Five Implements of Skillful Means – Dharma Talk 7/4/10 repost
This material is an adendum to information in my latest book Important Matters
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Good morning, Happy Fourth of July! I hope your celebrations are fun, friendly and safe.
I am not sure about you, but I have had experiences in my life where I thought something was a good idea, something I might try or some project I might undertake, and then soon after find myself not completing what I set out to do.
With the best of intentions we come up with projects or determinations only to find that we never finished it, or perhaps never even really began. How many of us have successfully followed our New Year’s resolutions through to the end of the year?
Today, is roughly half way through the year, how many of our resolutions have we seen to completion? How many of the goals we laid out for ourselves have we seen come to fruition at this half way point in the year?
Even our practice of Buddhism, begun with good intent sometimes languishes in our pile of incomplete or half attempted objectives. While some projects are easily completed and free us to move on to other projects, other projects are much more complicated and require longer time to complete or more effort to resolve. Attaining Enlightenment while theoretically possible in actuality proves much more difficult. The path to Enlightenment is a long one, requiring continued effort, for there really is no terminus at which point we can say we are done. Enlightenment is not merely an objective but a process as well, for there is no there, there.
Setting out to do laundry is not the same as setting out to become enlightened. Sure, this seems silly, obvious, an understatement, yet in many ways they are identical for they involve many of the same kinds of steps, just perhaps over a longer period of time and with different amount of efforts and different skills.
So what is common about such mundane chores as housecleaning or laundry or grocery shopping and striving for Enlightenment? What is a common factor that we can identify in each of these that we might be able to actually use as a tool for completing the most difficult of tasks?
Recently one of the temple’s members donated a book to the temple titled; “The Essentials of Buddhist Meditation; The Essentials for Practicing Calming-and-Insight & Dhyana Meditation” by Chih-I translated by Bhikshu Dharmamitra published by Kalavinka Press 2009.
In this book there is one little section titled ‘Utilizing Skillful Means’. In this section Chih-I says that it is necessary to employ various skillful means as entryways to the Dharma, and he lists five of them. I was struck by how universal they actually were, how they would be beneficial to anyone regardless of the undertaking they were embarked upon, and of course how completely correct they are for our undertaking of a practice of the Dharma.
It is possible to see their truth in some of the most simple of undertakings which may help to illustrate the truth of these principles which are translated as; 1.) Zeal, 2.) Vigor, 3.) Mindfulness, 4.) Discernment, and 5.) Single-mindedness.
In some cases the word used by the translator is somewhat misleading but in all cases the translator offers other words to be sure we are clear about the meaning.
The first one, Zeal is also given as ‘aspiring to’, ‘having a fondness for’, or ‘taking pleasure in’. This points out the fact that as we undertake any endeavor we must first of all have a motivation for doing so. We have an aspiration to accomplish something or a liking to see something done. In other words we clearly need to have some motivation to propel us into action.
In the example of laundry, we have a desire to have clean clothes available for us to wear so we formulate an aspiration for this. We have a fondness for clean laundry, perhaps even folded and put away in drawers as opposed to laying all over the floor in our bed or bath room. Funny huh? And yet aren’t we constantly as Buddhists cultivating a mindfulness a desire to clean the laundry of our lives?
Sir John Denham says in his “The Sophy – A Tradegy”; “Nothing happens until something moves.” And so it is, nothing will happen in our lives until we actually do something. However merely doing something without employing skillful means may lead to unexpected and unfavorable results. As in the case of Zeal or Aspiring, if we do not have a clear motivation for accomplishing something then we may become unclear of or loose purpose in our endeavor.
The second, Vigor is also given as not quitting until the end. Quoting from the translation; “when one employs a friction drill to start a fire. So long as it has not become hot, one must refrain from resting.” In other words we not only have to continue until the conclusion we also must be as resolute and as determined half way through as we were when we first begin. If we stop half way then our result will not be achieved.
Some quotes to further illustrate the point are:
“I like villains because there’s something so attractive about a committed person — they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They’re motivated.” by Russell Crowe
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” by Peter F. Drucker
“A total commitment is paramount to reaching the ultimate in performance.” by Tom Flores
Imagine if we have formed the idea for clean laundry then put it all in the wash and then never take the time or make the effort to dry them? Well they would eventually dry on their own, but they may mildew and they certainly would be very wrinkled. I am not sure about you, but this idea doesn’t fit in with my original idea of clean clothes folded and put away in drawers. I am not sure if this is any better than merely picking up the clothes off the floor and re-wearing them.
So too with our effort to attain Enlightenment, to become Buddhas manifest in our present form. If we cultivate the desire to accomplish this but fail to follow through to completion we are not certain to attain our goal. We can not quit half way and expect favorable results.
Number three in Chih-i’s list is mindfulness. Here it is important to be keenly aware of every aspect of our aspiration, our motivation, and our effort for all of its good and bad outcomes. If we become too focused on our aspiration and our effort then we may fail to observe subtle changes occurring that may require us to make alterations in our strategy.
An example of this going back to the laundry analogy is if we are so focused on washing our clothes so intent on our objective we may not be aware that we have some item of white clothing mixed in with the darks which may come out discolored, or the reverse some item of dark clothing in with the whites to which we have added bleach. Or it is possible to make many other mistakes by being so focused on the act of running a washing machine full of clothing that we are not mindful of what we are actually doing.
A recent example of something that happened to me occurred the other day as the temple hosted a group of 12 students and their professor. I was so focused on seating them all at tables for lunch that when it came to seating everyone so they could perform the meditative practice of copying images of the Buddha or scripture passages I used the same seating arrangements. What this amounted to was crowding everyone around tables in the kitchen. What I failed to consider in my focused but not mindful action was that I could have set three tables up in separate rooms allowing everyone more space to carry out the activity. I caused needless discomfort to others because of my failing to see other possibilities. Has this ever happened to you?
Number four is Discernment. This is a critical point, and one dependant upon the previous one, mindfulness. It is necessary for us to be constantly making assessments of our actions, constantly determining the merits of the gains against the losses, the worthless against the valuable.
In the case of Mindfulness and Discernment we might say that the two go hand in hand. If we are too closed off to our environment, too preoccupied with things, and not observant with what is going on around and within us then we may fail to make correct and meaningful judgments. We may become blind to the impact of our effort so much so that we fail to see harm until it is too late.
In the case of laundry we can see that it is important to judge the value of many things, such as the soap used, the water temperature, the machine wash cycle, and so forth. If we do not make observations and then adjustments based upon those observations then we may not get the favorable results we would wish for.
The same is especially true in our Buddhist practice, for we must constantly challenge ourselves to see what is effective in our practice and what is not, which teaching is correct and which is not. We must see where we may be taking shortcuts in our practice and thereby cutting us off from maximum benefit. We constantly need to make course corrections or observations of our performance if we are to prevent major detours or distractions or even possible abandonment of our goal. Without constant fine tuning our lives we may actually take the wrong path or even possible suffer a major defeat or set-back.
Against these last two we must have a single-mindedness, a determination to not be distracted to not be led astray from our objective.
In many ways we can look at these last three in terms of an equilateral triangle where all the sides are equal and all the three angles are equal to each other. We must have in good and equal measure the three points of Mindfulness so that we can be tuned in to everything that is happening, Discernment so that we can make wise choices based upon clear observation, and finally a Single-mindedness to not be distracted from our objective.
Outside the triangle lies our objective, the thing we aspire to. Inside the triangle lies our vigor our energy our motivation which is controlled as it moves, is tempered as it acts, by the three sides of Mindfulness, Discernment, and Single-mindedness.
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