This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Factors of Endeavoring ~ Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The Buddha offers teachings to someone who doesn't feel like practicing - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 30, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

The Buddha offers teachings to someone who doesn't feel like practicing

Tonight I would like to share a story that is in the Suttas¹. For me, and for a number of people that I have spoken with, it has some important, meaningful, and helpful messages.

It is a story about a person named Prince Bodhi², who was a prince, not surprisingly. Prince Bodhi had built a new building. They call it a "longhouse," which I guess was not uncommon in ancient India. It is just like it sounds: a long building in which people would stay. Prince Bodhi named it the "Pink Lotus Longhouse." I just had this thought right as Jim was ringing the bell: "Pink Lotus Longhouse." I thought if I ever open a restaurant, it has a nice sound to it. I don't think I will ever be opening a restaurant, but if I were...

So Prince Bodhi had built this Pink Lotus Longhouse, and he invited the Buddha and his monastics to come and have a meal there. The Buddha agreed. Prince Bodhi oversees and has all the food prepared at his own house for the Buddha. This was very common at this time, that somebody would oversee the preparing. We don't know how many monastics, but it could have been a lot, so it might have been a big deal to make all this food.

He makes his food, and then Prince Bodhi is waiting outside his house when the Buddha and his monastics show up. Prince Bodhi welcomes and pays homage to the Buddha and says, "Please, after you, let's go to the Pink Lotus Longhouse."

The Buddha walks to the Pink Lotus Longhouse, and Prince Bodhi and all the other monastics are behind them. I guess they are bringing the food. They get there—it's not too far away—and the Prince had put this white cloth that went through the hall of the building and then down the front steps. Maybe we could think of it like the "red carpet treatment."

The Buddha walks up to it, and he stops before he gets to this white cloth. Prince Bodhi says, "Venerable sir, please step on the white cloth so that it may be for my welfare and happiness for a long time."

The Buddha just stands there. He doesn't step on the cloth, and he doesn't say anything. He is just standing there.

Prince Bodhi asks a second time, "Venerable sir, please step on the white cloth so that it may be for my welfare and happiness for a long time."

The Buddha is still just standing there. He is a patient guy, right? So he is just standing there, doesn't say anything, and doesn't step on the cloth.

The third time Prince Bodhi says, "Venerable sir, please step on the white cloth"—this is my embellishment of the story, of course—"so that it may be for my welfare and happiness for a long time."

Prince Bodhi somehow is really invested in the Buddha stepping on this white cloth. We don't know exactly what Prince Bodhi was thinking, but he clearly has this idea that it would be helpful if the Buddha would step on this cloth—that it would be for his welfare and happiness for a long time.

I was thinking about this. It is not unusual that sometimes we have this secret wish: "Oh, if only something out there would shift and change and be different, or somebody else would do something, then I would be happy. Then my life would go right." It is kind of like waiting for somebody or something else out there in our external life to be different. In some ways, expecting somebody else to make us happy and kind of eschewing the responsibility we might have. Prince Bodhi is kind of like this.

After the third time that he asks, the Buddha looks over at Ananda³. Ananda is his assistant, his cousin, his attendant. He looks over at Ananda, doesn't say anything, just looks over at him. I give Ananda a lot of credit. Ananda says, "Fold up the cloth, Prince. The Buddha will not step on the white cloth. He has compassion for future generations."

I like that Ananda doesn't chastise Prince Bodhi or say, "The Buddha—why are you looking at me? What do you want me to do?" Instead, Ananda understood that if the Buddha has been asked three times and he still doesn't do it, it means he is just not going to do it. So Ananda says, "Fold up the cloth, the Buddha is not going to step on it." And then he adds, "The Buddha has compassion for future generations."

Ananda understood what was happening. If the Buddha had stepped on the cloth and Prince Bodhi said, "Yay, this is going to be for my happiness and welfare for a long time," then that would undermine the idea of practice. People would think that the way to have happiness in your life is to get somebody else to do something for you.

Also, if the Buddha had stepped on the cloth and Prince Bodhi did have a great life, what would happen if in the future a monastic stepped on a white cloth and somebody didn't have happiness afterwards? That would undermine the whole monastic community and the whole idea of practice. So this just doesn't work. This whole idea of "just find a Buddha, get him to step on a cloth, and you'll be fine"—turns out it doesn't work this way, even if you have the good fortune to meet a Buddha.

Getting back to the Sutta, the Prince had the cloth folded up and prepared the seats where all the monastics were going to sit. Then Prince Bodhi offered food by himself, which is kind of a big deal. He is royalty and usually has servants doing these kinds of things, but Prince Bodhi himself offers food to the monastics. They eat and have their fill.

Afterwards, he has a little conversation with the Buddha and says, "Pleasure is only gained through pain."

This is what Prince Bodhi says to the Buddha: "Pleasure is only gained through pain." You can only have something good if you suffer for it. Now it makes sense why Prince Bodhi wants the Buddha to step on the cloth—because Prince Bodhi thinks to practice is going to be painful. In order to have a better life, or have something that is pleasurable, or find more freedom, more ease, more peace, you have to do something really painful.

The Buddha responds, "Well, before my awakening, I also thought that pleasure is only gained through pain."

In order to make the point, the Buddha gives a little bit of his autobiography—why the Buddha himself, before he was awakened, thought that pain was a necessary part of practice. Many of you know the story of the Buddha's awakening. He leaves the palace that he was living in and goes to practice. He wants to find freedom and peace. He practices with some esteemed meditation masters, discovers how to meditate, but didn't find peace and freedom there. So he went from one teacher to a second teacher. Then he said, "Well, maybe some really intense austerities, asceticism is needed. That is the way to find freedom." The Buddha is saying, "Yeah, I used to think that pain was the way to freedom."

The Buddha is telling this story to Prince Bodhi and says, "Seeking the state of supreme peace, I set out to discover what is skillful." If this meditation isn't going to work, what is?

The Buddha says, "Traveling, I came to Senanigama in Uruvela⁴, and there I saw this delightful grove, a lovely piece of ground with a clear flowing river and pleasant smooth banks. Nearby was a village for alms." It was an ideal location to practice—water, food, a pleasant place.

The Buddha continues, "So having found this lovely place, I sat down and I thought, 'This is a good place for endeavoring, for practicing, striving, working, applying myself.'"

Then the Buddha says, "Why don't I, with teeth clenched and tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth, squeeze, squash, and crush mind with mind? Like a strong person would grab a weaker person by the head or throat and squeeze, squash, or crush them."

That is what he did until sweat poured from his armpits. This is quite something, right? He is really in there striving, "mind crushing mind." I don't know exactly what awakening is or how to get there, but I am going to force my mind to do something. There are no details here exactly what that was, but just through force of will with his mind.

Then he says, "My energy was roused up and unflagging, and my mindfulness was established and lucid, but my body was disturbed and not tranquil because I pushed too hard with that painful striving." The Buddha is recognizing this "crush mind with mind" doesn't work.

Then the Buddha continues, "And then I thought, 'Well, why don't I practice the breathless meditation?'" To not breathe, holding one's breath. "So I cut off breathing through my mouth and nose, but violent winds cut through my head like a strong person was drilling into my head with a strong point. My energy was roused up and unflagging, and my mindfulness was established and lucid, but my body was disturbed and not tranquil because I pushed too hard with that painful striving."

Here is a second practice that the Buddha did, and he couldn't find freedom that way. He includes a few more ascetic practices that he did, and they all end with: "My energy was roused up and unflagging, and my mindfulness was established and lucid," so he had energy and he had mindfulness, "but he was just exhausting himself."

After he describes a number of ascetic practices he had done, he said, "Whatever spiritual adepts have experienced those painful, sharp, severe, acute feelings due to overexertion—no one has done more than me." Just saying, "I did everything that is humanly possible," describing starving himself and all these kinds of things.

Then he says that he had a different idea. Clearly those meditation masters didn't work. This asceticism didn't work. So there has to be a third way. Many of you will know this is the Middle Way between asceticism and indulgence. This is the road of practice. Then he found the Bodhi tree, another pleasant place to practice, eventually sits down, and becomes awakened. That is the story about how that happens.

The Buddha is telling the story to Prince Bodhi to say, "Look, I really tried this painful thing and it didn't lead to pleasure. It led to exhaustion due to my overexertion and straining and striving."

It wasn't until the Buddha went another way—the way that the Buddha described his own practice (it doesn't mean everybody has to do this, but his own practice) included the Jhānas⁵. These are meditative states that are quite pleasurable. So instead, it was actually through pleasure that he found his way towards awakening. Pleasure, happiness, and joy are integral parts of practice. Many of you might know the Seven Factors of Awakening include happiness and joy and concentration.

After he tells all this to Prince Bodhi, the Prince says, "Well, when a person has the Buddha as the trainer"—because the Buddha did this without a teacher, so he had to try all these things and discover what didn't work, but Prince Bodhi says, "Oh, well now that you know what works, it has got to be easier"—"how long does it take to become awakened?"

We don't blame him for asking this question, right? I think all of us would ask these questions. Is it going to be hard? How long is it going to take? I think we ask this about so many things in our lives. "Am I going to do this? How hard is it going to be and what is it going to take?"

The Buddha replies with a question to the Prince. "Prince Bodhi, are you skilled in the art of wielding a hooked goad⁶ while riding an elephant?" I don't know exactly what a hooked goad is, but it is something that one does when they are riding an elephant. "Prince Bodhi, here is a skill that you have. Do you have this particular skill?"

Prince Bodhi says, "Yes, I am skilled in that."

So the Buddha asks him some questions. "Well, suppose a person were to come to you, Prince Bodhi, and asked you to train them in working with an elephant with a hooked goad. If that person did not have any confidence, could they achieve what could be achieved if they did have confidence?"

"No."

"If that person had no vitality, could they achieve what a person who had vitality could achieve?"

"No."

"If that person were dishonest and had no integrity, could they achieve what an honest person with integrity could achieve?"

"No."

"If a person did not have energy, could they achieve what a person with energy could achieve?"

"No."

"If that person were unwise, could they achieve what a person with wisdom could achieve?"

"No."

The Buddha is outlining five qualities here. Prince Bodhi is saying, "Wow, if that person had even one of those qualities, they could train under me."

If they had confidence, vitality, integrity, energy, and wisdom, they could learn from Prince Bodhi. Then the Buddha says, "Well, these are these five factors of endeavoring." This is a list in the Buddha's teachings that we don't talk about as much, but I think it is such an interesting list. This is a common question: "How much effort to apply? What does effort look like? Is that the only thing that is needed?"

Sometimes when we get stuck, we feel like, "Okay, I just have to push harder. I just have to do the same thing but more." I did a lot of that in my early practice. I tried to "crush mind with mind"—I didn't know that expression, but I somehow thought that I had to make my mind be a certain way. There was this tension, and I would meditate with this kind of thing, really trying to strain and strive. It didn't work.

One of the times when I really started to feel like there was some movement, some real movement in my meditation practice, was a time when I had some physical difficulties and I had to lay down. I couldn't meditate sitting up. That was quite something, because you can't strain as much when you are lying down. I just realized, "Oh, this is a whole different way to practice." Still with this commitment to practice, with some diligence and some sincerity, but without the tightness and the straining. I just felt a certain deepening, a letting go, and a settling that started to point the way: "Oh, this is the direction to go, not this real straining and striving that I had been doing."

To be sure, the teachers had been telling me, "Diana, back off, you're a little too tight." And I was like, "What do they know?" This worked for everything else in my life. It is true, right? For some things in our life, working hard really is the right way. To get through school sometimes it is a lot of work. To have difficult conversations with people so that you can really allow your relationship to grow and mature is a lot of work. Sometimes jobs are a lot of work. Working with difficult people, deadlines—they are taxing in all kinds of different ways.

So this idea of pushing is familiar to us because it works in so many areas of our lives. It doesn't work the same way in meditation. We need a certain amount of effort, but it only goes as far as it goes. It will work until it doesn't.

I would like to unpack these Five Factors of Endeavoring⁷. Five factors of applying oneself, five factors of working. Confidence, Vitality, Integrity, Energy, Wisdom.

Confidence

It makes a difference whether you think the task you are embarking on is even possible. I don't think that I can fly; I am not practicing flying because I just don't think that it is possible. So you have to have a certain confidence that it is possible.

Maybe this goes without saying, but sometimes it can be worthwhile to investigate: Do we have confidence that it is possible to find greater peace, ease, freedom, happiness, and well-being? Do we think that is possible for us in this lifetime? And do we think that we have the capabilities? You do have the capabilities; if you are sitting in this room, you have the capabilities.

Confidence is the first item in the list. We have to believe, "Yeah, this is possible, humans can do it, and I can do it."

The Pali word is Saddhā⁸. It often gets translated as "conviction"—just "yes, this is possible"—or "faith." But often when we hear the word "faith," many of us think about unverified belief, beliefs you have to adopt. That is not what is being pointed to here. It is the faith that greater peace, freedom, and ease is possible. Maybe you haven't experienced it yet, but this idea that more is possible—that is what is being pointed to here as Faith.

Vitality

This sense of having enough energy, consciousness, or awakeness. It can be just enough vitality to hear a Dharma talk. Maybe it is not even driving to IMC, but maybe there are people on YouTube who are lying down in bed listening because they are ill, and that is all they can do. That is all that is needed. It is just this vitality, enough to be able to be aware of what is happening.

There is a Sutta where the Buddha is very sick and he is laying down. Somebody comes to him and chants the Seven Factors of Awakening to him. This was what was needed for the Buddha to maybe have some more energy, and maybe that was all he was capable of at that time when he was really sick.

So this sense of vitality, it is not asking a lot from us. Maybe it is pointing to a certain amount of wherewithal. But I would also say that it is enough vitality to understand, "Okay, some things are supportive for my practice and some things are not supportive."

I think all of us, when we have been injured or sick, have noticed that if we get riled up and filled with hatred and rage towards the sickness, or the injury, or someone else, or some institution... getting filled with hatred and rage does not, in the long run, make us feel better. Any pain that we have does not go away; it just becomes more acute. Instead, it is when we can open and relax as best we can, in whatever way is available to us at that time, as opposed to being filled with hatred or hatred.

Vitality is pointing to recognizing this: "Oh yeah, when I hate that this is happening to me, it makes it a lot worse. If I am able to say, 'Okay, this is what my life is like at this moment,' and turn towards it as best we can, then it is better."

It doesn't mean that you can stop the hatred and rage right then. This is a natural reaction; a lot of humans have this when we have injuries or we are really sick. I want to be careful here because sometimes this Pali word gets translated as "little oppression" or "little affliction" (Appābādha / Appātaṅka)⁹. The sickness isn't too much. Sometimes people use the word "health," and then you start to get this feeling like, "But I'm not healthy." The Dharma world is filled with people who found their way to the Dharma because of sickness, because of illness. I can imagine it would be demoralizing to hear, "Wait, I have to be healthy, but I'm not." So it is more about vitality—just having enough kind of energy there.

Integrity

This is related to not being deceitful, not being fraudulent, not being devious. But instead to be forthright, to be open, to be honest, to be authentic. That is what is being asked as part of this quality of endeavoring. In the Suttas, it points in particular to be open and honest with one's teachers or companions in the spiritual life.

There is a way in which we might want people to think the best of us. I know when I was practicing, I wanted the teachers to like me and think I was a good student. So I was reluctant to show them all the ways that I was struggling. That is normal, right? I think all humans do this; often we want to give our best impression. But this is pointing to: you can tell the things that are going well, but in order for people to really be able to support you, they need to know where you really are struggling. In order to know where you are struggling, there needs to be some authenticity and some honesty.

It doesn't mean that you have to tell everybody all the time and wear it on your sleeve. But with people on the path with you, or your teacher, to be able to say, "You know, this is what is going on." I would say it is most helpful to say what is going well and where the struggles are—a full picture.

Energy

The energy here is the one that is related to Right Effort on the Eightfold Path. This points to the energy to not only recognize, for example, that feeling hatred or rage towards not feeling well isn't helpful, or to recognize that having a little bit more ease or openness towards what is actually happening is helpful.

The energy is pointing to having the intention: "Okay, I want to turn away from the hatred and rage that is a habit and I find myself falling into and getting overwhelmed with. I want to see if I can turn away." It takes energy to even set that intention. "I can see this isn't helping me. Is there another way?"

The energy is about cultivating what is helpful and letting go of what isn't helpful. For some people, initially, it is just to be able to recognize, "Okay, I can't help myself, but I know this isn't the way that is helpful," and to set the intention to be able to go another way.

Wisdom

Wisdom is defined in a particular way here. It is about recognizing that experiences arise and pass away. They come and they go. They are impermanent. They are inconstant. They are not steady. All of our experiences arise and pass away.

Seeing this, having this wisdom, does a number of things. It helps us to put our priorities in order. "Okay, things aren't going to last forever." Nothing lasts forever. It doesn't mean that this particular ailment I have is going to go away—it means that maybe it fluctuates in its intensity. This love that I feel for somebody... it doesn't mean it is necessarily going to go away, but it is going to change. It is going to have seasons, just like everything.

Recognizing that helps us to put things into priority. Recognizing that we are not going to live forever helps us to say, "Okay, this is what is important." Maybe it is not so important to prove to others that I am right all the time or to correct them when they do things wrong. Impermanence helps us shift our priorities.

Impermanence also helps us to recognize where growth and development happen. Cultivation is another way of saying impermanence—things are changing. We can say, "Oh yeah, just like this uncomfortable feeling in my knee is changing, my ability to sit still for however long is changing too." Impermanence is this idea that things grow and develop.

Maybe a third thing about impermanence is that it just doesn't make sense to hold on to things that are changing, that are inconstant, coming and leaving. There is just naturally a certain amount of letting go that happens. I believe this is why wisdom is the fifth element in these five factors of endeavoring.

The Buddha's Promise

So after the Buddha gave Prince Bodhi these factors—Confidence, Vitality, Integrity, Energy, and Wisdom—he says: "If a person has these five factors of endeavoring, they can realize the supreme end of the spiritual path in seven years."

"But let alone seven years, they could realize the supreme end of the spiritual path in six years. Let alone six years, if you have these, you can do it in five years... four years... three years... two years... one year."

"Let alone one year: seven months. Let alone seven months: six months... five months... four months." The Buddha just keeps on going down. "Two months, one month, seven days."

You know where this is going, right?

"Let alone seven days... six days... five days... four days... three days... two days."

And then he says, "Let alone one day, one can be instructed in the morning and achieve awakening by the evening."

Prince Bodhi is delighted and he says, "Oh, Buddha! Oh, the teachings! How well this explains the teachings, that one can be instructed in the morning and achieve awakening in the evening."

Then someone that is standing near Prince Bodhi says to him, "Yeah, though you speak like this, Prince Bodhi, you don't go for refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha." He is not taking the Buddha as his teacher.

Prince Bodhi says, "Oh, don't say that. I have heard and learned the teachings in the presence of my mother. When she was pregnant with me, she took refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And then when I was really young and I had a wet nurse, they carried me to where the Buddha was and the wet nurse took refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha."

I can imagine everybody is going, "That doesn't count."

Then Prince Bodhi finally says, "I take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha."

This is a story of somebody who is trying to figure out: "How much work do I need to do? How long is it going to take? How much work needs to be done?"

I think the Buddha is pointing to the fact that it is not just about straining and striving, because he tried that and it didn't work. Instead, think about this Confidence, Vitality, Integrity, Energy, and Wisdom. Maybe these are some things for us to think about. Do we have confidence that we can have some more happiness, health, well-being, peace, and freedom? If not, is there something that we might do? Are we being open and honest with those people that could help us and support us in this practice, sharing our struggles as well as what is doing well?

I would say sometimes we have friends that we just struggle with; we complain about how hard it is. Maybe being forthright is to say, "You know, these things are going well." And then having the energy to say, "You know, I want to cultivate what is helpful and skillful." And then the wisdom to recognize, "Yeah, things change. They are always changing." This is how one can find the way towards awakening, to greater peace, freedom, and ease.

So Prince Bodhi... and for those of you who don't know, Bodhi means "Awakening." This for me has been a real head-scratcher. Why is he called Prince Awakening when he is the one who doesn't really want to practice? Maybe there is a secret meaning there that I don't know.

Thank you. Thank you for your attention.