Greetings,

This month we'll be exploring the Parami of Resolve. The Pali word for resolve is Adhitthāna. Adhi is defined as higher, further and/or fuller and thana is defined as a foundation or standing place. So to me, resolve or adhitthana is less about force and more about realizations or understandings or comprehensions. You could think of it as the motivation behind our actions and/or the understandings/realizations behind our actions. I do not think it's a coincidence that resolve comes after truthfulness. If you think about it, as you become more truthful with the way things are the comprehension or understanding that you have is what motivates you to continue forward. This month I'd like to talk about resolve in two ways. Resolve as right intention and resolve as right thought. Both are interchangeable as the second path factor of the Eightfold path.

Resolve as right intention is a recognition of what we are becoming aware of, what we are paying attention to, and what we are seeing. Resolve points us to this understanding. It's the foundation that our practice stands upon. We don't control our practice (no matter how much we would like to believe we do). Practice is actually doing us. Our learning comes from the seeing of its unfolding in our lives. The more we see its unfolding, the more we continue to practice. When we don't see the practice unfolding in our lives, we begin to stop. We sit less. We show up at sanghas less. We don't want to spend the money to go on retreat. We just become less engaged with practice. But when we are seeing the higher wisdom connected to practice; we feel as though we're moving along further and further; or we feel as though we have a fuller relationship with our experiences. This understanding is what motivates us to stay committed to the practice. In effect, our resolve increases to begin again and each time we begin again, we strengthen our resolve to continue.

This is where long term practitioners falter. I see it time and time again in practice meetings. Practitioners will complain about being bored with practice or that the practice is not working. When I talk to them about what they are actually doing in practice, I can see that they are trying to control their practice by keeping it the same as it was when they started on the path. That limiting, constricting kind of view around practice is what's causing the boredom and disappointment. Their practice actually needs more interest. It needs more engagement. It needs more resolve. Dhamma needs meaning. It needs purpose. And it needs to be motivated. That motivation comes from interest in the higher, fuller realizations. In other words, your practice needs to be onward leading. If it's not onward leading, it gets stale. Onward leading practice simply means that you are attending to whether what you are doing leads to more suffering or less suffering. Onward leading practice means that you are attending to whether the hindrances are diminishing or increasing. Onward leading practice means that you are cultivating skillful tendencies and abandoning unskillful tendencies. When our practice is onward leading, resolve kicks in and motivates us to keep going.

The second way to practice with resolve is as right thought. Right thought is like a vow or commitment. It's usually connected to a commitment to universal goodness, non-harm, and renunciation. Resolve, in this instance, is viewing the world or your actions through the lens of the three aspects of right thought. It's about seeing the drawbacks of aversion, harm and excessiveness. We live in a world so consumed by aversion, harm and excessiveness, that we can easily (truly very easily) become swallowed up into the flow of this unconscious habit if we're not careful and attentive. We set a commitment or a vow to have a foundation to stand on against the backdrop of the wind of society. Like a meditation anchor, such as the breath, sound, posture or metta, resolve supports us in staying true to our right intention to be as kind as we can be, to do the least amount of harm and to live a life with restraint. It's not easy to live this way and we often are distracted in our habit energy. In such times we can easily be aversive, harmful, and excessive. But just like a meditation anchor becomes a refuge to come back to and begin again, our resolve towards kindness, non-harm, and restraint becomes a refuge to bring us back to our center core.

It's important to remember that conditionality is invisible. We often cannot see it. This means we also can't see when we are in wrong view. We have to use the presence of dukkha, meaning some irritation, some difficulty, some type of tension or mental frustration, as a bell to wake us up. Resolve is what enables us to steady ourselves in the midst of that difficulty, tension, frustration, agitation, basically any kind of unpleasantness. It shows up because the more truthful we become with the present moment, the more we will notice when we are outside of our truth, outside of our sila, outside of our commitment. It takes strength and courage to come back into alignment again and again and again (just like being willing to return to the anchor again and again and again). Resolve is what gives us that strength and courage.

I chose the above picture specifically because it represents the nature of persistence and commitment. The plant may not seem strong, courageous or powerful when you look at it in isolation. But when you take in the conditions it grew out of, you can see how just the persistence of continuing to grow is a powerful motivation.  This month we will explore this in many different facets. It's the beauty of the Dhamma. There's never really one way to understand Dhamma. It is through your direct experience that we come to practice insights, which we will share with each other over the course of the month.

With a deep bow,

Tuere