Right Resolve
After seeing the danger in desire with Right View, one has to look at motivations on how to navigate happiness. There’s now an interest to investigate motivations and to rate their value. It can be translated in many different ways, but Thanissaro Bhikkhu calls it Right Resolve. It can be looked at as Right Intention, Motivation, Thinking, etc. In SN 45:8 the focus is to look at desire and treat it in a long-term fashion. “Resolve for renunciation, resolve for non-ill will, resolve for harmlessness.” A lot of desire is imitated and people are daydreaming about the same things and bumping into each other with conflict, yet that insight should make it more predictable. Since desires are never completely satisfying, the reality is that you can do without many of those things you lust after because once you have them it doesn’t take long for the mind to ask “what’s next?” To be far seeing, to bring up imagery in the mind, which creates emotions and motivation, can actually tap into past experiences of novelty and boredom. If the mind can feel the boredom without the need to go into the experience then it’s an energy saving and there’s a natural motivation to renounce without the need of force.
Thanissaro reminds that “the more skillful you are in your search for happiness, the lighter you tread on this Earth—because you realize that happiness, to be true and lasting, has to be harmless, something that doesn’t take anything away from anyone else. Which means that it has to come from within…So that’s what we’re doing as we meditate: We’re looking for a harmless happiness. This is a very important way of being kind to others. Sometimes meditation is denounced as a selfish activity because you seem to be just looking after yourself. But people who know how to look after themselves are less of a burden on other people. That’s why these skills are an expression of kindness.”
In the MN 117 it can be a form of deliberation but it also connects with concentration when the 1st jhana is attained and the mind naturally quiets down its effluents. “And what is right resolve? Right resolve, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right resolve with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions; there is right resolve that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.” It means you’re mind has the goal of pleasure in the safety of concentration so that the mental talk and goal orientation is interested in the concentration and not wandering to other areas. You’re riveted and interested in the concentration like you would normally be entranced by external things. “And what is the right resolve that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The thinking, directed thinking, resolve, mental fixity, mental transfixion, focused awareness, & verbal fabrications in one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is without effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right resolve that is noble, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.”
Right View makes it possible to be sensitive to pain that was ignored before. Right Resolve is about learning the lesson from the pain and intending differently to not need repeated lessons. Ultimately these causes and effects are all connected in the Eightfold Path and reinforce each other. Even as a lay person who wants stuff to enjoy, there has to be a cognizance of how you feel after the activity. The better you feel after an activity, and the less damage done to others, the more sustainable that pleasure is.
The late Thich Nhat Hanh asked his students “what are you doing?” not in an accusatory way but to get them to let go of drifting and to see that things don’t need to be done in a rush to the end. He also asks “are you sure?” to allow one to check perceptions and to confirm their accuracy before being carried away. Right View allows one to see if a view being harbored is worth clinging to, and Right Resolve helps you check intentions and thinking so that it’s steering you in the right direction before there’s an action. We don’t have to believe everything we think, but the momentum can start quickly if we don’t catch it with mindfulness. The unconscious habits are released all the time, almost like a test, and there needs to be a sifting. In MN 19 The Buddha is quoted as saying “whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.”
The reality is that renunciation is a big part of it. Certainly ill will and harmlessness is obvious, but with renunciation it is often harder to notice its value. Renunciation can be a different kind of pleasure which is more about peace. Taking on desires means taking on obligations and there are unintended consequences. Thoughts of sensual desire, ill will, and cruelty are quite powerful and it needs an effortful renunciation to get out of those powerful mind states. Again, the ability to be harmful and developing ill will is needed as a compromise to protect boundaries, but it really has to be worth it. In most cases it isn’t. Another reason for renunciation is to begin to enjoy relaxation of clinging and realize that it’s a good preparation for sickness and death. Relying on comforts to regulate emotions seems fine for many years but at some point when a person has trouble walking, moving, speaking, and if there’s chronic pain, then those comforts will fail to soothe.
Rob Burbea said “…inevitably the suffering there outweighs the pleasure. And a lot of it will be absolutely brutal…We’ve got a friend who works as a therapist, a counsellor for the NHS in hospital, working with cancer patients. And they come to her. They’re different ages, but most of them are sort of fifty-plus. And a lot of bitterness, often: people who have put money away, pensions, looked forward to retiring, with plans, with dreams, and those dreams are actually shattered, or really look like they’re going to be shattered. And oftentimes there’s a bitterness there – very, very difficult. We make plans, and when we’re young, we have a dream of how it’s going to be when I’m older, and what I’m going to do, and what I’m going to achieve, maybe. And then things don’t always turn out how we want. And then we get to an age where we actually can’t change it. You can’t change it. You can’t go back. You can’t really do anything about it. In a real sense, we’re trapped by this process. We’re trapped in this process of change and ageing. And it’s not easy to see that…If we open our eyes to it, there’s this enormity of the unstoppable flood of disappearing. It’s just like a waterfall. Everything’s heading to this waterfall, this precipice of disappearing – everything. We can’t keep anything as it is. We might try, but we can’t. Things, other people, certainly, relationships – very, very difficult, practically impossible. So things, relationships, people, they come together, and at some point they break apart. In different ways, they fall apart. They can’t sustain that togetherness.”
Beginning to look ahead at the inevitable decline and death helps us to look at the wear and tear of activities and conflict, but also the mind states of ill will that are there ahead of time and motivating those actions. One of the protections is that of Metta, or Loving-Kindness, or Well-wishing, depending on how one translates it. The benefits of wishing well for others, including the skill of putting oneself in another’s shoes, is that you are capable of delighting in the success of others, especially if one has a strong sense of impermanence. Having jealousy and ill will when life itself is temporary, that insight should be enough to relax the envy. AN 11:16 looks at the benefits of Metta such as comfortable sleep, awakening from sleep in a state of peace, being free from evil dreams, people appreciate you, enjoying the protection of blamelessness, you have less enemies, you glow with serenity, the mind is less confused during death, and if you believe in rebirth, one is reborn to a better life.
The main area of Metta practice is to give love without partiality to as many sentient beings as can be included. Nyanaponika Thera says that “The low-minded and evil-minded are included because they are those who are most in need of love. In many of them the seed of goodness may have died merely because warmth was lacking for its growth, because it perished from cold in a loveless world.” For many who feel undeserving, the inclusion of love for oneself is important. A co-dependency can arise with these practices if there’s not enough stable self-esteem, which needs to understand that you are a human, you are alive, and you have potential endeavours that matter to you, but also to others. This means you can protect yourself and regenerate your energy so that a slave mentality doesn’t develop where people work and slave and expect nothing in return. Trying to save the world by yourself leads to burnout and exhaustion. The irony is pointed out by Thich Nhat Hanh who suggests that proselytizing Buddhism is better by role modeling and by example. People are more drawn to seeing happiness in others as the legitimate proof needed for imitation of behaviors.
How do I stay in the present moment when it feels unbearable? – Thich Nhat Hanh: https://youtu.be/t5Ka2RS0UC4
Having compassion for oneself gives enough energy and sustenance so that compassion for others is possible. Being compassionate for others doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries, but one looks at the suffering of others and knows that causes and effects have led to those results and one can wish for better causes and effects. This also means that thoughts of compassion can lead to actions that deal with the reduction of pain and suffering in those causes and effects. Whether someone takes up being a doctor directly or some other activity that reduces pain in myriad other ways, the intention goes in the right way. If one makes products, are those products toxic or flimsily constructed so as to be dangerous? Even gainful employment where the subject sees how pleasure is increased and pain decreased by the services can be a guiding force for Right Livelihood.
Sympathetic Joy in the success of others in the Metta practice can show up in multiple ways. The success of others can be models for our imitation, especially if it’s a virtuous thing they are achieving. If they can be successful, the envy dies away if we feel we can take inspiration for our own success. Envy has a pernicious hold where it looks at everything as a finite pie, but ignores accumulation and how it works in an economy. Esther Hicks in particular reminds her audience that “getting sick so that others get well,” or “getting poor enough so that others get rich,” doesn’t work. It just means that both people are now sick. Allowing sympathetic joy for others helps to create an atmosphere where our success can also be applauded. A rare vision indeed. It also provides motivation for picking oneself up after a failure.
Stop Trying To Fix The Problems Of Others – Esther Hicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ZXFiVL5n0
Equanimity is the 4th Sublime State, a fail safe for when things inevitably fall apart. We can wish the best for others, but our influence is limited. Because of imitation, or mimetics, people are often more influenced by our happiness and outward showings of savoring, so our love for ourselves, not narcissism, but self-parenting and taking good care of ourselves, is often the best influence we can create. An indirect but powerful influence. If we are asked for advice, we have to be equanimous to the point where it’s up to each individual to heed advice. There is sickness and death as well and accepting that there’s only so much help a person can do can save energy from excessive grieving and motivate one to move onto the next positive project instead of wallowing. The equanimity can also drift towards ourselves because we will have periods of strength in our lives and times when we can’t help anyone else and have to retreat to ourselves.
These Right Determinations help to connect to Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. The difficulty for many people to develop these compassion practices is because of how dangerous the world is. People realize that to an extreme, these practices ignore predatory behavior and injustice. The Dalai Lama discusses this problem in his understanding of Compassionate Wrath in the segment on Right Action. There is a healthy use of anger, and anger can have compassion sometimes.
Right Resolve – Jill Shepherd: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/31324/
MN 19: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN19.html
Beyond Impermanence – Rob Burbea: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/10830/
The Heart Of The Buddha’s Teaching – Thich Nhat Hanh: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780767903691/
AN 11:16: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an11/an11.016.piya.html
The Four Sublime States – Nyanaponika Thera: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/4sublime_states.pdf
Contemplative Practice: https://psychreviews.org/category/contemplativepractice/