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The Will to Awaken

January 22, 2009

Theres a passage where the Buddha describes his knowledge of the fate ofother people, or the destinations of other people. He says its like watching a

man walking along a path that doesnt fork o in any other direction. It goesstraight to one destination. And the Buddha notes that if the man continues tofollow that path, hes going to end up at that destination. otice! Its contingenton the mans continuing on that path. After all, he might choose not to followthat path. He might change his mind, turn around.

Theres another passage where the Buddha is asked, "Is the whole worldgoing to release# Half the world# A third#$ And he refuses to answer. Ananda,whos afraid that the man who asked the %uestion is going to get upset, takes theman aside and says, "Its like a gatekeeper to a fortress. Theres only one gate tothe fortress. The gatekeeper walks around the fortress and he doesnt see e&enthe slightest opening in the fortress wall, not e&en one big enough for a cat to

slip through. 'o he comes to the conclusion(he doesnt know how many peopleare going to come in to the fortress, how many people will lea&e the fortress(buthe does know that if theyre going to come in or lea&e, they ha&e to go throughthe gate. Again, the point here is that we ha&e the choice to go into the gate ornot go into the gate. Its up to us. Its a free choice. Its not imposed on us by ournature. )e ha&e to will it.

To get on the path to Awakening, you ha&e to desire it. Its an act of will. Its atruth of the will. )illiam *ames talks about two kinds of truths! truths of theobser&er and truths of the will. A truth of the obser&er is the type where you seecause and eect that are totally independent of your desire for them to be in acertain way! knowledge about astronomy, say, or about the laws of nature. +ouha&e to take your desire out of the e%uation if youre going to see these truths.+ou ha&e to be, as much as possible, a noninterfering obser&er. +ou interfere alittle bit here and there in order to test cause and eect, to see e-actly whatcause is connected to what eect, but you ha&e to accept the results whether youlike them or not. If your likes get in the way, youre not really going to see thosetruths.

Truths of the will, howe&er, are a dierent matter entirely. +ou ha&e to wantthem to be true in order for them to become true. If youre going to become agood pianist, a good carpenter, you ha&e to wantthose things in order for themto happen. It helps if you ha&e some natural inclination in that direction or somenatural talents. But to be really good, you ha&e to ha&e a strong desire. )ithoutthat desire, theyre not going to happen. In this case, your likes and dislikes areimportant. Theyre actually a part of the truth.

This is the way it is with the path. )ere not here ust simply watching thingspassi&ely. )hat were learning is not a truth of the obser&er, its a truth of thewill. Awakening is something that has to be pursued. The deathless, of course, isnot created by your desire. But the path is. Its something fabricated.

)hen you look at the %ualities that lead to awakening(things like the tenperfections(they come under the headings of what the Buddha talks of as the

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adhitthanadhamma,things that are willed. There are actually four! discernment,truth, relin%uishment, and peace or calming. All of these are things that we ha&eto will in order to /nd them.

ow the problem with will of course is it can be blind, which is whydiscernment comes /rst. +ou want to will discernment for it to happen. Its not a%uestion of whether youre born smart or not smart. It comes from de&eloping

two %ualities. 0ne is ha&ing con&iction. Again this is where that issue of the truthof the will comes in. +ou ha&e to be con&inced that this is a worthwhile acti&ity!trying to de&elop your discernment, trying to /nd awakening. +ou ha&e to becon&inced that its possible. If you dont belie&e its possible, its not going tohappen. Its like the person stuck in the woods. If you dont belie&e that theres apath out of the woods, youre not going to try to look for it. If you dont try tolook for it, youre not going to /nd it.

'o con&iction that your actions really do make a dierence, con&iction that theBuddha really did gain awakening! these are an important part of discernment.The /&e strengths that end in discernment begin with con&iction. As one of theaaans in Thailand once said, its not the case that discernment begins with

perceptions or ideas or concepts. It begins with con&iction, that there is a wayout, and that it can be found through your own actions.The other aspect of discernment is that you see what the important %uestions

are. As the Buddha said, the big %uestion is seeing where theres suering,where theres stress, whats causing it, and what actions put an end to it. Thoseare the important %uestions in life. )hen you learn how to focus on those, it cutsthrough a lot of garbage. And then when you look at what %ualities need to bede&eloped in order to put an end to suering, you /nd that theyre also %ualitiesre%uired to impro&e your discernment. +ou need to de&elop more mindfulness,more alertness, more concentration. And part of that %uest for the end ofsuering in&ol&es goodwill(goodwill for yourself, goodwill for the people around

you(because you reali1e that if your happiness depends on their suering, itsnot going to happen. Theyre going to try to block it or undo it. 'o you ha&e to/nd a happiness thats harmless to e&erybody.

'o thats the /rst thing you will! the will to discernment. It helps you see whatgoal is a good goal, and also what is clearly a good way to attain that goal. +ouregoing to ha&e to learn a lot of this path on your own as you go along. Itssomething you disco&er. All too often we read a book saying what its going to belike! +oure going to gain this insight, and then that insight. The problem is,when you&e read those descriptions, you can force the mind in such a positionthat it starts ha&ing those insights. But that doesnt necessarily mean thattheyre true, that theyre genuine insights. +ou ha&e to learn how to be more

obser&ant on your own, more alert, to see what insights actually bring freedomfrom suering. This means you ha&e to look all around you, and all around yourinsights.

As Aaan 2ee once said, when you gain an insight, you ha&e to turn it o&er tosee to what e-tent it really is true, to what e-tent its false, to what e-tent theopposite would be true. 0nly then can you know that youre not ustprogramming yourself or trying to clone what you&e read. Again that would be acase of trying to make your discernment grow from your concepts, as opposed tothe con&iction theres got to be a way out. +ou&e got to /nd that way for

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yourself, with the Buddhas directions of course, but its based on your ownpowers of mindfulness and alertness so you catch yourself to make sure that yourde/lements dont get in the way. 'o thats how we will discernment.

The ne-t thing we will is truthfulness. 3art of truthfulness is the %uality of selfhonesty. As the Buddha said, "2et a person comes who is honest and no decei&er,and Ill teach that person the 4hamma.$ This is the /rst prere%uisite for getting

on the path! to be truthful. This doesnt mean ust telling the truth, but alsomeans deciding which you&e got to do and sticking with it, being true to yourintentions. This is where the precepts or &irtue as a perfection comes in. 0nceyou&e reali1ed that you dont want to harm anybody, you&e got to followthrough and really abstain from acti&ities that are harmful, whether its easy toabstain or not. 4iscernment helps here, in its practical mode. )hen you /nd thata precept goes against your desires, you&e got to use your discernment to /ndways of making yourself want to stick with it, making it easier to stick with it,learning to cast a aundiced eye on your desires, reali1ing that they promise allkinds of things, but can you really trust them# +ou use your discernment to staytrue to your intention and to /nd skillful ways of taking the wind out of the sails

of your unskillful desires. That way you can hang on to what you know is really inyour best interests, and in the best interests of the people around you.The third thing that we ha&e to will is relin%uishment, learning how to let go.

This is where the perfections of renunciation and gi&ing come in. 5i&ing heremeans gi&ing away not only material things, but also our unskillful desires,gi&ing up our unskillful ways of holding onto things. 'ometimes it comesnaturally, easily, and sometimes it doesnt. And again this is where you need touse your discernment, learning strategies to make you more and more inclined togi&e up things you ha&e to gi&e up, things that get in the way, the lesserpleasures that get in the way of greater happiness.

This is not a matter of ust gi&ing up things that are ob&iously unskillful. I did

a sur&ey once on the topic of relin%uishment in books of American Buddhism. Inthe few cases where they actually talk about relin%uishment, they focus onrelin%uishing unhealthy relationships and relin%uishing your controlling mindset.)e dont really need the Buddha tell you relin%uish those things. +our parentscan tell you to relin%uish unhealthy relationships. If you ha&e a psychotherapist,the therapist will tell you to relin%uish your controlling mindset. There are a lotof things that are really pleasurable, that society actually encourages you to lookfor, But the Buddha says, look, you&e got to gi&e them up as they lead tounhealthy attachments down the line. +our attachment to sensual pleasures andsensual desires! thats the big one. +our attachment to thoughts about, plansabout sensual pleasures. Thats what you ha&e to learn how to renounce.

An important step is learning to see the rewards of renunciation. Its not goingto lea&e you depri&ed. It really is restful to the mind. It really gi&es peace to themind. Theres a famous story about the monk, a former king, sitting in the foreste-claiming, ")hat bliss6 )hat bliss6$ And it turns out hes not pining after theoys he felt when he was a king before he became a monk. Hes e-claiming o&erhow blissful he is now that he can sit under the tree without ha&ing to worryabout all the people who wanted to kill him when he was a king, all the peoplewho wanted to take away his pleasures and wealth. Thats one of the pleasures ofrenunciation, that sense of freedom, and nobodys going to try to steal that from

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you. And as the monk said to the Buddha, his mind was now like a wild deer! Itwas free. +ou&e got to learn how to think in those ways when the desire forsensuality really gets strong, to see that when you can renounce it, youre free.

And again you ha&e to will that. It doesnt come naturally. As the Buddha oncesaid, e&en hedidnt /nd it easy to will renunciation. His mind didnt leap up atthe idea. But his desire for a deathless happiness was strong enough and he

coupled it with the discernment that could help him /nd ways of reasoning withhis mind, /nd tactics for gi&ing the mind pleasures that didnt ha&e to depend onsensuality(primarily the pleasure of hana, the pleasure of concentration. )henyou ha&e an alternati&e source of pleasure like that, you reali1e that youretrading candy for gold. But the ability to make that trade is something you ha&eto will.

The fourth thing is peace. The 3ali word upasamaalso means stilling, or calm.And there are two perfections that are associated with that! patience ande%uanimity. The word patience can also mean endurance! the ability to put upwith diicult things. Here again you use your discernment to /nd strategies tostrengthen that ability. 0ne of the primary strategies is learning not to focus on

the diiculty but to /nd ways of encouraging yourself, gi&ing yourself energy.This is closely related to relin%uishment and renunciation. +ou learn how to seethe areas, the ad&antages of enduring. The mind becomes stronger, it can li&e inmore diicult situations. Its not such a sla&e to its desires as it was before.Theres a freedom that comes with endurance.

And e%uanimity, too, is something you ha&e to will(the ability to stayunperturbed with the things you like and the things you dont like7 not gettinge-cited when things go well, not getting depressed when they dont. In otherwords, you train yourself to ha&e a certain amount of independence. 4iscernmentis needed to perfect and understand this %uality, and the e%uanimity helps fosterthe discernment, allowing you to see things more clearly, as well. The two

%ualities go handinhand. There are times in the meditation where you do simplyha&e to sit and watch. 'ome of your de/lements really will go away ust whenyou watch them(but not all of them. 0ne of the points of de&eloping e%uanimityis so you begin to see where the dierence lies.

'o the Buddha is not recommending a blanket passi&ity here. Hes telling youto de&elop e%uanimity when its appropriate. +ou de&elop e%uanimity when youneed to see things that you dont yet understand. )hen you understand,sometimes e%uanimity is still appropriate, and sometimes you need to dosomething more forceful to deal with the problem at hand.

All of these are things we ha&e to will if we want to make progress on thepath. The ifthere is important. )ere free to will these %ualities, were free not

to. This is why the Buddha ne&er talked about Buddha nature, the idea thatsomehow our inherent nature is going to lead us to awakening. )e do ha&efreedom though, the freedom to choose. And the Buddha was a great respecterof that freedom. Its a little scary to think about the fact that awakening is notine&itable, for its so easy to fall o the path. 'ometimes the idea of ine&itableawakening is much more reassuring(but it will make us complacent, which isprecisely the %uality that will lead us astray. )e need to de&elop the heedfulnessthat comes when we reali1e that we are free to choose, that we can make rightchoices and wrong choices, and that we ha&e to li&e with the conse%uences. This

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is why the Buddha said that heedfulness is what lies at the basis of all that isskillful. 'o try to de&elop that and learn how to li&e with that and not get scaredby it7 learn how to make it energi1ing, so that it keeps you alert while at thesame time de&eloping the sense of patience and e%uanimity, the calm thatprotects the eort of the path so that it doesnt get you all fra11led and worn out.

'o these are the %ualities that we will on the path. These are the %ualities that

lead to awakening. If we learn how to respect our freedom, then that puts us onthe path so that we understand whats going on. 8ltimately, of course, all ofthese %ualities will bring us to something thats not willed at all, but were notgoing to really see it, were not going to be able to test it and understand whatswilled and whats not willed until we learn to understand our will &erythoroughly(how far it goes, what subtle le&els of willing can happen in the mind.In other words, we ha&e to push the en&elope of our will.

'o ultimately this truth of the will does /nally lead to something totallyunwilled. This is one of the parado-es of the teaching, but one that the Buddha is&ery upfront about(youre looking for something unfabricated, but you ha&e tofabricate the path. As he said, the highest of all fabrications(which is another

word for the highest of all things you can will(is the noble eightfold path. Thereis a dhamma higher than that(totally unwilled(which is dispassion, the restthat comes when you&e succeeded in putting in the energy thats needed to willthe path in a skillful way.

)hat this means is that the choice is up to us(which path were going tofollow(for there are many paths. There is a path that leads to hell. Theres apath that leads to the animal rebirth. There is a path that leads to the humanrebirth, and di&ine birth, and there is a path that leads to total awakening. TheBuddha set them all out. But its up to us to choose.