apply these same four principles to your meditation. To begin with, you want to make an effort. You want to have initiative. As Ajaan Fuang said, when they had four-hour meditation sessions every evening with Ajaan Lee, the sessions lasted from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. But even after the sessions were over, he didn’t just go back and crash in his hut. He would go back and meditate some more. He took the four hours as an absolute minimum.

I remember talking to a professional athlete who talked about how the desire to really excel was what made the difference in his sport, between those who were just happy they were playing on the professional level and those who were there to win.

Some people say, “Well, trying hard, trying to excel, is going to involve a sense of ego. It’s going to involve a sense of me or mine doing the work.” True, yet the Buddha encourages that. When he teaches how to learn from your actions, the questions you ask are these: Before you do something, there’s “this action I want to do.” While you’re doing the action, there’s “this action that I’m doing.” When the action is done, there’s “this action I have done.” The “I” is important there. It’s a sign of your willingness to take responsibility for your actions.

And that’s not just for the beginning levels.

There’s a passage on the development of mindfulness as a governing principle, in which you decide, “Any training that I haven’t mastered yet, I will master that training. And once I’ve mastered it, I will protect it with discernment. Whatever rudiments of the holy life I have yet to master, I will master them. And when I’ve mastered them, I will protect them with discernment. Whatever things I haven’t yet scrutinized with discernment, I will scrutinize them, and then I will protect my understanding. Whatever release I’ve found, if I haven’t found it yet, I will do it. Once I’ve found it, I will protect it.”

Again, “I will,” “I will,” “I will.” The Buddha doesn’t discourage a sense of “I” doing the practice.

There are some people who say that once you have an “I am” or “I am doing this” in your mind, then you’ve developed wrong view. You’re off the path.

But if that’s so, who’s going to do the path? It doesn’t do itself. You can’t expect the wisdom of the universe to come in and do it for you. You’ve got to be responsible. That’s the attitude you’ve got to have. “I’m sitting down here. I’m going to meditate. If my mind wanders away, I’m going to bring it back. If it wanders away again, I’m going to bring it back again. I’m not going to give in.” After all, you’re fighting not with people outside here. You’re fighting with other members of your committee or other members of the crowd you have in the mind. You need to have a clear sense of which of the many “I’s” and “me’s” in there you’re going to side with. You want to side with the ones who look for your long-term welfare and happiness.

In fact, that’s how discernment begins. You identify with the I who asks the question, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” You identify with the I who concludes, “I’m going to do the things that need to be done.” That’s the “I” in your committee that you want to identify with, to make it strong.

That’s initiative in your meditation.

Then, once you’ve attained concentration through your initiative, you protect it. You don’t throw it away. The mind settles down, the bell rings, you don’t just drop it. You try to hold it carefully as you get up, as you bow down. Maintain it as best you can.

This habit that some of us have of going back and spending a good half hour chatting after the evening meditation is a bad one. Each person should go back and protect whatever concentration they’ve had. That’s the second principle.

The third principle is that you enjoy your meditation, but don’t just wallow in it. There’s going to be a sense of well-being from the concentration, and it’s an important part of the concentration. After all, concentration is food for the other elements of the path. It’s what feeds the soldiers of the right effort. It feeds the gatekeeper of mindfulness. So gain some enjoyment, but don’t just wallow in the pleasure. If you wallow in the pleasure, you leave the breath and fall into delusion concentration. So have a sense of spending your pleasure in the most fruitful way.

And then finally, listen to the voices inside, listen to the voices outside, that advise you how to develop your conviction even further, how to develop your virtue, your generosity, and especially your discernment even further. Those are your friends.

So these principles, even though they’re mainly aimed at laypeople looking for a good livelihood, are also good for your livelihood as a meditator:

Initiative.

Protecting what you’ve got.

Spending it wisely. Enjoying your wealth wisely.

And developing admirable friendship.

Whatever desires you have in this direction, tell yourself, “I will pursue those desires,” because they’re good desires. Not all desire is bad. There’s the desire of right effort and the desire of right resolve. Once you’ve attained these qualities, do your best to protect them. Don’t throw them away.

That’s how you employ that principle of mindfulness as a governing principle. It applies both inside and out.