113: Retreat Dhamma Talk 8: Freedom from Laziness (Akusita)

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Namo tasabhago rahato samasambassa nammo tasabhagwato rahato samabudasa namo tasa bhago rahato samabodasa retreat series Dhamma talk number eight all our talks are built around the Satipatana Vipassana Mindfulness Insight Meditation Pure Vipassana and in here too we approach to this from many different directions various ways because that's how the Buddha taught us the same thing, the full Noble Truth and this insight meditation for five years and approach in many different ways based on the mentality and the intelligence and the parami of the people he was teaching to. So let's see today how we can approach this practice. We are practicing Satipatthana Vipassana, Vipassana meditation using full foundation of mindfulness as a tool. And when we practice this, the Buddha said we must be free from laziness, sluggishness, liturgy. We must be free from laziness, sluggishness and liturgy. In other words, one needs freedom from laziness. If you don't have a freedom from laziness, you won't succeed in this practice. This laziness or sluggishness or liturgy. In Pali it's called Adandito A dandito D-N-D-I-T-O that is laziness. When you put a it's become opposite meaning freedom from laziness, free of laziness and liturgy are dandito. That is a very important because whenever this laziness set in, landed on your mind, what happened was the mind got frozen. The mind gets weak. When laziness set in the mind got frozen and it got very weak. And this laziness can destroy anything that you are doing. Anything that you are taking on. It can destroy it, it can disrupt it. In other words, it is the enemy. In this particular case of our practice, we are talking about meditation. But it doesn't only refer to meditation only in anything and everything. We take on, that is what while what doing it in our life. If this mental state laziness set in, the mind got frozen, it became weak because it destroyed everything that you are doing. It is your enemy, not only your enemy, it is the closest enemy. You have one have many enemies far away or in your neighborhood or adjacent to or in your house or a mole, something a mole. And this is like a mole. It's just built inside you. It is the closest enemy that a yogi, a meditator has, and it is very strong and very powerful. It is one of the strongest and most powerful enemy a yogi will face. Dandit or laziness, sluggishness. So as it is the close, very close, inside like a mole, and then very powerful, one must be very careful. Because this dandito. Whatever it is, when a yogi is practicing, it becomes an obstacle, it's a destructor, it becomes a destroyer. And what does it do? When this laziness sets in, especially in meditation, finally it proceeds, it goes towards the sleepiness. What got sleepy when this laziness set in? Laziness is first, and then sleepiness followed. When the sleepiness sets in, what happened is the mind cannot stay on the object. And when the mind cannot stay on the object, the job or the purpose of a meditator is totally destroyed. Because that is the main job, the key job to be on the object at the present moment. It's totally, you cannot set in and everything slart from the sluggish mind, lazy mind. Finally it goes to sleepiness. I think we know quite often in that five niwaranat. Five hindrances. One of them is called tina meida, tina meida, laziness, sleepiness, okay, sluggishness, or shrinkage of the mind, shrinkage of the mental factors, the shrinkage of the Jita consciousness itself. So that is finally it's set to. But always start from this so-called lazy or sluggish mind. So when these minds set in, we already established that nothing works. You can't meditate, you can't focus on it. What is the cause of this laziness? If you want to overcome, if you want to conquer this laziness, you must know the cause. What is the cause? The cause in one word is enjoying the comfort, enjoying the zone of comfort, enjoying the pleasantness. People, everybody since we were born till now or till die, we always search for the comfort. In other words, the pleasant zone, pleasurable zone. We always seek for that, the comfort. So whenever a person is chasing for the comfort zone, that you can say it is the cause of laziness. You look for comfort. And as a meditator, what do you see? We want to be comfortable. We have a good meditation mat, we have a good cushion to sit on, how high, how soft, and then we sit in there, make as comfortable as possible. That's one thing. And then not only that, certain people are different from another group of people. Some people can go without the cushion or a mat. Some people get a hard cushion or a soft mat. Some people cannot. Some people enjoy their comfort so much they have to have a two, three, four pillows. Okay, supporting it. You have to, that's what is it actually? It is looking for comfort. Some people lean against the wall. What is it? Looking for comfort. Lean against the wall. And some people they try all sort of traits, little tricks or excuses so that they could be comfortable. So we won't go into details, what kind of things. But you are doing this or that or whatever it is so that you can be comfortable or pleasant. Why? While we are sitting, the first thing is that as we are sitting in a certain posture for a longer period of time, there's a discomfort set in. The pain set in. Discomfort pain. And we don't want that pain, we don't want the discomfort. So we try everything. When we try everything, what do you do? We don't just simply, I'll try this or I try this or I want comfort, I don't want discomfort. You don't think that way. The mind is very tricky. You use all sorts of excuses. This excuse, that excuse, oh I have a hip injury, I have a bad back, I have a stiff neck, I have a headache, and so on and so on and so on. The mind rationalizes in every way to justify what one is doing. It's a very tricky mind, and you believe yourself that it is necessary. I'm not saying that it is not necessary. There are certain cases, certain cases, you really have the problem. You have a car accident, you have an injury, you have a spinal injury, you have a sciatic enough pain, and so on and so on. The real injury or illness that really set in. And for those people, you have to take an appropriate measure to guard against it. Not only that you do, when you're meditating with a group or when you have a meditation teacher, you communicate the reason right from the onset. In that way, everything can be cleared and smooth sailing. But if you don't have all these things and it is simply just a dislike to the pain or discomfort, that is where it comes in. That itself, just wanting to be comfortable itself is laziness. Wanting to be comfortable is the cause, laziness is the effect. You are afraid of the pain, you are fearful of the pain. You don't like discomfort. And suddenly, what do you do? You begin to favor your body. You begin to favor your body, in other words, oh, if I do this, my back will get worse. Or if I do this, the blood will not flow quite well, and it might affect my health, and so on and so on. You worry about these things, okay. In fact, you might even be actually worrying about it. But one thing was if you don't have the underlying cause that really needs for the care, that Lian really needs to take care of, if you don't have those things, it is just simply a various resistant level to the pain. Some people can take pain a lot, some people cannot take pain a lot. They are very sensitive to pain. But whatever it is, if that's the case, okay, do not favor your body. Push as much as you can. Push to the limit. That's what it is. And if you don't push to the limit automatically, the clever, tricky mind will give you all sorts of excuses and you will not push. And when you do not push, what happened? First of all, laziness set in. Because of the laziness sets in, the lazy people, in fact, do not want to even practice. People who are already practicing, they are already a step up. But still, some people are more sluggish than the other. When they are sluggish than the other, what happened was you are being mindful. You are observing, you're observing the object, observing the object. When you're observing the object, you don't push as much as one could. Okay? As much as one could. Because in here, that pushing, okay, pushing through, pushing through is very important. You have to push it through with a force, not just superficially. Pushing through is the force. And when you do not push through, when you cannot push through because of that laziness, because you take a dim view to this practice. As soon as you take a dim view to the practice, you treat it superficially and carelessly. When there is a superficiality and carelessness come in, then that pushing, that energy is not there. And when you don't have that, you do not have the mindfulness. Mindfulness as mentioned and quoted by the Buddha. Sama Sati, correct mindfulness. You cannot establish correct mindfulness. Why? Because of that no push. And when you don't have that correct mindfulness, automatically what? There's no concentration. And when there is no concentration, what happened? There's no inside. You cannot see the true nature of mind and matter anymore. Automatically, your whole project, this meditation, is down the drain. You are still doing it, you are still coming every week, and then you are practicing it, but as you do not have that push, the oomph into it, you will not reach the end of the tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel. You might even see some yogis, like a lot in Burma, they go to the center, they do this center, they go every seven days retreat, ten days read here and there here, and they go round and round. Whenever there's a great teacher having a retreat, they go there. Everywhere they go. But they do not have progress. They do not have progress. And they are called, and we call it termed it in Burma. It's a chronic yogi. They are yogi, they are practicing, but they don't progress anywhere. They are chronic yogi, they are called traveling yogi. Because they do a lot, they go a lot, they spend hours and days, but they do not push to the limit of their ability in the practice. And what is that? Dandita, sluggishness and laziness. Because they go there but still they seek for that sudden comfort. That kind of a thing. So this is a very big obstacle. Now we know what causes it. As soon as you have that seeking for comfort, automatically you begin to favor your body, not to hurt your body, not to be too much painful, not to harm your body. But the attitude must be in here is. What is the antidote for this laziness? So we must know the antidote. And this antidote is, of course, we all know. That is the one of the most frequently used and famous words in Buddhist scriptures, variya, effort. But here, effort can be anything. So one word, this effort alone is not sufficient. This must be a a braved effort. It must be a brave effort. Because it must be brave. As soon as you say brave, what does it mean? Brave effort. Brave effort is let's say somebody who is in a battle when they are brave. What do they do? Why are they brave? How can they how can they be spotted that they are brave? Because they have the courage. Without the courage, you cannot be praised. You cannot be brave. You have courage. And when you have courage, your attitude suddenly changes. I don't care.

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Okay.

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I got shot fine. I die fine, but I must take this post, I must take this hill. What is that? Result, resolution. You were totally resolved mind. Everything is connected. Okay? Brave. Courage and resolute. These are all connected. And when you have that, automatically it's a courageous mind. The bold mind, the brave mind. So one must have courage to have the brave effort. One must have courage to have the brave effort. So it is a courage. It's a synonym into the riya effort too. Okay, courage. If you have courage, you have effort. If you have effort, you have courage. A brave effort. So one must apply courage, one must be bold, one must be resolute. There must be an ability to sacrifice anything to be successful to reach the goal. That is the way to practice. So when you have this courageous effort, you don't care about this life or a limb. You don't care about to be comfortable. You don't favor your body, you don't have fear, you are not afraid of it. Anything whatever is throwing at you, you have no fear towards it, you are not afraid of it. And as you are not afraid of it, what it means is you the way another way to put it is you can let go of things. What is let go of things? You can let go of things is you don't really afraid that your pain will kill you, your spine will hurt you, or you have the chronic pain or whatever that may come affect you. All that you do is the only thing is the goal because you have the courage. That means you have the ability to let go of your life or limb. Ability to let go, letting go. There's another mental state, letting go. In other words, detach attitude. Okay? Automatically, that's how starting from the brave effort, it goes step by step. There's a courage, there's a boldness, there's a resolute, and there's a letting go, and otherwise, self-sacrifice is automatically there. It seems like they are all different, but they are all connected dot after dot after dot after dot. Letting go, you are totally detached. So that is what this brave effort brings you. Brief brings you right to the thing. Now you are totally ability to let go of it. And all that you are its, you are totally focused mind. Once you have the ability to let go, the only thing left with you is the focused mind. What does this focused mind do? It is focused on the object that is arising at the moment. So now go step by step. First of all, we know laziness is our biggest, greatest enemy, and what causes this laziness, and what is the remedy of this laziness? Come to this point. But let's see more in a different way. We'll put a different part of Dharma. Let's look purely in terms of mind. Okay? Mine and here is Jita and Jeta Sika. Jita means consciousness, Jita Sika is mental associates or mental affectors. Let's see in terms of this. And how does things work? In here, let's see you have a very sluggish mind. Okay? Very sluggish mind. When you have a very sluggish mind, you are slow, you are lazy, you cannot focus on it. So that is how the mind is functioning. Okay, a weak mind because of this mental state of laziness. Dandito. And when is that dandito laziness is overwhelming the mind? How is the body behaving? Body is very lethargic, don't want to move. The body's head and sink and the body droops, the head bends, don't even want to move. Just trying to shift a little bit what is the most comfortable position in that drooping mood. That is the outer appearance of body. And the inner too. What kind of chemicals that are producing? Inside there are certain chemicals that are producing that slow down the body, that slows down the mind. It gives you a mellow feeling, a drowsy feeling. These kind of certain chemicals are producing in your body. Why is that? Because it is the mindset that you have. The mindset of your the sluggish mind, the lethargic mind. Set in and it is repeatedly going again and again and again that mind. In other words, you are allowing it to be in that mode. When you are in that mode, automatically the bodies go totally, it expressed exactly how the mind is thinking. And the body is totally tired, lethargic, no movement, and half asleep. Because you are allowing that mind to repeat again and again and again. The mind is repeating, that lazy mind is repeating, repeating, repeating. So what happened was when you allow that, the same mind arises again and again, and the same body arises again and again. When we say the same mind, it is not exactly identical. One lazy mind passes away, another lazy mind arises. One lazy mind passes away, another lazy mind arises, and so on. And the lethargic, the body chemicals, these chemicals that make the body drowsy and slow down extremely to the sleepiness mode, those kinds of chemicals arises, pass away, arises, pass away, arises, pass away. That what it means by the old mind arises and the old body arises again and again and again. The old mind and the old body arises again and again. Now let's say suddenly you're starting to see. The reality. The reality is this is my close enemy is here. It is attacking me. Because of this close enemy attacking me, my mind becomes sluggish. Okay? My mind becomes restricted and narrow. Doesn't go. But as it is the biggest enemy of my meditation, of my job, I must counterattack it. How do you counterattack it? You start applying that brave mind warya. You start applying that brave mind. Okay, so brave mind or brave effort you're applying. What is that? What it is that is you are trying your best to observe the meditation object at the present moment. So what is it called in terms of the actual technical word? Technical word is called we tak ka. Vita ka means applying the mind towards the object at the present moment. Or directing the mind towards the object at the present moment. You are applying again and again and again. So what is this brief effort? Wariya means, urgent effort, means. Ardent effort, okay. We say it, we thought we understand it. In a strictest sense, what is it? It is vitaka. You are applying repeatedly or directing repeatedly towards the object at the present moment. So brave effort in action is vitaka. That's what it is. You are applying the mind towards the object repeatedly again and again and again. That vitaka is braved effort. That brave effort is vitaka. And vitaka, of course, is applied or used in the samatha meditation, concentration meditation or jhanic meditation. Whenever we use the word jhanic meditation, that is an excessive push, like excessive push. Only to that with exclusion of everything. That kind of energy is involved. That's vitaka in concentration meditation. Okay. And that is called the name of the character of jhana, the character or the quality of absorption must be applied in here. When you are in this lazy mode, when you're in the sleepy mood, okay, the quality of absorption or jhanic quality must be applied. You cannot just simply, oh I direct, I direct, I direct, not enough. Okay, that is in concentration. In vipassana, the same thing is called with a different word. What it is? Sama Sinkapa, right thought. What is the right thought? You are applying the mind, you are directing the mind towards the object that is arising at the present moment. That it is. But in Vitaka is they choose just one object and they go to the object again and again and again. That's the difference. But regardless, in here, when you are in a lazy mode, sleepy mode, drowsy mode, you must use it with the quality of genic factor. Powerful, forceful, so that it can be penetrative. So vitaka is brave effort. Brave effort is vitaka. Vitaka is samasangapa, samasangapa is vitaka. Okay, just a matter of different mode you use in. But you must apply that. So now you are starting to apply this because you suddenly realize this my inner enemy is attacking me left and right. And you start pushing back, pushing back. Whenever you start pushing back, one consciousness after the other, one mind after the other. Old mind passes away, new mind arises. Old mind passes away, new mind arises. If you let it happen, these kind of similar time of that is similar to the old mind arises again and again. But now you are starting to take control and apply repeatedly with the precision and with the power. What happened? The new mind that arises is starting to change its character. The new mind starting to change its character. How? It is not lazy anymore, it is not sluggish anymore, starting to become alert. The mind becomes starting to become alert, the mind starting to become fresh. And the mind starting to become broadened. Broaden means it has the ability to observe many things. That is a change. The change from the narrowness, sluggishness into alertness and freshness and broadness. In other words, the new mind arises. Old mind disappears and the different kind of a mind arises. A new type of mind arises, a new type of mind arises, a new type of mind arises. There is a changes in there. That changes come from the brave effort. That changes come from the your resolute or resolution or determination. And those two factors combine, starting to produce a new type of mind or a new type of consciousness. That is what is happening in the mind. But you have to trigger a few things. What is that? One is vitaka, another one is adhitana, resolute mind and the repeated application with force and power, with genic quality. And when you insert those two, suddenly a new type of mind arises. And when the new type of mind arises sufficient enough, suddenly the body also produces new body, new matter. Before they are producing the chemicals that make you drowsy. Now the body is starting to produce, let's use the medical word, adrenaline. The body is starting to produce adrenaline. So in other words, there's a new type, a new matter arises, not the same old type, same old matter, not the drowsy matter. This is the adrenaline-filled matter arises. The body changes because the mind changes. But the mind automatically doesn't change. You must understand who the enemy is, how powerful the enemy is, what causing this. And then what kind of tool I have to apply and insert it. Only then the mental state change. When the mental state changes, also physicality, the body also changes, and suddenly your souping, sleeping bodies become stiffer, strafer, firmer, and upright. And then totally alertness sets in. That is what is happening if you look in terms of consciousness and mental factors. And of course, we all know the mind and the body is directly linked. Cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect. That is the inner workings of the mentality and physicality, while we are talking in general terms of laziness and freedom of laziness. One must understand that way. You understand in many different ways. Some people will be affected with certain lines, a certain approach, another person will be affected with a different kind of approach. And that gives rights to alert mind, fresh mind, and a broad mind, a new mindset. And that is what? That is adandito, freedom from laziness, freedom from sluggishness. It's all built around this dandito and adito, laziness and freedom from laziness. So as soon as this we got a freedom of laziness, what is it? We are developing new mind. We are developing new mind that has the quality of alertness and freshness. So what are we really doing? In one word, we are practicing bhavana. Okay? Dana sila bhavana. We are practicing bhavana, mental development, mental culture. We are developing our mind, we are culturing our mind. Bhavana, that is what the Buddha taught us. If you want to escape from the rounds of sansara, bhavana, you must culture your mind. You must develop your mind. So here you we are, we are developing our mind, we are practicing bhavana. Because we repeatedly apply that. We decar and resolute, resolution or determination, we apply that. And then those two created a new environment and a new mind. So when you are there, what happened? What happened is this laziness is overcome. We overcome laziness. In other words, we got freedom from laziness. So as soon as we got freedom from laziness, what is happening? This freedom of laziness, what does it manifest into? What does it make? What is this freedom from laziness created? What kind of new environment created? If you look at it immediately, immediately, one knows. One knows and once become capable to avoid from faulty natures. One knows how to avoid from faulty nature. Automatically that's the first result. You are already experiencing, getting, and having the flavor of this. Freedom from laziness. What is that? You have the ability and quality to avoid all faulty nature. Fault. In other words, one becomes faultless. That's number one. It manifests to faultless, the state of faultness. And if one becomes faultless, what happens? You have no fault. If you have no fault, what is the other benefit you arise? Someone who is faultless, who do no fault, who can avoid fault, those people cannot be blamed for anything. Because whenever you are blaming somebody because they have a fault, if there is no fault, it becomes blameless. So secondly, those kind of people become blameless. Whenever it becomes faultless and blameless, that news goes around. Even though we are talking precisely for this state of meditation, everything is applicable in every level. In the deepest meditation to the social life. This principle of Dharma applies in everywhere, accordingly, appropriately, and suitably. In our social world, people who make no faults, who are being praised, blameless being praised, these people are praised. That is the benefit. Faultlessness, blamelessness, praiseworthy. These are the benefits that arise. Is that all? No. When you are blameless and faultless, what is happening? If you really look at it, that person is not influenced by the kilesa. Not influenced by kilesa. What is kilesa is loba, dosa and moha. Okay? Greed, craving, grasping. And then irritation, frustration, aversion, anger, ill will, hatred, not knowing what you are doing, delusion, illusion. These mental defilements cannot cannot land onto the person, cannot be with the person who is faultless and blameless. In other words, there is no mental defilements. Mental defilements are far away. So when there is no mental defilement, automatically that person is said, he is having the freedom from laziness. Without freedom from laziness, you cannot achieve that stage. You cannot reach that state. Without the mental defilements, loba, dosa and moha. When they are away, what took their place? When the mental defilements are away, another kind of mental factors took their place. What is that? That is concentration samadhi. Samadhi took their place. And when the samadhi took their place, automatically with the power of samadhi, with the power of concentration, you can see your life situation with clarity. Without any confusion that is in your life. And in meditation too, you have a lot of insight. Both ways, both styles of life in meditation or in social, you can see, you can do things. That is the number three benefit of the freedom of laziness. And number four, what happened? If you put all these things together, what happened is you become the outstanding moral citizen of humanity. That is the benefits from the freedom of laziness. Now we see this word, freedom from laziness in all aspects. What is it? How it has happened, what is their characteristics, what do they function for, how do they manifest, and so on. And manifest means finally it becomes the benefits. So when a person has these kind of qualities, what happens? What happens is they are, they cannot be moved by any disaster or success or love or hate, praise or blame. They can't be moved. In other words, they are have the very strong ability to resist these things. And one line, if you remember, they can resist the eight Loka Dharma beautifully and skillfully. What are the eight Loka Dharma? Having a lot of lava lats mean wealth. You get a lot or you're very poor. The wealth will not move you, the poverty will not move you. Having lots of friends, attendants, and social circle will not move you. Not having a single friend will not move you. And then all the success and frame will not move you, and all failures cannot touch you. Failures could happen, but it will not touch you. And then all the bliss, okay, bliss and peace will not move you. And all suffering, dukkha will not move you. Those are the eight Lokadharma. The ability to resist, the ability to stay in grace whenever these eight Lokadharma strike you. That is the power. Where does this power come from? Starting from that one word, Adantido. Freedom from laziness in your practice of Satipattana Vipassana meditation. So may all of you be able to understand this freedom from laziness properly, correctly, and all-rounded way, and may you be able to stay with grace under the pressure of the eight Loka Dhamma as soon as possible. Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu Buddham Bujami Dham Bajami Sangam Bajami.