by Phil Jones
Once upon a time a practitioner asked me:
Does sitting and trying to be mindful of what is happening in my mind, which sometimes isn’t easy, lead to progress, to an ability to have a more wholesome state of mind?
What came to my mind were two similes found in the Vāsijaṭa-sutta (The Discourse on the Adze).1 They are found in the Saṃyutta-nikāya (Connected or Thematic Discourses) chapter 22, discourse 101.
Merriam-Webster says an adze is “a cutting tool that has a thin arched blade set at right angles to the handle and is used chiefly for shaping wood.” So, if we were trying to make, say, a dugout canoe from a tree trunk, we might use an adze to hollow out the inside to make a space where we would sit and carry things.
The Discourse on the Adze is named for this simile:
When a carpenter, or a carpenter’s apprentice looks at the handle of his adze, he sees the impressions of his fingers and his thumb, but he does not know: “So much of the adze handle has been worn away today, so much yesterday, so much earlier.” But when it has worn away, the knowledge occurs to him that it has worn away.
So too, when one dwells devoted to development {of the practice}, even though no such knowledge occurs to one: “So much of my taints has been worn away today, so much yesterday, so much earlier,” yet when they are worn away, the knowledge occurs to one that they have been worn away.
“Taints” is one of the English words used to translate or render the Pali word asava. Other renderings include: influxes, outflows, effluents. They all are referring to the most fundamental unwholesome patterns of mind that keep us entangled in gross and subtle forms of suffering [dukkha].
It seems to me that this is how it is with our practice of being mindful and of training our minds and hearts. Whether sitting in meditation or practicing with our daily lives, we work and work and work at being mindful of this and that kind of thought, emotion, bodily experience, or behavior. We work and work and work at letting go of the things that get us into trouble, that lead to our own suffering or the suffering of others.
Some days it feels like we might be having a little success: “Ok! I’ve finally got this!” Some days it feels like we’re totally lost: “I’m such a failure. I just can’t do this. I’m just not good at this.” Some days it is somewhere in between. But we have a commitment to practice, so no matter how it goes we just keep muddling along doing the best we can at that particular time.
Then one day something happens that in the past really would have triggered a strong reaction from us. This time we notice we’re not reacting even though what we encountered was unpleasant, or maybe even though it was pleasant. We recognize that we’ve made some progress. — At least with regard to this one thing that used to set us off.
In the discourses this is called developing dispassion, viraga in Pali. We’re not reacting with passion, or at least with nowhere as intense passion as we once did. There’s just not so much anger, irritation, aversion, or fear. There’s just not so much desire, greed, or lust. Our unwholesome or unskillful forms of passion diminish.
When we respond from dispassion, we still know what we’re encountering. We’re still present with it, open and receptive with it. We’re not indifferent. We’re just not excited by it. If it is pleasant, we feel the pleasantness. If it is unpleasant, we feel the painfulness. If it is neither-painful-nor-pleasant, we feel that lack. We feel these feeling-tones but we don’t react with grasping or aversion or ignorance. We don’t want or crave for it to be any more than it is.
With this diminishment of our craving for and clinging onto, dukkha decreases. We experience less agitation, less struggle, less dissatisfaction, less suffering related to this particular kind of experience. Maybe someone is being rude. Maybe we’re in the presence of someone we find attractive. There’s so many things that we react to every day, throughout our days. But now, having developed this little bit of dispassion, this decrease in craving, this cessation of a little bit of our life’s struggles and sufferings, then we might notice that our lives have become a little more peaceful.
Like the worn spots on the adze handle, we probably didn’t notice this happening at the time. Yet because of the repetition of our practice the letting go became noticeable. The repetition of trying to be mindful of what we’re encountering. The repetition of noticing when unwholesome patterns might be arising and making an effort to not engage with them, making an effort to let go, maybe to even see those impulses ebb away after they had arisen quite forcefully.
This repetition again and again and again is the nature of “practice”. It occurs whether we’re practicing a musical instrument, practicing tying shoe laces, practicing being present with our lives, or practicing letting go of the wish that it would be otherwise. With our diligent repetition of our mindfulness practice, of our Dhamma practice, the fruit of that practice — peacefulness, ease with life — naturally develops.
In the Discourse on the Adze, the Buddha shared another simile that speaks of this:
Suppose, there was a hen with eight, ten, or twelve eggs that she had covered, incubated, and nurtured properly. Even though no such wish as this might arise in her: “Oh, that my chicks might pierce their shells with the points of their claws and beaks and hatch safely!” yet the chicks are capable of piercing their shells with the points of their claws and beaks and of hatching safely. For what reason? Because that hen with eight, ten, or twelve eggs had covered, incubated, and nurtured them properly.
As long as we keep practicing, as long as we keep bringing to our lives careful attention, mindfulness, and an understanding of the wholesome and unwholesome (what leads towards or away from peacefulness and ease with life), then the fruits of the practice will naturally develop. They may not develop with the speed that we wish them to, but they will develop in time.
1. SN 22.101 {III 155}, Vāsijaṭa-sutta (The Discourse on the Adze), Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000, pp. 960-961. The author adapted both of the discourse quotes for gender neutrality.
Phil Jones has served on the Mid America Board of Directors since 1994. He has been teaching Insight Meditation since 1996. He graduated from the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Program in 2000. He is offering an ongoing Sutta Study Class. The next semester begins in October.
.