Diligence

1. DILIGENCE IS THE EFFORT TO DO WHOLESOME DEEDS

If forbearance is knowing how to endure adversity and face the karmic results of the past, then diligence is facing the future and sowing good causes for it.

Diligence is effort: the striving to do wholesome deeds for the future. Wholesome deeds are of two main kinds: first, creating merit for the benefit of living beings; second, gathering the mind in meditative concentration. In truth, the principal meaning of diligence is gathering the mind in meditative concentration, while creating merit and benefiting living beings are not necessarily called diligence, because the word "refined" in the Vietnamese term for diligence (tinh tấn) means subtle, exquisite, delicate. At times we also strive to do good and wholesome things, but such deeds are still not called refined; they are still coarse. A truly delicate, subtle undertaking must be the effort to gather the mind in meditative concentration. However, if we widen the scope of the meaning, diligence also includes efforts in other wholesome deeds, as well as in benefiting living beings.

In addition, striving to study the teachings can also be called diligence, because striving to learn so as to understand and walk the right path of Buddhism also benefits living beings. In the old days the Buddha often praised those who were learned (those who had heard much). In India at that time, hearing meant learning, and hearing others speak was called "learning by hearing". A person who heard much was one who learned much and understood much. Today we would call them people who love to study. In study there are things that are very difficult, and often we learn wrongly, so the more we learn the more confused we become, not knowing how to apply it to practice. There are also cases where, because we have heard teaching that was not correct, we practise wrongly, so that our practice does not grow and brings no benefit. This too is very dangerous. In truth, the truth has only a narrow doorway, and it is very hard to squeeze through. We need to study very carefully. What matters is how we know who is a good teacher, who teaches correctly and should be followed. We must always pray to the Three Jewels that we meet an enlightened teacher and a good spiritual friend, so that we hear the genuine teachings and so practise on the right path.

The fourth wholesome deed is the practice of bowing to the Buddha. This is a very important practice. We must bow to the Buddha diligently to create the basic merit for all other practices. That is diligence, an effort that we have no right to put down for the rest of our lives.

a. Diligence means effort, striving. But it is a striving that words cannot describe. Only when we strive to overcome difficulties to accomplish a task do we understand it.

For example, at some time, in difficulty, we strive to see something through. Only we understand that striving. As for describing it in words, defining it concretely, we cannot. Still, we must understand that the power of diligence, also called willpower, is an element of the mind, not of the body.

For example: two people do the same job. Both are tired, but one wants to give up and the other wants to go on and refuses to give up. The feeling of tiredness belongs to the body; it comes from the muscles working and is caused by chemical reactions. But the one who wants to go on is using willpower, the power of diligence of the mind. Or when pushing a handcart, we load a great deal onto it and both pull and push. Sometimes we are very tired, the cart must pass a hole or a pothole, but we still try to push. At that moment we are exerting ourselves. The force we tense up belongs to the body. But what creates the strength in the muscles belongs to the mind. It is willpower that gives the order and forces them to tense and get through. We must tell these two apart.

What is striving? What is willpower? We cannot answer. But if we have ever striven, we will understand what it means. Striving is the power of the mind, but it does not arise by itself. We must train it from childhood. Once youth has passed, it is very hard to train, because willpower can no longer be aroused. So when we are young, if we have hardships to train through, we should regard it as a blessing of our lives. Most people who had a comfortable youth are people without willpower or energy. Such people have never known what striving is, so they very easily falter before difficulties or collapse before circumstances.

Training willpower usually goes from coarse to subtle. The coarse is striving in manual labour. Gradually we train in the times when we sit in meditation. At some point we feel pain, but we no longer need to use force; we use willpower invisibly to endure it. That is the mind's striving, more subtle. In all our practice and study and in volunteer work, we must strive. If willpower and spirit are aroused while we are young, that strength will remain throughout our lives. When we are older, if we need to strive, we already have the strength to rise above difficulties and will never become weak.

b. We can confuse striving with stubbornness.

A stubborn person is one who strives to maintain a wrong opinion or a wrong action even after being reminded by others. This is also a type of person who makes an effort in their work, but their effort is not called diligence. We rely on the purpose and nature of the matter to tell diligence from stubbornness. If we are illuminated by wisdom, choose the right path to walk and choose good work to do, that is diligence. On the other hand, lacking clarity, choosing the wrong path, and still not listening when others offer advice and remind us, that is stubbornness, obstinacy, bullheadedness.

For example, the brothers in a temple feel they need to open a path for convenient travel. After discussion, each takes a task, and everyone is keen and gives their all. That effort is called diligence. But while the work is under way someone suddenly points out that opening this path will cause disadvantages for the temple. They analyse the pros and cons clearly. At this point, not only does no one withdraw, but they make an even greater effort and are determined to finish. That effort is not called diligence but obstinacy, stubbornness and bullheadedness, because they know the work is not beneficial and not a good thing, yet still do it, still clinging to their own opinion. So although the willpower that arises is very similar, its nature is entirely different, and we need to distinguish them clearly in order to practise diligence and avoid an attitude of obstinacy and stubbornness. That is, we must use wisdom to judge the matter. If the work is wrong, we must stop at once and not cling. If it is the right thing to do, we must defend our opinion and viewpoint to the end and carry it out whatever difficulties or obstacles we meet. That is diligence and true effort.

When sitting in meditation, at times we fall into drowsiness. If we settle the body correctly when sitting, keep the eyes open and are clearly aware of the whole body, we are seldom sleepy. However, there are many causes of drowsiness. In some cases it is due to karma, in others to a wrong method or to heavy work. Depending on the case, we deal with it differently. If we feel that the day's work was too heavy, or that we stayed up too late before, we know at once that the sleepiness is natural and physiological. Then we should end the session and go to sleep. But in a case where we have done no heavy work and not stayed up late, we must judge that this is drowsiness due to karma. Then we must find ways to fight it; we must battle it to the death and must not end the session. For we know this drowsiness is an obstruction by evil karma. At this point, only by using the strength of willpower can we defeat it.

The story of the Venerable Kosen writing "Victorious Meaning" in Sand and Pebbles gives many people something to think about. When he first built his temple, he intended to write three beautiful characters for the craftsmen to carve on the temple gate. At first he wrote the three characters for "Ultimate Truth" on paper. A disciple ground the ink for him and kept offering criticism. Almost every time, after looking, the disciple shook his head and said it was not beautiful. He thought: the characters would be carved right at the temple gate, and if someone found fault with them they would not do. So he discarded that sheet and wrote on another. When he finished, his disciple still said it was not beautiful. He discarded it and wrote again. So the two of them, one grinding ink and one writing, spent a whole morning, using who knows how many sheets of paper. By the eightieth sheet the disciple still shook his head, dissatisfied. When the disciple had to step out for a moment, he took the chance to write the three characters at once. When the disciple came back in, he suddenly cried out: "A masterpiece!" The three characters by the Venerable Kosen, the result of a persevering process of achieving his aim, became a masterpiece left to all later generations. To this day the temple with those three famous characters is still a source of pride for Buddhists in Japan. So how did the Venerable come to write such beautiful characters?

Clearly, when the disciple went out, the Venerable felt more natural. He wrote with a relaxed mind, without fear, without feeling constrained by being watched and observed by another. So the characters, being natural, came out beautiful. But we should not rely on that final detail to praise it (as in the Zen school). In truth, the result the Venerable achieved was because for the whole morning he did not lose heart, and wrote eighty times with focus. Only when the mind was released in ease did he succeed. Such is the value of effort. So we must consider before and after, and never think the final result was due to the immediate conditions; we must understand that the cause was effort over a very long time. Diligence is latent power, accumulation, tempering. So when we evaluate a final achievement, we must be careful, or we will deny a whole long effort.

2. DILIGENCE IN BENEFITING LIVING BEINGS

By definition, diligence is striving to do wholesome deeds, to benefit living beings and to gather the mind in meditative concentration. So why must we make a diligent effort in order to benefit living beings?

To speak of effort means the matter is not simple or easy. Indeed, helping others is very difficult, and we need to try very hard to accomplish it. These difficulties usually have several causes:

First, good deeds usually run against the human tendency toward selfishness. In each of us there is the instinct of clinging to self. From this instinct, a selfish tendency arises and makes us want to do only what benefits ourselves; what benefits others we usually do not care about. We know that breaking the instinct and the selfish tendency in order to benefit others is very difficult and not easy to do. Doing it is just like wading upstream against a rushing current. Once used to benefiting ourselves, when we must now benefit others we have to struggle, torn violently in our thoughts and feelings.

For example, when we see others in difficulty or want, we very much want to help. But on second thought, seeing that if we help them we will live less comfortably and our daily life will become very difficult, we hesitate again and do not want to help. So we fall into a very awkward state of mind, constantly wavering and torn. If we want to escape this tug-of-war, we must have willpower; we must fight our own selfish instinct. So the effort at this moment is not exertion, not tensing the body as in pulling a heavy cart, but diligence, rising above ourselves by willpower. It is always so: whatever brings benefit to ourselves we do very easily, without calculation or thought. But to do good selflessly, without thinking at all of our own future benefit, not seeking merit, is very difficult.

However, in life there are also people who make merit easily and are ready to help others without seeking merit at all. They are people who have been practising the mind of altruism for many lifetimes. This is something that we who practise must strive for. When others are in need, we are ready to help with anything and never refuse. If we can do so, we will sense a very great happiness. This also points to a contradiction in some people's thinking. Some think that practice is turning inward, avoiding conditions and surroundings so that the mind may be still, while charitable work, which turns outward, will not lead to a pure liberation. In truth, a life of altruism greatly supports meditative concentration. Try devoting your whole life to living for others, and you will sense that each of our good deeds makes a state of lightness, ease and joy appear in the mind. This is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening, also called the seven elements that lead to Enlightenment. A person who gives selflessly and benefits others will manifest the state of lightness and ease of the Seven Factors of Awakening. That very merit supports gathering the mind in meditative concentration. We who practise must not turn our backs and live a selfish life, concerned only with gathering the mind. Living like that, we will never be able to gather the mind into concentration.

Second, we do not have enough merit, so we lack the conditions to carry it out. For example, seeing living beings suffering from poverty and hunger or illness, we feel great pity and want to help, but we do not have the ability. We have no money or rice, so though we want to help we can only throw up our hands. That is because we do not have enough merit. Or sometimes, seeing the moral decline of society, we want to spread ethics widely, but if we ourselves lack wisdom or eloquence, we still cannot do it.

Still, once a wholesome mind has arisen, we must not retreat from it. Even if we cannot do it today, we must still nourish it and hope that one day we will accomplish it. For a wholesome mind has the power to draw a response, and surely someone will support us. This is difficult, and we must make an effort. If we do not strive, our aspiration will never be fulfilled.

Third, others do not have enough merit, so they do not receive our help. Saying this reminds us of the story of the Venerable Sariputta helping the Venerable Losaka Tissa have a full last meal. Elder Losaka Tissa was an Arhat. From childhood he had been abandoned by his mother and had to wander begging for food everywhere. All his life he never had enough to eat and endured terrible hunger and hardship. One day he met the Venerable Sariputta. Seeing his pitiable circumstances, the Venerable Sariputta ordained Losaka Tissa. When he grew up he too attained Arhatship, but he never had enough to eat and was always hungry. When he went on alms rounds with a group of monks, the others were always given alms by householders, but his bowl alone stayed empty. For some reason, each time people were about to put food in his bowl, they saw that the bowl was already full and so stopped. And so he had to go without food continually.

Because he ate so little, his body grew more and more emaciated, and at last his life span came to an end. The Venerable Sariputta wanted his disciple to have one full last meal, so he invited the disciple to go with him. They went into the village for alms, hoping that with the Venerable Sariputta beside him people would make offerings. But they walked and walked, and the two still received nothing. Seeing this, the Venerable Sariputta said: "Now, friend, go back to the monastery and wait; I will ask for alms and send it back to you." As soon as the Venerable Losaka Tissa had left, people crowded round to make many offerings to the Venerable Sariputta. He hurriedly set aside another bowl and asked a monk to take it back to the monastery for his disciple. On the way, for some reason, that monk forgot altogether what the Venerable Sariputta had asked. After he had eaten and sat in meditation, the Venerable Sariputta returned in the afternoon and learned that the bowl of rice had not reached the Venerable Losaka Tissa. He was still sitting there, hungry. By now the sun had passed its height, and he could no longer go for alms. Knowing for certain that the man would enter Nirvana that very afternoon, he vanished at once from the monastery and appeared in the royal palace. He personally asked the king for the foods and cakes the Buddha allowed to be eaten, then reappeared at the monastery. He held out the bowl to him. The man reached to receive the bowl, but he stopped him and said: "If I do not hold this bowl, the cakes will vanish." So the Venerable Sariputta stood holding the bowl like that. The Venerable Losaka Tissa sat down and quietly took the cakes from the bowl one by one and ate them. That was the only time in his life that he ate his fill. And that afternoon he passed into extinction.

The Venerable Sariputta made a great effort to help another. When people lack enough merit and find it hard to receive our help, we must try with all our strength, and must not lose heart and abandon them. For that would be not striving, and lacking compassion.

Fourth, because our own past evil karma still remains, making merit meets obstacles. In some cases we want to do good, but our evil karma keeps blocking us so we cannot carry it out. However, even when blocked, we must not lose heart; we must try with all our might to see it through.

We have all heard the story of the Venerable Xuanzang or the Venerable Faxian going to fetch the sutras. The Venerable Xuanzang crossed the desert to India to seek the Buddhist scriptures. Throughout the journey to India he endured untold hardships. Many people died, and he himself nearly died. When he reached the desert, with no more water to drink and no more food, he was exhausted and sank into a coma. But because of his great merit, in the coma he saw the image of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara appear and sprinkle nectar over his body. Then he felt his strength return. So the difficulties we meet in the course of doing good may be caused by past evil karma. We must strive to create merit so that we can overcome those difficulties.

Making merit can be compared to sowing rice. We must have a handful of rice grains to sow the first plants. In this way, little by little, we multiply it far and wide. We must have merit in order to make merit. So the first steps of making merit will be very hard, and we must be persevering and never retreat.

In the Seven True Ones' Cause and Effect there are many stories about those who practised as immortals. Once, an immortal who was a disciple of Wang Chongyang happened to meet another practitioner. To contend over who was better at practice, the other challenged him to sit in meditation. He agreed. When challenged to sit through one night, he sat through one night, but the other sat a little and then had to get up to attend to his own business. In the end he won. But when he told his friends, he also said it was thanks to the protection of the void, not his own strength.

Usually people take the stories in the Seven True Ones' Cause and Effect to be invented. But we still find reasonableness in them, especially in the stories about ethics and cause and effect. In this story we meet a very sound view: when something is accomplished successfully, people still do not think it was due to their own strength, but always think it was thanks to the support of a higher power.

Or there is a prominent story in it of Qiu Changchun coming to study with the Venerable Wang Chongyang. Because of heavy karma, he was scolded and made to suffer in every way by Wang Chongyang. Later, when he awakened to the Way, he understood his own lack of merit and resolved to do volunteer service. He had no money, but he had health. At that time, in the place where he lived there was a wide river with no bridge across it. The river was also shallow, so people could wade across. But each time they wanted to cross the river, they had to take off their clothes to keep them from getting wet, and on reaching the bank look for a place to put them on again, which was very troublesome. He went there and volunteered to carry people across the river on his back. After enduring such hardship for a long time, his merit gradually grew. Later he became a teacher, and I hear he was even the teacher of the emperor. According to cause and effect, this is entirely reasonable. When people strive to make merit under very difficult conditions, their merit will be very great.

We have heard the story of the Italian judges who fought the Mafia to defend justice. In the past in Italy there was a criminal organisation commonly called the Mafia. This organisation operated according to three principles:

• Illegal business: smuggling, drug trafficking, running casinos, procuring prostitutes...

• Readiness to use violence to kill.

• Collusion with corrupted state officials.

So it was very hard to fight this organisation. When an operation was under way, the corrupted people in the state apparatus would tip them off so that they could escape or find ways to counter it. They shot police and judges, sparing no one they knew was tracking and pursuing them. Under condemnation from the world, the Italian government had to find every possible way to fight this organisation. Many judges were killed by them. Judge Falcone was one of those who threw themselves into investigating and arresting those criminals to defend justice. They watched him, learned his comings and goings, and placed a half-tonne bomb by the roadside as he came back from the airport. In the end the car and the man were blown to pieces. But those who followed him did not lose heart; they went on hunting the Mafia and refused to stand by while it committed further crimes. That is effort, the striving to carry out wholesome deeds in difficult and dangerous circumstances.

In life we see that people who live in too much ease and comfort usually have no willpower and no diligence. Such people will find it very hard to practise. For effort is an important practice for gathering the mind. If we do not strive and have no willpower, we cannot gather the mind into concentration. That striving must first be trained through coarse tasks. That is, making merit by helping everyone. Gradually, from those merit-making deeds, we will gather the mind into concentration, which is called diligence in the practice of meditative concentration.

3. DILIGENCE IN PRACTISING MEDITATIVE CONCENTRATION

This is the main matter, the sixth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path. Before practising Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration, we must have Right Diligence. Only by preparing our thoughts about Right Diligence can we enter meditative concentration. For without diligence we cannot gather the mind.

First of all, we must have a method to apply our effort to. It may be reciting the Buddha's name, the breath, reciting mantras, the key phrase (huatou), watching delusions, or prajna... Any method is good for the practitioner. In the past each master often praised the method with which he himself had succeeded. That exclusive thinking caused divisions in Buddhism. In truth all the methods are equal; no method is better than another. A method is only a branch; the root system is ethics, the trunk is merit. Only when we have trained in ethics and accumulated merit do we begin to choose a method to practise. The choice of method must follow our own conditions, and we must never think that the method we have chosen is better than another's. All of them are only means for our practice. Once we have chosen a method, we must not lose our application of effort in that method; we must be diligent hour by hour, minute by minute. That is truly Right Diligence. For example, when reciting the Buddha's name, we never lose the recitation, keeping hold of it all the time except when we go into the toilet. The same with reciting mantras. As for the breath, watching delusions or contemplating prajna, we can practise anywhere and never lose that practice. This is called Right Diligence.

Before entering a method, we must practise abdominal breathing, and train it until it is natural, in order to strengthen the yin force. In the lesson on Breathing and Ending a Meditation Session we spoke about this. Practising abdominal breathing is not easy, because it has very profound points and we must practise a great deal to accumulate experience. The second important matter is purifying the mind, sifting the mind between good and evil, between right thoughts and wrong thoughts. We must sift it clean and leave in our mind and thoughts only what is purely wholesome.

We find it very difficult to gather the mind for many reasons. First, because the mind is abstract, invisible and hard to grasp. We can bear the toil and hardship of manual work all day, but we cannot gather the mind all day. Even though we know how to practise meditation, the mind still runs here and there. So only a person with a profound ideal and great determination can apply effort and gather the mind into purity. In the first stage of applying effort, everyone meets difficulties, and we must try our utmost.

The second difficulty is that the mind has long had the habit of liking to wander in thought and is very hard to tame. Krishnamurti, the Indian, was regarded as a teacher of the Way of the age. He had a very high power of awakening, taught in many places and benefited a great many people. Not a few praised him as an embodiment, an incarnation, of the Bodhisattva Maitreya. He said something very true: "In this world, the clever and the foolish alike suffer the same illness: thinking too much." Indeed, if we pay attention we will see that our mind thinks very often. When we finish thinking about one thing, we think about another. No one can stop their own natural thinking. This is very much the same in everyone, because the structure of the brain is the same in every person. We can picture that brain cells have a very strange structure: from the nucleus of the cell bristle fine filaments, and at the end of each filament is a part called a synapse whose task is to connect with other brain cells. So when an impulse arises from one brain cell, it is immediately passed through the synapse. The stimulated synapse spreads waves on to other brain cells. In this way impulses spread without end. So if our mind stirs even slightly, ideas keep on flowing, flowing, and cannot stop. In the same way, an initial thought that has appeared will spread throughout our lives.

In a single instant we do not have just one thought to think, but thousands of thoughts appearing at once. For in our brain there are about ten billion nerve neurons. The brain cells work continuously. Their activity may not be even, but it is very complex. Sometimes we see only one or two streams of thought moving in our mind, but in reality the activity inside is very complex. Because of this physical structure, this material, physiological body, our mind finds it very hard to become still and hard to be gathered back into stillness.

Another cause that makes gathering the mind difficult is that we are bound by duties, and these very duties force the mind to think. In life, people cannot separate themselves from relationships, nor cast off responsibility toward those around them and toward themselves. People in the world have a duty to look after their families, to work hard and find food and clothing to support parents, wife and children. So they must always think and worry. Those who have left home, though they do not have the worries and pressures of worldly people because they live entirely on the help of lay followers, still have other worries. We must be concerned with study, with training in ethics, with the daily work in the temple... Those are the responsibilities and duties of a practitioner. Because we are bound and worried by those responsibilities, our mind cannot be at peace.

However, if we have an altruistic intention, those concerns will form merit and enable us to gather the mind later. If they are selfish thoughts, then later our power of concentration will be destroyed and we will not be able to gather the mind. That is, our concern must be concern for the assembly, for the assembly's practice, for the benefit of everyone, not for ourselves as individuals. Here, although there is a reason to console and justify ourselves, namely that our duties make us preoccupied, we try to choose duties that are for everyone. In this way, though we are preoccupied, that preoccupation is also a good cause by which we can later attain awakening.

Another difficulty is temptations that distract the mind. This is a matter of real concern. There are many kinds of temptation, from subtle to coarse, from weak to strong. Music, for example, also tempts us. If the temple is near a residential area and people play music, the sound drifts in, plaintive and yearning, and makes us pay attention and listen. At that moment the mind has turned outward and we are distracted. Television and video are also a very strong form of temptation. When we watch television or video, our minds "run" completely outside, because such things have a tremendous pull. Especially long serial dramas on television are usually gripping, so that we follow them at great cost in time. These are temptations that turn our mind strongly outward. Tempted like this, we incur a fault. For we have eaten the rice of faithful donors yet do not know how to spend each hour and minute gathering the mind, and instead let the mind run outside. If the temple has a video player, we should watch only documentaries about Buddhism, in order to see beautiful images directly, be moved and resolve to practise.

Or often, when talking with lay followers, we show delight and chase after their praise; that is, we too have chased after a temptation that leaves our mind unsettled and agitated.

Among all those temptations, for a practitioner the most fearsome temptation is sensual desire, romantic and sexual desire. This is a temptation that we must fight to overcome throughout our lives if we want to be a firm practitioner. Sexual desire is a difficult subject to speak about because it relates to sex and sexuality. It is mentioned in the precepts for practitioners but in a general way. We will have a separate lesson on this matter, a delicate one. In it we will analyse carefully to find a method of overcoming those temptations of instinct. It is the temptation that preoccupies us most and is the most formidable.

There is one more difficulty: past evil karma makes the mind agitated and uneasy. Past evil karma is truly frightening. When sitting in meditation we may be assailed by deluded thoughts. At times, while settling the body and clearly aware of the whole body, we suddenly forget because we are lost in thinking about something. Or sometimes, while reciting the Buddha's name, we forget the recitation and become absorbed in worries about what is around us. In form we are also reciting the Buddha's name, but deluded thoughts keep intruding and scatter our attention so that we do not concentrate on the recitation. Sometimes the deluded thoughts are so strong that they drag us off to very distant matters. When this happens, some people conclude that the method they are applying is not good or effective and hurriedly choose another, hoping to be able to gather the mind.

This is a mistaken idea that many people have fallen into. In fact, there are people who recite the Buddha's name for a while without gathering the mind, switch to the breath and then can gather it. They conclude that in meditation only the breath is good and reciting the Buddha's name is not. Or someone contemplates prajna for a while without gathering the mind, goes over to reciting the Buddha's name and is then able to gather it, and says that reciting the Buddha's name is better than contemplating prajna, and so on... In truth, as we already know, all the methods are only branches. Merit is the root that enables us to gather the mind and keep Right Mindfulness without being dragged away by deluded thoughts. Or put another way, being able to gather the mind is not due to the method or to our own skill but to the merit that we have accumulated.

So when sitting in meditation, if we feel our mind gathers with difficulty, the practitioner should know that their karma remains and their merit is not yet enough. Then we must concern ourselves with making merit and bowing to the Buddha. Those are the very factors that enable us to gather the mind better. When merit is not enough, the more diligent we are, the less result we obtain, and especially the more we force ourselves, the more we fall into error. For diligence in meditative concentration is a very careful, strict diligence, yet light as cloud and wind, soft as emptiness, as nothingness. We obtain this through applying effort in the right way in meditative concentration. Many people do not grasp how to gather the mind; when they sit they keep tensing their body and their head, thinking that this will bind the deluded thoughts. This is very dangerous. For tensing like that seriously affects the brain. This is where we must be extremely careful. We must see the difference between striving in charitable work and the diligence of sitting meditation. It is called diligence because it is so subtle and so gentle, yet requires us to try with all our strength. So when past evil karma leaves the mind uneasy and mindfulness is lost, we must make merit and not strive.

Precisely because we meet so many difficulties, we must have high determination and a persistent will to pursue the practice of meditative concentration over the long term. Each person must vow in their heart to practise meditative concentration with resolve and gather the mind at all costs. For without high determination, the mind will easily lose mindfulness, and if after practising for a while the mind cannot be gathered, we will become discouraged. In that case we will have wasted a whole life of practice, since we left home yet did not taste the flavour of the Way in the Dharma. For now we study and practise at the same time. At some point we will devote everything to practice. That is the ideal and the direction of a practitioner. When we have experience in practice, we will be able to help others more.

The mind is indeed hard to grasp, but if we have determination we will also succeed. For when a person has will and determination, there is no peak they cannot cross. Nguyễn Bá Học once taught his students: "The road is not hard because of rivers and mountains in the way, but because hearts fear the mountains and dread the rivers." Indeed, the difficulty that comes from a heart always fearing high mountains and deep abysses is the thing to be afraid of. So we must be diligent day by day in practising meditative concentration to attain our ideal.

What is worrying is that when the mind is easily gathered, settled and light, we lose our will because of the ease. When the mind attains concentration, two cases usually occur. A person of great merit will be enchanted and dwell in concentration. Such people do not lose willpower and do not lose diligence. Meanwhile a person of little merit, once the mind is naturally gathered, comes to like a life of leisure and ease. That too is an obstacle in practice. Falling into this state, people gradually lose all their willpower. Only diligence in bowing to the Buddha can help us escape this state.

Another phenomenon we often meet in the course of meditation is that when we apply effort in some method, we obtain concentration, joy and lightness of ease, and when we have such sensations and states, the practitioner easily has thoughts of admiring, savouring and enjoying them, and the mind begins to be distracted. If it is reciting the Buddha's name, we loosen our hold on the recitation. We know that the state of joy and lightness is the Fruit, and its Cause is the method we have chosen. If we just sit at ease picking the Fruit, one day there will surely be no Fruit left to pick. Put another way, in only a short time we will run out of merit. Then the mind will fall into disorder, and we will lose the concentration that we worked so hard to gain.

So throughout our life of practice we must remember: when applying effort, if those states of lightness and joy appear, we must pay them no attention and keep firmly to the method we are applying effort in. That is diligence. That is, when we do not yet have concentration, we try our utmost to hold the mind in order to attain it. When concentration begins to come and states of spaciousness and lightness begin to appear, we must hold our method even more firmly and not loosen our grip. For at that moment, if we relax just a little, we will wander off, gradually run out of merit and fall back into disorder. That is also why many practitioners keep complaining that they gain concentration and then lose it again, gain it and lose it.

Some things to know when entering retreat:

Our Buddhism has a form of practice called entering retreat (nhập thất). It means that the practitioner goes to live simply in a small house, avoiding conditions and having contact with no one. Each day, at the proper time, only one retreat attendant brings in food and water. Even when they bring in food and water, the practitioner may not speak, only make signs. If really necessary, the person writes a few words on paper asking for help. In life, many people feel they have much to be preoccupied with, and so dream of entering retreat, avoiding conditions, in order to concentrate on keeping the mind pure. Whether sitting in meditation, bowing to the Buddha, walking meditation or even resting, at all times the practitioner monitors their mind, holds firmly the method they are applying effort in, and does not let deluded thoughts drag them away. Entering retreat with such concentration is a very high and thorough form of diligence in Buddhism that every practitioner must go through, almost as if obligatory. This is not a simple matter. It may be many years before we can immerse ourselves in solitude and quiet to carry out our spiritual path. But as a practitioner, everyone must cherish the wish that one day they will enter retreat. That is also our ideal and our aim.

At present many people who have entered retreat have had very good results, scattered here and there in Buddhism. There are some who are not very famous but have truly had good results from entering retreat. And quite a few practitioners have achieved results thanks to the process of retreat. So a practitioner must always have the dream of one day entering retreat and applying effort to open the spirit. We must be clear that study is only the path of the conscious mind, a temporary means to know the direction, and must never be taken as the final goal. Opening the spirit is truly our final goal. In opening the spirit, diligence in gathering the mind hour by hour, minute by minute, never losing the method we practise, is something that must be put into practice. That is truly diligence, great diligence. This diligence is extremely important for a practitioner.

When entering retreat, we must note:

• First, we must prepare a mind of altruism to avoid the growth of a selfish mind. For in retreat we no longer have to look after anyone, only our own practice, so latently the selfish mind grows larger and larger. So before entering retreat we must live a life of the utmost altruism, caring for others to the point of forgetting ourselves. In practice many people like to enter retreat while their merit is not enough, so it usually brings no result. We must bow to the Buddha and make merit by helping everyone before entering retreat, if we are to hope that the practice achieves the desired result.

• Second, we must be careful of the arrogant mind. For in retreat, we no longer have to yield to anyone or show respect to anyone, so we will feel ourselves becoming important and better than others. That is exactly what makes the arrogant mind grow.

• Third, we must judge whether our merit is enough. When we assess our conditions and merit and feel that everything we wish for in our lives is in order, then let us decide to enter retreat. If merit, blessings and conditions are not enough, we should not enter retreat. For without having accumulated those factors sufficiently, when we enter retreat we will waste merit, and over time the merit will be gone.

In addition, the practitioner must know some rules to be observed when entering retreat. These are matters of schedule, of applying effort, of difficulties on which to ask the teacher... Everything must be firmly prepared before entering retreat.

4. THE CIRCUMSTANCES NEEDED TO FORM WILLPOWER

In studying the lesson on diligence, we mainly consider the spiritual value of diligence. It is a striving that does not belong to the body but forces the body to follow. Diligence has two kinds of wholesome deeds: striving to practise meritorious deeds for the benefit of everyone, and striving to gather the mind in meditative concentration.

We also know that hardship and difficulty are necessary to form willpower. So a practitioner must know to throw themselves into difficult places and adversity. Never fear or flinch before difficulty. If we fall into cruel adversity, let us regard it as life's test of our will and energy. Understanding this, we will be persevering and patient, and will be diligent in overcoming it with our own will and energy. A writer, through the fate of his character, once planted a fierce faith in readers' hearts by holding that: "Life has no dead ends, only boundaries. What matters is that a person has enough will and energy to cross those boundaries." Indeed, each time we rise above a difficult situation, we gain more strength of spirit and feel more confident in ourselves.

Let us reconsider the story of Marpa testing Milarepa, to see how the power of will is tempered in hardship. Before following Buddhism, Milarepa was a practitioner of sorcery. He had supernatural powers and could command hail to fall and kill people and destroy the harvests and crops of others. So when he met Marpa, he was put through all kinds of ordeals to repay his karma. Not only was he beaten and cursed, he was also made to do heavy labour. Sometimes, when he was halfway through carrying stones to build a house, he was made to take it down and carry the stones to another place. After being tormented like this for a long time, he was then given the teachings and went into the mountains to practise. He practised on a snowy peak in great hardship too, eating only vegetables all day, so that his body was pale and yellowed. He had no clothes at all to wear, not a scrap of cloth to cover his body. Later, when he met his younger sibling again, they obtained some cloth for him to cover the parts of his body that needed covering. His process of practice was very arduous because of evil karma, but his spirit was very strong. When he attained the Way, his merit was very great. So the torment and ordeal inflicted by the teacher were both the basis on which he repaid his karma and the condition by which he trained his will.

However, we should not imitate Marpa thoroughly in testing our own disciples. If we think a disciple has heavy karma and lacks willpower, we should make them do meritorious deeds. For making them do meritorious deeds brings two benefits. One, working in difficulty, they will train their will. Two, doing meritorious deeds benefits everyone, so they will increase their merit and find practice easier later. Not only should we bind our disciples; we ourselves must also do meritorious deeds, working diligently at charity to train our own will and energy.

The case of the Venerable Hsu Yun making a pilgrimage to Mount Wutai to pay homage to the Bodhisattva Manjushri is the same. He passed along a stretch of road in winter, covered in snow and extremely cold. The snow lay thick over the path, and he fell so gravely ill that he nearly died. At that time the Bodhisattva Manjushri appeared in the form of an old man called Wenji and told him to stop bowing, because the Bodhisattva was moved by Hsu Yun's arduous journey to pay him homage. Hearing the old man's attempt to stop him, the Venerable Hsu Yun said that having made his vow, he would accept even death on the road; he would never stop, and never had any thought of stopping his work. Until the work was finished he would rather die than abandon it halfway. His aspiration was truly as high as the sky. We must take this as an example for our own life of practice.

In using willpower, we must use wisdom to judge right and wrong. If we are doing some work, we must try our utmost, but when we know it is not right, we must stop at once and not cling. In a case where, thanks to wisdom, we are sure that what we are doing is right, then even if we must sacrifice this life we still resolve not to retreat. That is the willpower of a practitioner. Throughout our lives we must create such strong willpower in ourselves. A Zen master said: "A real man has his own aspiration that reaches the heavens." Yes, we ourselves must have an aspiration that reaches the sky. Saying "ourselves" means that we must train and temper ourselves to have a will that reaches the blue heavens. However hard or difficult the task, if it benefits the Dharma, even if we must give up this life, we do not retreat but strive to the end.

In life we meet quite a few parents who dote on their children. This is extremely harmful. For being cherished and indulged, the children have no opportunity to train their willpower. So when they meet difficulties, they do not have enough will and energy to overcome them by themselves, and collapse easily.