The Desire to Make a Difference

Concentration and discernment play a reciprocal role on the path to the end of suffering. Each needs the other to complete its work. The Buddha states this fact in the Dhammapada:

	    There’s 		no jhāna
       for one with 		no discernment,
				no discernment
       for one with 		no jhāna.
       But one with 	both jhāna
				& discernment:
		he’s on the verge
			of unbinding.  — Dhp 372

“Jhāna,” here, stands for the four stages of right concentration. “Discernment” in this case is usually interpreted as meaning right view. And it’s easy to see why: Right view, expressed in terms of the four noble truths and dependent co-arising, provides a map for how states of mind are fabricated in the present moment. This helps you to understand what needs to be done to fabricate a present-moment state of concentration.

Reciprocally, the stillness of right concentration allows you to see events in the mind most clearly—both as you use the processes of fabrication to get the mind into jhāna, and as the mind remains still and alert all around once it’s there. That enables you to perform the duties appropriate to the four noble truths on very refined levels and ultimately to attain awakening (AN 9:36).

However, in terms of the noble eightfold path, “discernment” covers more than just right view. It also includes right resolve (MN 44), and there’s a lot to be learned by exploring the role that right resolve plays relative to right view, to right concentration, and to the interplay between the two.

• With regard to right view, right resolve shows that discernment isn’t fully discerning until it wills to act on the knowledge that right view provides. If you’re really wise, you can’t just read and contemplate the four noble truths about suffering. You have to will to abandon any mind states that get in the way of the path that brings suffering to an end. At the same time, the Buddha sometimes teaches the values of right resolve to prepare his listeners to accept the principles of right view in the first place. So there’s a reciprocal relationship between the two.

• With regard to right concentration, right resolve articulates the values needed to clear the mind so that it can settle down rightly. Right concentration then transcends right resolve when it has absorbed those values and no longer needs to have them articulated.

That’s where right view can do its more advanced work, whether taking the mind into deeper states of concentration or abandoning the causes of suffering altogether. When it abandons all those causes, all the factors of the path get abandoned as well, and the mind is totally unbound.

So even though right resolve doesn’t perform the final work of the path, it gets you started on the path and makes the final work possible. That means it’s a crucial factor to learn and to develop as a skill.

Right Resolve

The Pali term for “resolve,” saṅkappa, is sometimes translated as “thought” or “intention,” and although both translations capture part of the meaning of saṅkappa, neither captures the whole. “Thought” is partly right in that, as we’ll see, saṅkappa involves directed thought and evaluation, the Canon’s terms for your inner conversation when you talk to yourself in complete sentences (MN 117). However, “thought” doesn’t convey the fact that saṅkappa contains an element of will: what you aim for and plan. “Intention” captures the willed side of saṅkappa but Pali has another term for intention, cetanā, which plays a role in states of concentration where the mind is talking to itself in full sentences as well as states in which it’s not (MN 111). Saṅkappa, however, appears only in states of concentration where the mind is talking to itself in full sentences (MN 78).

For these reasons, “resolve” seems the best equivalent for the word.

Three resolves count as “right”: resolve on renunciation, resolve on non-ill will, and resolve on harmlessness. These terms are best understood with reference to their opposites, wrong resolves.

Renunciation is the opposite of sensuality. The Buddha defines sensuality, not as sensual pleasures, but as the mind’s fascination with its sensual fantasies.

The passion for his resolves is a man’s sensuality,
not the beautiful sensual pleasures
		found in the world.
The passion for his resolves is a man’s sensuality.

The beauties remain as they are in the world,
while, in this regard,
		the enlightened
		subdue their desire.  — AN 6:63

This means that, to resolve on renunciation, you aim at a happiness that doesn’t involve fantasies about pleasures of the senses—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations—and you look for higher pleasures instead. Those higher pleasures would include the pleasures of form—the body as felt from within when the mind is in a state of jhāna—or the pleasures of the formless states of concentration, such as those focused on perceptions of infinite space or infinite consciousness.

Non-ill will—the Pali term, abyāpāda, can also mean non-affliction—is the opposite of ill will, in which you wish to see either yourself or others suffer. To aim at developing attitudes of goodwill or equanimity, with the desire to act on those attitudes, would count as being resolved on non-ill will.

Harmlessness is the opposite of harmfulness, in which, even without ill will, you act in ways that cause people to suffer. This would cover cases in which you’re careless and callous, thinking that the sufferings of others—or your own sufferings that would come from bad karma—don’t really matter. You simply don’t care. To aim at an attitude of compassion, both for yourself and for others, with the desire to act on that compassion, would count as being resolved on harmlessness.

Right Resolve & Right View

The Buddha stated repeatedly that right resolve grows naturally out of right view. It’s an extension of the wisdom of right view in that it sees that right view is not just a statement of facts. It focuses on a specific issue—suffering and the end of suffering—and contains a value judgment: that it’s better not to suffer than to suffer. The first noble truth defines what suffering is, the third describes what constitutes its cessation. The second noble truth describes the actions that lead to suffering, whereas the fourth noble truth describes those that lead to the cessation of suffering.

The truths as a whole have a purpose. They aim at helping you realize the third truth, the cessation of suffering, and they show that you have a choice: You can continue to cause suffering by following the second truth, or you can bring about the end of suffering by following the fourth. In other words, you can make a difference by choosing which course of action to follow.

Right resolve is the articulate act of will that wants to make that difference. To do so, it realizes that you have to take responsibility for following through with that desire. The path to the end of suffering isn’t going to happen on its own. You have to choose to do it. In other words, the description of the path provided by right view is true, but on its own it can’t make that truth a reality. For the path to become a reality depends on you. You have to abandon within yourself any unskillful mind states that would get in the way of your following the path.

As the Buddha says in the Dhammapada:

I have taught you this path…

It’s for you to strive
	ardently.
Tathāgatas [Buddhas] simply
point out the way.  — Dhp 275–276

The wisdom of right view is like a map. As with all maps, it focuses on some aspects of reality and ignores others because it’s drawn with a purpose, just as a geological map is meant to serve the purposes of those looking for minerals, or a road map is meant to show you which routes you can take to get to your destination. The first map doesn’t need to show you the roads. The second map doesn’t need to show you where gold or silver can be found. As long as the purpose of the map is wise and it accurately provides all the details needed to serve that purpose, it’s a good map.

In the same way, the map of right view focuses on what you need to know to put an end to suffering. That’s its purpose. Other aspects of reality, unrelated to that purpose, won’t be found on the map.

The wisdom of right resolve sees that it’s not enough to gaze at the map provided by right view. If you’re really wise, you’ll do whatever is needed to follow it.

This, though, raises a question. Right view, in the second noble truth, states that suffering is caused by three types of craving: for sensuality, for becoming—the act of taking on an identity in a world of experience—and for non-becoming: the annihilation of your identity or the world in which it functions. However, right resolve focuses on only one of these forms of craving—for sensuality—and makes no mention of the other two. So why doesn’t it focus directly on abandoning all three forms of craving that cause suffering?

The answer can be found by looking at the context in which the Buddha taught the four noble truths. This is a point that’s all too often overlooked when people discuss his teachings. If you want to understand what he taught, you have to take into account what he’s trying to do as he teaches. This in turn requires having as sense of how he understood the act of teaching: how the Dhamma should be taught and how it should be listened to so as to attain the proximate goals and the ultimate goal at which it aims.

As we look into this issue, we find that the values of right resolve play an important role in preparing the mind to accept and act on right view in the first place. They also serve to take the mind into right concentration, but only as far as the first level. When we discuss right concentration below, we’ll see why.

In AN 5:151 the Buddha sets out five conditions for the ideal way to listen to a Dhamma talk—ideal in that they allow for people to gain their first taste of awakening while listening to the talk. That’s what he’s trying to do as he teaches. He’s not simply describing reality. He wants to make a difference: to effect a change for the better in the minds of those who are listening to what he says.

The five ideal conditions are these:

When the Buddha introduced the four noble truths to laypeople, he tried to create these five conditions in his listeners so that they would benefit most from what he had to say.

Instead of starting right in with the four truths, he would preface them with what’s called a gradual or step-by-step discourse. We don’t have the full text of any of these discourses, probably because the Buddha tailored each one to the needs and backgrounds of his listeners—they ranged all the way from lepers and hired killers to wealthy householders and kings—but we do have the overall outline he followed in every case.

He started with discussions of giving, virtue, and heaven. He proclaimed the drawbacks of, degradation in, and defilement in sensuality, and the rewards of renunciation. Then, when he saw that his listeners were “of ready mind, malleable mind, unhindered mind, exultant mind, confident mind,” he taught them the four noble truths (MN 56).

There’s a logic to the order in which the Buddha covered these topics. By affirming the value of giving and virtue, he showed his listeners that he was a principled teacher, unlike many of the teachers of his day who taught that giving and virtue were fruitless conventions and a waste of time. If his listeners had any sense of integrity—even hired killers can have a sense of right and wrong—they would recognize that the Buddha was affirming values worthy of respect. This would help to keep them from regarding the Buddha with contempt. If they themselves were already practicing giving and virtue, the affirmation that these activities were rewarded in heaven would encourage them not to regard themselves with contempt. In fact, it would gladden their hearts and minds: They were engaging in activities worthy of praise and worthy of reward. On hearing this, they would be unlikely to regard the Buddha’s talk with contempt. This would fulfill the first three of the five conditions.

But then the Buddha would try to persuade them to aim at higher rewards. By pointing out the drawbacks and degradation in the sensual pleasures of heaven, the Buddha was preparing the listeners to look favorably on states of mind devoid of sensuality—in other words, states of right concentration. When the listeners could gather their minds into oneness—this is the Canon’s standard definition for concentration (MN 44)—they were ready for the four noble truths. Then, in applying the questions informed by the four noble truths to their own minds, they would be engaging in appropriate attention (MN 2).

This covers all five conditions for the ideal way to listen to the Dhamma. So it’s easy to see why the Buddha was able to lead many of his listeners to their first taste of awakening when he introduced the four noble truths in this way.

Here it’s worth noting that, in taking this approach, the Buddha was teaching the principles of right resolve to his listeners even before he mentioned the four noble truths. The teachings on giving and virtue encouraged attitudes of non-ill will and harmlessness. The teachings on the drawbacks of sensuality encouraged a favorable attitude to renunciation. This means that right resolve doesn’t just follow on right view. The attitudes of right resolve, in seed form, also precede right view in preparing the mind to accept it.

Why the Buddha would focus on encouraging these specific attitudes through the graduated discourse relates to the fact that he was trying to get his listeners’ minds into a state of right concentration as they were listening. Only then would they be in the right frame of mind to accept and use the four noble truths in the most effective way. And to get their minds into this state, they had to will it. They couldn’t listen to the graduated discourse simply as an interesting parade of ideas and information. If they were to fully experience the truth of the four noble truths—and that would include at least a glimpse of the cessation of suffering—they had to will the path into being, all the way to the path’s last factor: right concentration. The three types of right resolve were just what they needed to exert that act of will.

Right Resolve & Right Concentration

The close connection between right resolve and right concentration is reflected in the standard description of how to enter the first of the four jhānas: Your mind has to be “secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful mental qualities” (SN 45:8). The word “secluded” here means that you don’t have to fully uproot sensuality or other unskillful qualities at this stage. You simply have to be careful to stay away from them. Sensual desire is listed as one of the hindrances to right concentration, as is ill will (DN 2). This means that two of the principles of right resolve—renunciation and non-ill will—are explicitly mentioned as necessary for entering the first jhāna.

As for the third principle, harmfulness, it’s not listed explicitly as a hindrance to right concentration, but because purified virtue acts as a basis for right mindfulness and right concentration (SN 47:16), and because purified virtue is the embodiment of harmlessness, the need to put aside thoughts of harm can be implicitly understood as a basis for right concentration as well.

Here it’s important to note that, in abandoning the pleasures of sensuality, the mind isn’t deprived of pleasure. The first two jhānas are characterized by physical and mental pleasure and rapture; in the third jhāna, you experience equanimity of mind while sensing pleasure with the body. In all three of these levels, you’re said to suffuse these feelings throughout the body, so that no part of the body is unpervaded by them (DN 2; MN 117).

The physical pleasure here, however, is not sensual. An example would be the pleasure associated with mindfulness of in-and-out breathing (MN 118). The Buddha classifies the in-and-out breath, not as a tactile sensation at the nose or skin, but as part of the “wind property” that permeates the entire body as felt from within—what we at present call proprioception (MN 28; MN 140). As the Buddha notes, even though you may have insight into the drawbacks of sensuality, it’s only when you can experience the non-sensual pleasures attained in this way that you can resist the pull of sensuality (MN 14). You’ve got an alternative pleasure to keep the mind’s desire for pleasure well-fed.

This is an example of how the practice of right concentration puts the principles of right resolve on a firm foundation. Sensuality and ill will aren’t fully abandoned until the attainment of non-return, the third of the four levels of awakening, but that’s also the level at which the practice of right concentration is fully mastered (AN 3:87).

The connection between right resolve and the first jhāna is so close that your resolves become totally right only when you enter the first jhāna.

In fact, when the Buddha describes the highest level of right resolve, it’s equivalent to the mental activities that get the mind into the first jhāna and keep it there:

Of the various levels of right concentration, the first jhāna is the only one that contains the verbal fabrications of directed thought and evaluation. This means that, as right resolve succeeds in getting the mind into the first jhāna, it becomes part of that jhāna. And because, for some people, the first jhāna is a sufficient basis for the discernment that leads to awakening (AN 9:36), right resolve can fulfill its purpose in taking the mind that far.

What’s interesting to note is that it goes no further. It doesn’t lead to any of the higher levels of jhāna, nor does it get involved in the work of discernment based on the jhānas.

Starting with the second jhāna, directed thought and evaluation are abandoned because they’re no longer needed to keep the mind in place. In fact, it’s only when they’re abandoned that the mind can experience the assurance and unification of awareness characteristic of the second jhāna.

MN 125 shows this clearly:

At this stage, meditators don’t engage in any full-sentence thoughts even about the topic of their meditation—much less anything else—although their concentration is still anchored with perceptions, intentions, and acts of attention (MN 111). This is why even skillful resolves, which are expressed in acts of directed thought and evaluation, have to be transcended on reaching this stage.

The values of right resolve are still present as background attitudes in the mind, but they no longer have to be articulated as resolves as long as the mind is in states of concentration higher than the first. That’s because the focal issues of right resolve—sensuality, ill will, and harmfulness—are far away from these higher states, so there’s no need to resolve on their opposites. And the reason that right resolve doesn’t aim higher—say, at abandoning the rapture and pleasure of form in the higher jhānas—is because the work of getting the mind into higher states of concentration or of using discernment to abandon the causes of suffering is so refined and delicate that the Buddha calls it “attention,” “reflection,” and “inclining the mind,” rather than “thinking.” This means that any act of will expressed in the full sentences needed by right resolve would get in the way. This is why resolves, even when they’re skillful and right, can go no further than the first jhāna.

The fact that right resolve can go only so far also explains why it doesn’t focus directly on renouncing all three types of craving. The jhānas themselves are states of becoming needed on the path: You, as a meditator, fully inhabit the world of your body. To master any of these jhānas requires that you disband any states of becoming—any thought worlds—that would distract you from their focus. So the practice of the jhānas, for those who aren’t fully awakened, involves both becoming and non-becoming. If right resolve aimed at rooting out craving for becoming and non-becoming, it would abort states of right concentration before they could fulfill their function. Only when those states are mastered can they be put aside through dispassion. The ability to develop that dispassion is the work of right view, expressed in the activity of appropriate attention.

For its part, right resolve focuses on setting the stage for this work, fulfilling the factors of the path all the way to the first level of right concentration. If it didn’t do this preparatory work, right view would remain on the level of a map—interesting, but inert; easy to fold up and lose. Right resolve is what gets you started on your journey along the path, so that eventually you can fulfill the compassionate purpose that the map was meant to serve.