Venerable Ajahn Nyanadhammo talk: The Spiritual Faculties

https://www.abhayagiri.org/media/books/nyanadhammo_the_spiritual_faculties.pdf

massaged into EZ-Reader format from lame PDF format above.

Has cool story of his interaction with Ajahn Chah.

THE SPIRTUAL FACULTIES

Venerable Ajahn Nyanadhammo

The Spiritual Faculties

by Venerable Ajahn Nyanadhammo

Edited from a Dhamma talk given by

Ajahn Nyanadhammo at

Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery (june 1998)

in Sussex, Southern England.

Copyright c© 2003 The Sa ˙ngha, Wat Pah Nanachat

For free distribution

“It is the spirit of

d¯ana, freely offered generosity, which has kept the entire Buddhist tradition alive

for more than 2,500 years.”

Sabbad¯anam dhammad¯anam j¯ın¯ati

’The gift of Dhamma excels all gifts’

This computer-edition of ’The Spiritual Faculties’ may be freely copied and redistributed electron-

ically, provided that the file contents (including this agreement) are not altered in any way and that it

is distributed at no cost to the recipient. You may make printed copies of this work for your personal

use; further distribution of printed copies requires permission from the copyright holder, which may be

obtained upon notification. Any reproduction (in whole or part, in any form) for sale, profit or material

gain is prohibited.

The Abbot

Wat Pah Nanachat

Bahn Bung Wai

Ampher Warin Chamrab

Ubon Rachathani 34310

Thailand

1

The Spiritual Faculties 

A Dhamma theme which is very close to my heart is the five indriya; the Five Spiri- tual Faculties.

These Five Spiritual Faculties are the qualities of practice,

 the qualities of mind that one needs to bring to the spiritual path.

There’s saddh¯a, which is faith;viriya,

 energy; sati, mindfulness; sam¯adhi,

 which is calm concentration; and paññ¯a,

 wisdom.

They become powers of mind through which the mind becomes very

dy- namic and can end suffering.Saddh¯a is often translated as faith,

 confidence or conviction.

The Buddha said that faith comes from having seen that the human condition is unsatisfactory.

It is imper- fect, wrought with dissatisfaction,

 discontentment, pain, grief, fear and anxiety.

Hav- ing seen that, then the mind naturally seeks a path out of that state.

It questions the meaning of life and how to find inner happiness.

So this faith looks for a path out of suffering.

For people who come across the Buddha’s words,

 to hear that there is a cause for unsatisfactoriness and that

there is the ending of unsatisfactoriness and a path to practice for that release: that brings this faith.

It’s often because we haven’t understood dukkha – or because

we think thatdukkha shouldn’t occur – that we don’t leap forth to find a way out.

Recently a lady came to speak with me explaining that a friend of hers had just given birth to a child,

 and the child had died.

She was very upset because she was going to be a godmother,

 and she said, “This shouldn’t happen,

 this is unfair”.

So there is the presumption that life should be fair.

But with experience, we start to see and understand that life isn’t always fair.

So dukkha is the unfairness of existence.

It is not a fair abiding.

So, having seen dukkha, we seek a way out.

In the case of that lady, having ex- perienced suffering,

 she came to the monastery and decided that she would practice

Dhamma and share the merits of her practice with that deceased child.

She began seeking a way of dealing with suffering.

When the Buddha described faith he talked about faith in four aspects; faith in the Buddha,

 the person who has become fully enlightened in this world and teaches the path out of dukkha,

 and in the Dhamma, those teachings of the Buddha; and in the Sangha,

 those monks, nuns and lay-people who have realized that truth in their own lives; and in the training.

This last one means having faith that this practice we’re doing will yield results.

Faith in the training also intrinsically implies faith in our own abilities to realize truth: faith that we can do it.

The lack of conviction in our own ability to do the practice is a common obsta- cle,

 so one of the responsibilities of a teacher is to encourage and uplift people.

This was one of the things that Ajahn Chah often did.

I remember one time having a few difficulties and going to him.

He was chatting, and he turned to me and said,

 “Tan Nyanadhammo, youve got very few defilements.”

That was at a time when it seemed 2 like my mind was full of defilements!

But just those few words gave encouragement.

There was another occasion when I was newly ordained.

The food in Ajahn Chah’s monastery was extremely basic: sticky rice,

 leaves, curries – which were all put in one pot together – and a few bananas,

 and that was it.

As there was very little, some of the monks would get up to serve out the food.

You sat with your bowl in front of you and they put the food in your bowl: you didn’t have a choice,

 you could only say what you didn’t want.

One of the Western monks was asked to get up and hand out the food,

 but he refused, because if he got up then he couldn’t watch

his bowl and thereby prevent the Thai monks from putting things in it that would upset his stomach.

And because of that they asked me to get up in his place.

A couple days later we went on the same almsround together into the village,

 and, as we were coming back to the dining-hall,

 this monk started complaining about the monks who hand out the food.

Self-righteous anger came up in me, and I said to him,

 “Instead of complaining about the other monks,

 why dont you get up and help us?”

And then I stormed off in a huff.

As I was walking, I heard Ajahn Chah’s voice saying Good morning in English.

(The only words he knew in English were “Good morning” and “Cup

of tea.”) I turned to see him standing only three feet away with a big radiant smile on his face.

And I said, “Oh, good morning, Luang Por.”

And he radiated loving kindness to me,

 and the aversion completely disappeared and I was really happy.

That evening I decided, “As Ajahn Chah was very friendly to me,

 I’ll go over and offer him a foot massage”; that was a way to do some service for him,

 and often he would teach Dhamma at that time.

So he was sitting on a cane seat with me sitting on the floor

and massaging his foot when the bell rang for evening chanting.

He told the other monks to go to the chanting and I was left together with Ajahn Chah.

It was a beautiful cool evening, with the moon coming out full,

 and the sound of some seventy monks chanting – it was just wonderful.

Ajahn Chah sat in meditation as I was massaging his foot – and my mind was on cloud nine,

 uplifted with joy.

At that point Ajahn Chah kicked me in the chest and knocked me flat on my back!

I looked up in shock, and Ajahn Chah pointed at me saying,

 “See?

In the morning someone says something you don’t like and you’re upset.

Then someone else just says “Good morning” and you’re uplifted all day.

Don’t get caught up in moods and emotions of like and dislike at what other people say.”

Then he gave me a Dhamma talk, and I raised my hands in añjal¯ı,

 and listened to this Dhamma.

I remember it to this day, and it always brings a sense of how

much compasion he had: he saw a person was walking past with his head steaming; he said “Good morning”,

 and then he waited until the opportunity arose.

Out of the seventy monks in the monastery,

 and all the nuns, he thought, “Today I’ll teach this person.

This ones really stubborn, I’m going to have to give him a kick!

He won’t remember if I dont do it tough.”

What has stayed with me is a sense of faith that the teacher is concerned,

 is motivated by compassion, and motivated to release you from suffering.

And that confidence, that earnestness of mind,

 brings up the quality of energy, viriya,

 which is the next aspect of the spiritual path.

The Buddha defined viriya as application to four things.

The first is: if an unwhole- some state of mind arises,

 one recognizes it first and then one strives to overcome it.

For example, if anger arises, one recognizes “I am angry” and then one strives to over- come that anger.

The next aspect is if an unwholesome state of mind hasn’t yet arisen,

 then one strives to make sure that it doesn’t arise.

It’s a preventative.

And in that 3 example of anger, it’s often the case that we need

to develop loving-kindness (which is the antidote to anger) before it arises.

It is very difficult to spread loving-kindness when we are already angry,

 isn’t it?

So the preventative is very important.

You’ll find that if you develop loving-kindness when the mind

is at ease then that allows the mind to develop strength and prevent anger from arising.

If the mind gains strength, and develops this quality of preventing unwholesome states to arise,

 that leads on to the next aspect of Right Effort,

 which is encouraging wholesome states which haven’t yet arisen to arise.

One puts forth effort to purposely arouse a thought of loving-kindness in the mind.

If one’s not thinking a thought of compassion,

 one intentionally arouses a thought of compassion in the mind.

If one’s not thinking a thought of renunciation or letting go,

 one purposely arouses that in the mind.

And when these qualities have arisen,

 the final aspect is to sustain them: make much of thoughts of loving-kindness,

 compassion or renunciation; rejoice in them,

 make them great, infinite, immeasurable.

Those qualities then become very strong.

This is the effort of the mind, the earnestness to create wholesome qualities,

 to make them grow, and to recognize unwholesome qualities and abandon them and not allow them to arise again.

The next faculty is Right Mindfulness,

 and mindfulness has two aspects: an ability to recall and the ability to know what one is doing.

One remembers, for example, “I am watching the breath”,

 “I am watching this out-breath”, “I am watching this in-breath”.

And then it has this ability to remember and recall what is the purpose of watching the breath,

 why one is doing it.

Often people are told when meditating to watch the breath at the tip of the nose,

 but actually many people find this is a distraction.

If you look in the suttas, the Buddha never tells us to watch the breath in a physical place.

He says to know that you are breathing in and to know that you are breathing out.

The important thing is to note it in time.

So, “Am I breathing in at this time, or am I breathing out at this time”?

Mindfulness also knows its goal.

It recalls why were watching the breath: so that we’re knowing the breath,

 in each moment in time, for the purpose of calming the mind.

But to acchieve calm, it’s also important to approach meditation with the right attitude.

One has to be content to watch the breath or else you can’t watch the breath; the mind will go elsewhere.

So this sense of contentment is important because it com- poses the mind.

There was a layman who used to come and see Ajahn Chah,

 who had a lot of com- plaints ; his fields weren’t producing very much,

 and his buffalo was getting old, and his house wasn’t big enough

and his kids weren’t satisfying him – and he said he was getting really sick of the world,

 and becoming dispassionate.

And Ajahn Chah said, “No, you’re not.

You’re not dispassionate.

If you got more buffaloes, newer ones,

 healthier ones, and a bigger house and a lot more wealth,

 then you’d find that your dispassion with the world is very temporary.

You just have aver- sion to the world.”

He continued, “What you need to meditate on is,

 ’It’s good enough.’

Whatever comes up in the mind: ’It’s good enough’.”

So the man practiced that for awhile and the next time he came back to see Ajahn Chah he had become contented,

 just by meditating on “It’s good enough.”

Craving arises because we have discontentment with what we have.

But when we have that sense of “It’s good enough” then the mind starts to settle down and come to a place of ease.

And it’s from that place of ease, well-being and contentment that the mind can go into what we call sam¯adhi.

4 Sam¯adhi – the next of the Spiritual Faculties – is often translated

as “concentration” but I prefer the concept of peace.

It is the ability to let go of what is disturbing and go to a place in the mind which is less disturbing.

As we progressively give things up and tranquilize the mind then

the mind is going to become more and more peaceful and blissful.

Then it can even give up blissfulness and go to a state of equanimity.

The tranquility of meditation has a lot of benefits: it gives energy to the mind by providing a place of rest.

Then when the mind comes out of that state we can put it to work.

It’s like our bodies; if we get over-tired,

 we need to rest, and then when we’ve slept enough we can get up and go to work.

We don’t over-sleep and not work at all – nor do we over-work and not rest at all.

There has to be a balance.

Each person will have their own balance of how much the mind needs to go into tranquility,

 and how much the mind needs to work,

 to investigate and consider, in order to develop insight and understanding.

There are various steps to calming the mind.

The first is developing the sense of well-being,

 and contentment.

Then the next is when from that contentment a sense of gladness arises.

When there’s gladness in the mind that leads to rapture.

And that rapture then leads to tranquility of the body,

 this buoyancy of the body, which leads to happiness; a happiness of the mind as it dwells on wholesomeness.

Now when that arises, then the mind becomes concentrated.

The precondition for concentration is happiness.

If ones asks, “Well, why am I not calm and concentrated?”

it is because the mind is not dwelling happily on a wholesome object.

So when you watch the breath, watch it to see its beauty.

Joyfully, happily watch each in-breath,

 and know it as a friend that you haven’t seen for a long time.

With each breath that comes in, you’re glad to greet that breath; and with each breath that goes out,

 you’re glad with the breath.

Glad of the in-breath, glad of the out-breath.

And as we do that, then the mind gradually lets go of distraction,

 lets go of the body, and then lets go of all thinking.

The body feels light and the mind becomes more and more calm and concentrated.

The result of calming the mind down is that one has access to wisdom.

We use the Buddhas wisdom to develop our own.

The wisdom of the Buddha’s enlightenment is that all conditioned

things are impermanent; that all conditioned things are dukkha and that all things are not-self.

We have received that, so we put it to work with our experience,

 using his wisdom to cultivate our own.

And in this way we come to Right View.

The Buddha defined Right View firstly in a conventional sense; that is,

 a confidence in the Buddha’s enlightenment,

 in the Dhamma, and in the Sangha; convition in the efficacy of generosity; belief in heaven and hell.

These are fundamentals of Right View.

But the Right View which leads to liberation is the Right View which is based on the Four Noble Truths.

This Right View is also defined as the opposites to the four perversions or distor- tions of views.

These distortions in seeing mean that we do not see the world as it truly is.

Because of the perversion of the mind,

 we see what is impermanent as permanent.

Through the distortion of the mind, we see what is dukkha as sukha – what is unsat- isfactory as satisfying.

Through the distortions and perversions of the mind,

 we see what is non-self as self.

And we see what is not beautiful as beautiful.

I once remember asking Ajahn Chah as to how he developed his immense loving- kindness.

And his response was, “You’re like a child who sees an adult running,

 and that child hasn’t learned to walk yet but wants to run.”

That was the first part of his response,

 the second part was, “When you see that all conditioned things are imper- 5 manent,

 then you automatically have loving-kindness.

You cannot not have loving- kindness.”

That was loving-kindness arising out of wisdom,

 because that wisdom of seeing things as they really are means that aversion cannot arise any more.

It is cut off at its roots.

So that ability to see things with Right View; this is impermanent,

 this is unsatis- factory, this is not-self,

 is very important.

Watch conditions arising in the mind; is this permanent or impermanent,

 for example, the aching in the knee now?

Is this perma- nent or impermanent – and you notice it changes,

 it pulsates.

If it’s pulsating then its impermanent.

You won’t find any sensation that does not change.

And if it’s imper- manent, it’s unsatisfying.

And anything that changes and cannot satisfy or be satisfied is not worthy of calling “Me” or “Mine”.

Therefore, that letting go process can occur.

To see the non-beautiful in those things that we take to be beautiful;

now what that means is seing that the body is not beautiful.

We decorate the body, and the reason that we do so is to cover up its non-beautiful aspects.

If we believe, “This body is me, is mine,

 is beautiful”, then when it gets old,

 when it gets sick and starts to fall apart,

 we suffer.

This body is made up of many parts, none of which are particularly beautiful in themselves.

So if a surgeon takes a body apart and puts the various organs around on a bench,

 there’s no beauty there.

The beauty of a human being comes through Dhamma,

 through virtue, through peace of mind,

 and through wisdom.

These are what makes a human being beautiful.

So this Monastery is a Beauty Parlor!

If we cultivate and develop these Five Spir- itual Faculties,

 then we become more and more beautiful.

I think I have said enough this evening,

 so I will stop here, and thank you for all your kindness in listening to me.

6

Frankk comment

I don't want to be overly critical, 

perhaps it's just a casual Dhamma talk aimed at a particular small audience,

but this part is a serious mistake:

Ajahn Nyanadhammo said:

There are various steps to calming the mind.

The first is developing the sense of well-being,

 and contentment.

Then the next is when from that contentment a sense of gladness arises.

When there’s gladness in the mind that leads to rapture.

And that rapture then leads to tranquility of the body,

 this buoyancy of the body, which leads to happiness; a happiness of the mind as it dwells on wholesomeness.

Now when that arises, then the mind becomes concentrated.

The precondition for concentration is happiness.

If ones asks, “Well, why am I not calm and concentrated?”

it is because the mind is not dwelling happily on a wholesome object.

What the Buddha actually said, was this:

SN ^46.3 synopsis



(implied: pamojja and pīti would result from contact with inspiring monks)
(0. 👂 Bhikkhūnaṃ dhammaṃ sutvā)	0. 👂 listen to Dhamma [teaching] from a monk [and memorize it]
(1. 🐘 Sati: taṃ Dhammaṃ anus-sarati anu-vitakketi)	1. 🐘 that Dhamma [teaching] (he) recollects and thinks about
(2. 💭 Dhamma-vicaya: taṃ dhammaṃ paññāya, pa-vicinati pa-vicarati pari-vīmaṃsam-āpajjati )	2. 💭 that Dhamma discerning; he discriminates, evaluates, investigates
(3. 🏹 Vīriya: āraddhaṃ hoti vīriyaṃ a-sallīnaṃ.)	3. 🏹 his aroused vigor is not-slackening
(4. 😁 Pīti: Āraddha-vīriyassa uppajjati pīti nir-āmisā,)	4. 😁 his aroused vigor leads to arising of rapture not-carnal (of jhana)
(5. 🌊 Passaddhi: Pīti-man-assa, kāyo-pi passambhati, cittam-pi passambhati )	5. 🌊 with enraptured-mind, his body becomes pacified, his mind becomes pacified
(6. 🌄 Samādhi: Passaddha-kāyassa sukhino, cittaṃ samādhiyati.)	6. 🌄 with pacified body, he is in PHYSICAL BODILY pleasure, mind becomes undistractable and lucid.
(7. 👁 Upekkha: so tathā-samāhitaṃ cittaṃ, sādhukaṃ ajjh-upekkhitā hoti)	7. 👁 he of such undistractable & lucid mind, thoroughly looks-upon-it-with-equanimity

Sukha is physical, bodily pleasure in this context, 

and 3rd jhāna formula explicitly confirms that Sukha is experienced with the physical body. 

(sukhan-ca kāyena patisamvedeti)

Now sukha vedana, and vedana in general straddles both the physical and mental,

so if you want to say there is also a mental "happiness" component to the sukha in Ven. Nyanadhammao's talk above, 

IN ADDITION to the explicit physical pleasure component of the sukha the Buddha stated,

that is defensible,

but the way he has stated it is completely wrong.

The second part of his quote I highlighted:

The precondition for concentration is happiness.

is not completely wrong, but it is mostly wrong, and needs a lot of qualification.

samādhi is the ability to make the mind undistractible and have singular focus. 

The precondition for samādhi, as you can see in the Buddha's passage above for 7 awakening factors,

is passaddhi/pacification (Ven. translates as tranquility).

If he were to state, sukha (happiness) is a precondition for the first 3 jhānas, 

then that is closer to be being correct.

But even that IMO overstates the case.

Sukha is by definition a factor of the first 3 jhānas,

but one skilled in samādhi, 

for example skilled in fourth jhāna,

can simply focus the mind, pacify the body, and be in 4th jhāna instantly without any

precondition or need to use pamojja (mental gladness), pīti (mental rapture), sukha (mental component happiness).

The physical component of pleasure in sukha comes along for the ride for the 4th jhāna meditator

if his jhāna battery is not sufficiently charged, 

without any intention or need to have happy thoughts.

If his jhāna battery is mostly charged, he won't experience any sukha at all, 

just upekkha-indriya, a-dukkham-sukham physical sensations of neutrality.

Again, maybe his target audience here is for beginner meditators who need 

to develop the skill of enjoying a meditation topic that leads to samādhi,

but even so a teacher, or the editor who published the transcription of these talks,

has a responsibility to check and make sure it conforms to the Buddha's actual words and meaning.

This is why I always strongly encourage people to memorize some of the important 

core passages of the Dhamma, in pāḷi.

Look at that 7 awakening factor passage above. 

There aren't that many words there,

and it's the heart of all 40 or so meditation methods.

It's important to get that right.

Dhamma teachers who have many students especially need to make sure they're transmitting correct Dhamma,

not an idiosyncratic derivative with major slippage of meaning and distortion.

This is how Dhamma becomes corrupt (whether unintentionally, innocently, or with crooked agenda),

 and how it dies in the future.