The Buddhist Path to Enlightenment (study)

by Dr Kala Acharya | 2016 | 118,883 words

This page relates ‘Mental Power of Effort or Energy (Viriyabala or Virya)’ of the study on the Buddhist path to enlightenment. The Buddha was born in the Lumbini grove near the present-day border of India and Nepal in the 6th century B.C. He had achieved enlightenment at the age of thirty–five under the ‘Bodhi-tree’ at Buddha-Gaya. This study investigates the teachings after his Enlightenment which the Buddha decided to teach ‘out of compassion for beings’.

5.2. Mental Power of Effort or Energy (Vīriyabala or Vīrya)

[Full title: The Five Mental Powers (Pañcabalāni or Bala)—(2): Mental Power of Effort or Energy (Vīriyabala or Vīrya)]

Effort or Energy (viīriya): Vīriya is the state, or action, of one who is vigorous. Its characteristic is supporting, exertion, and marshalling. Its function is to support its associated states. Its manifestation is non-collapse. Its proximate cause is a sense of urgency (saṃvega) or a ground for arousing energy, that is, anything that stirs one to vigorous action. Just as new timbers added to an old house prevent it from collapsing, or just as a strong reinforcement enables a king’s army to defeat the enemy, so viīriya upholds and supports all the associated states and does not allow them to recede.

Of the two kinds of energy (vīriya), ordinary energy which is without development practice, is associated with laziness (kosajja) according to the occasion, and produces the ordinary good acts (pakatikusala-kamma) of liberality or generosity, morality, the study of the sacred texts, etc. This ordinary energy cannot dispel laziness; on the contrary, it is laziness which controls ordinary energy and keeps it under subjection.

When beings encounter a Buddha-sāsana, they acquire the knowledge that in the past unfathomable saṃsāra they have been the kinsfolk of sakkāya-diṭṭhi, of evil deeds (duccarita) and the inhabitants of the lower worlds of misery (apāya-loka). The Pāli texts clearly prescribe the method of the ariyavaṃsa, the traditional practice of the Noble Ones, as a way of dispelling laziness; and the fourth of them, delight in meditation, should be practised until release from such a state of laziness (being faith’s opposite) is attained.

The way of dispelling laziness may be thus described (in the case of a monk). Having equipped himself with the sikkhās (the training rules—which are the Buddha’s heritage), which he has committed himself to in the ordination hall at the time of his becoming a bhikkhu, he: makes the trees and bushes of the forest his dwelling-place, lives only on alms-food gathered on his alms-round, avoids company, observes the dhutaṅga and applies himself scrupulously to mindful body contemplation.

These are the acts of energy that dispel the unwholesome volitional actions (akusala kamma) arising out of laziness (kosajja). They are acts comprised in the realm of energy.

This realm of energy remains obscure and is unknown in the present-day world. Today, although bhikkhus are aware that they belong to that class of beings still possessed of personality belief and evil deeds and liable to rebirth in lower worlds of misery, yet they live permanently in dwellings constructed in towns and villages by their donors; they take pleasure in the receipt of large gifts and benefits; they are unable to dispense with the company of other people, etc., all of which acts are comprised within the realm of laziness (kosajja) and this realm of laziness is as conspicuous as the sea that inundates an island. This shows the weakness of ordinary energy (pakati-viriya).

It is only developed energy (bhāvanā-vīriya)—such as being satisfied with a minimum of sleep, being always alert and active, being fearless, being bold and firm in living alone, being steadfast in meditative practice—that can dispel laziness. In the context of the bodhipakkhiya-dhammā it is this developed energy that should be acquired.

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