Restfulness – Skillful & Unskillful

[dhammapal]

Hi,

I had assumed that the goal of Buddhism was to Rest In Peace (R.I.P.) after death which is the same goal as people who don't believe in rebirth.

When having painful feelings endangering the body, he knows: 'I have a painful feeling endangering the body.' When having painful feelings endangering life he knows: 'I have a painful feeling endangering life.' And he knows: 'After the dissolution of the body, when life ends, all these feelings which are unrelished, will come to final rest, even here.'

"It is like a lamp that burns by strength of oil and wick, and if oil and wick come to an end, the flame is extinguished through lack of nourishment. Similarly this monk knows: 'After the dissolution of the body, when life ends, all these feelings which are unrelished will come to (final) rest, even here.'
Gelañña Sutta: At the Sick Room (1) translated from the Pali by Nyanaponika Thera

The opposite of life is not death, as some fondly believe, but rest — the rest and peace of Nibbana, in contrast to the restlessness and turmoil that is life.
From: Principles of Lay Buddhism by R. Bogoda

to be continued...

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

Seeing the danger in sensual pleasures — and renunciation as rest — I go to strive. That's where my heart delights.
From: Pabbaja Sutta: The Going Forth translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Through the round of many births I roamed
without reward,
without rest,
seeking the house-builder.
Painful is birth again & again.

House-builder, you're seen!
You will not build a house again.
All your rafters broken,
the ridge pole dismantled,
immersed in dismantling, the mind
has attained to the end of craving.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Dhammapada 153-54

Anicca vata sankhara uppada-vaya-dhammino;
Uppajjitva nirujjhanti, tesam vupasamo sukho'ti:
"Transient are all compounded things;
To rise to fall, their nature is.
Having become, they pass away;
Their final rest is highest bliss.
From: Going Forth (Pabbajja) translated by Sumana Samanera

A mind that, when touched
by the ways of the world,
is unshaken, sorrowless, dustless, at rest:
This is the highest protection.
From: Maha-mangala Sutta translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Vaddha, being deeply inspired by his mother's words, also attained the goal and then spoke the following lines praising her:

Truly my mother, because of being sympathetic, applied an excellent goad to me, (namely) verses connected with the highest goal.
Having heard her utterance, the instruction of my mother, I reached a state of religious excitement in the doctrine, for the attainment of rest-from-exertion.
(vv. 210-211)

Here we find a woman's example of perfect sainthood, combined with her timely Dhamma instruction, inspiring a man whose paramis were ripe to put forth the utmost effort and attain complete liberation.
From: Inspiration from Enlightened Nuns by Susan Elbaum Jootla

The unfashioned, the unbent,
the fermentation-free, the true, the beyond,
the subtle, the very-hard-to-see,
the ageless, permanence, the undecaying,
the featureless, non-elaboration,
peace, the deathless,
the exquisite, bliss, rest,
the ending of craving,
the wonderful, the marvelous,
the secure, security,
unbinding,
the unafflicted, dispassion, purity,
release, attachment-free,
the island, shelter, harbor, refuge,
the ultimate.
— SN 43.1-44
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/khandha.html

From Thanissaro Bhikkhu's translation of the Karaniya Metta Sutta: "Think: Happy, at rest, may all beings be happy at heart."
Nibbana is translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu as the Unbound: the highest peace, the unexcelled rest from the yoke.
In Anguttara Nikaya 8:80 a monk decides in the same situation either to rest or to make an effort for the attaining of the as-yet-unattained.
Restlessness (uddhacca-kukkuccha) is listed as one of the Five Mental Hindrances.

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

The same is true when you look at feelings. There's no you in there at all. There's simply contact, the contact of objects against the senses, that's all. If you let go so the mind can come to rest, none of these things will touch it in a way that weighs on it. Only deluded people grab hold of these things, which is why they feel weighed down. If we let them go, we don't feel weighed down at all.
From: A Home for the Mind by Ajaan Suwat Suvaco translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Singleness of object (ekaggatarammana): Keep the mind with the breath. Don't let it stray after other objects. Watch over your thoughts so that they deal only with the breath to the point where the breath becomes comfortable. (The mind becomes one, at rest with the breath.)
From: Keeping the Breath in Mind: Method 2 by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

For example, mindfulness of breathing, which is one of the primary themes in meditation circles, seems to suit the temperaments of more people than any other theme. But whatever the theme, take it as a governing principle, a refuge, a mainstay for the mind, putting it into practice within your own mind so as to attain rest and peace.
From: The Language of the Heart by Venerable Acariya Maha Boowa Ñanasampanno translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The level of concentration, once reached, is already sufficient to form a foundation for the heart, a home where the heart can find shelter and peace. At the moment when we think so much that we feel faint-hearted and weary, we should turn inwards and meditate. The heart can then rest and be stilled from all its preoccupations, finding peace and calm. This is called going inward for refuge, to find a resting place of comfort and ease. This is one level of refuge for the heart.
....
Thus samadhi and wisdom can't be separated from each other. Whatever our character and tendencies might be, samadhi is always needed as a quiet resting place for the heart. The heart rests from work, by stilling in samadhi its thoughts and preoccupations. Even work in the world requires a period of rest and recuperation — making do without is just not possible. This may certainly use up working-time but, just as eating uses up food and the money needed to buy that food, it is necessary that the body has renewed vigour to continue its work. Resting and sleeping may waste some time but, again, they give the constitution new strength to fulfill its duties and tasks. Otherwise it won't be able to go on.
From: Ready to Go : Ready to Die by Venerable Acharn Maha Boowa Ñanasampanno edited by Bhikkhu Ariyesako

Rubbing Fire Sticks

The practice is like a man rubbing fire sticks together. He's heard people say, "Take two pieces of bamboo and rub them together, and you'll get fire." So he takes two pieces of bamboo and rubs them together. But his heart is impatient. After rubbing them together a bit he wants there to be fire. His heart keeps pushing for the fire to come quickly, but the fire just won't come. He starts getting lazy, so he stops to rest. Then he tries rubbing the sticks together again for a little bit, and then stops to rest. Whatever warmth there was disappears, because the warmth isn't connected.

If he keeps acting like this, stopping whenever he gets tired — although just being tired isn't so bad: His laziness gets mixed in too, so the whole thing goes to pieces. He decides that there is no fire, he doesn't want fire after all, so he gives up. He stops. He won't rub the sticks anymore. Then he goes about announcing, "There is no fire. You can't get it this way. There is no fire. I've already tried."
From: In Simple Terms: 108 Dhamma Similes by Ajahn Chah translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

We rest the mind to make it calm in order to become acquainted with what receives sense impressions, to see what it is. That's why we're told to keep track of the mind, to keep track of "what knows." Train the mind to be pure. How pure should you make it? If it's really pure, the mind should be above both good and evil, pure even above purity. Done. Only then are things over and done.
From: Still, Flowing Water by Ajahn Chah translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

The determination to train for peace helps maintain your sense of direction in this process, for it reminds you that the only true happiness is peace of mind, and that you want to look for ever-increasing levels of peace as they become possible through the practice. This determination emulates the trait that the Buddha said was essential to his Awakening: the unwillingness to rest content with lesser levels of stillness when higher levels could be attained. In this way, the stages of concentration, instead of becoming obstacles or dangers on the path, serve as stepping-stones to greater sensitivity and, through that sensitivity, to the ultimate peace where all passion, aversion, and delusion grow still.
From: Freedom From Buddha Nature by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

In fact the Buddha once said that the secret to his Awakening was that he didn't allow himself to rest content with whatever attainment he had reached.
From: Mindfulness Defined by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

He didn’t rest content with teaching others the right answers to questions; by his example, he provided them with the tools to foster their own discernment: to choose their questions wisely, to find the answers for themselves, and to gauge whether their answers really helped them. This was a rare and important gift.
From: Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (430 page pdf)

[dhammapal]

You want to look at your time here as a time for healing. The skills you want to take back with you are those of being not only your own patient but also your own doctor, learning how to look after the mind, seeing exactly where it needs treatment. And part of the treatment is the kind of healing that requires nourishment and rest. This is a lot of what breath meditation provides. It gives the mind a place to settle down and be at ease with itself, to develop a sense of wellbeing inside.
<…>
So allow yourself to rest with whatever sense of wellbeing there is, but remember that there’s work to be done. After all, this is medicine; it’s not always pleasant. It’s not total relaxation. There has to be a certain amount of vigilance to keep the mind with the breath and not let it blur out.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_1.pdf
From: The Basic Medicine by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

As we meditate we’re not training ourselves to be zombies or to be totally indifferent. We’re learning that there’s a time and a place to be interested in things, and a time and a place when the mind has to rest. And right now is a time and a place to rest. If you want to be curious, be curious about the breath. Keep your curiosity focused in here. Don’t let it go flashing out.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_1.pdf
From: Wide-open Awareness by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

You can’t act simply on impulse or just because you feel like doing something. You always have to take into consideration what the results of your actions are going to be. This may seem tiring or wearisome, but that’s why we have concentration practice, to give the mind a place to rest. At the very least, it is not doing anything unskillful while it’s resting, and it’s also building up the qualities it’s going to need to keep itself strong in this examination of its actions.

Ajaan Lee makes a comparison with a knife. If you have a knife that you just keep using, using, using, without sharpening it, without coating it with oil, it’s going to get dull, it’ll probably get rusty. Then when you try to use it to cut something, it takes a lot of effort. If you’re cutting food, many times the rust will contaminate what you’ve tried to cut. If you eat it, you may catch tetanus and die. But if you keep the knife in the scabbard, keep it sharpened, bathe it in oil when it needs to be oiled, then when you pull it out and use it to cut things, they cut through nice and clean, they’re not contaminated, and then you just put it back. That’s the mind that has a good place of concentration as its resting point, its whetstone.

In this way, the constant emphasis on looking at what you’re doing becomes less and less onerous, less and less of a burden, because you’ve got a stronger mind. And you’ve got a good place to keep it when it doesn’t have to be actively thinking about things, so that it’s not wasting its energy on frivolous matters.

When the time comes when you have to decide what you want to say, what you want to do, you don’t feel burdened by the events around you. And you can be very clear about what the consequences of your actions are going to be. This way you find you have less and less to regret in your life.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_1.pdf
From: Days Fly Past by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

What you’re trying to do here as you meditate is to make a consistent line through time. When you do that, you begin to see cause and effect more clearly. The mind grows more stable, more grounded in the present moment. The consistency allows the mind to gain some rest. Otherwise, the mind is constantly hopping around. Even when it lands on something, it’s always tensing up, getting ready to hop again, not knowing how long it’s going to be able to stay there.

But when you give it a place to stay for good, long, consistent periods of time, it can begin to relax, can begin to unwind, loosen up, soften up. And that allows you to see a lot more clearly what’s going on — all the little bits and pieces that work together to create this sensation of “the body” in the present moment. Instead of just being one big lump, the body is a cluster of lots of sensations. And they can do all kinds of different things depending on how you perceive them.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_2.pdf
From: Exploring by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

As a meditator, you’ve got to learn how to use both approaches, learning to let the mind rest so that it doesn’t have to be occupied with thoughts all the time; and then, when the time comes when you really do have to think, learning how to think in ways that are helpful rather than harmful.
<…>
When the body is more comfortable, it’s easier to settle down and stay right here. It feels good. There’s a sense of fullness, a sense of ease that you can develop just by thinking of the energy flowing through the body all the time. As soon as the breath starts coming in, the energy is already flowing through all the nerves. As soon as it goes out, it’s dispersing out through all the pores of the body. Thinking in this way helps the mind to settle down and gives it a place to rest when it doesn’t have to think.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_3.pdf
From: People Suffer from Their Thinking by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Warriors have to choose their battles. And they also have to know their own strength. If they’re wounded, they have to know that they’ve got to escape someplace where they can rest, recuperate, deal with their wounds. In other words, instead of always taking on the enemy, there are times when you have to run away from the enemy, find a place where you can gather your strength. An intelligent warrior admits his or her weaknesses. When you find that you’re weak, you do what you can to make up for it. At the same time, you don’t take on more than you can handle.

Ajaan Lee talks about going to the forest for lessons. When people got to be too much for him, he’d go out into the forest to hide out for a while, to rest, recuperate, deal with his wounds. And so even someone like him — with that much strength of concentration, strength of mindfulness — had to run away sometimes. We’re not even anywhere near where he was, so we have to find places of rest, too — places of solace where we can work on building our strengths.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_3.pdf
From: The Wounded Warrior by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

An important step is learning to see the rewards of renunciation. It’s not going to leave you deprived. It really is restful to the mind. It really gives peace to the mind. There’s a famous story about the monk, a former king, sitting in the forest exclaiming, “What bliss! What bliss!” And it turns out he’s not pining after the joys he felt when he was a king before he became a monk. He’s exclaiming over how blissful he is now that he can sit under the tree without having to worry about all the people who wanted to kill him when he was a king, all the people who wanted to take away his pleasures and wealth.

That’s one of the pleasures of renunciation, that sense of freedom, and nobody’s going to try to steal that from you. And as the monk said to the Buddha, his mind was now like a wild deer: It was free. You’ve got to learn how to think in those ways when the desire for sensuality really gets strong, to see that when you can renounce it, you’re free.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... alks_3.pdf
From: The Will to Awaken by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

Dividing day and night into six periods, during daytime, while walking up and down or sitting, he purifies his mind from obstructive things; doing so also in the first and the last watch of the night, he lies down for rest only in the night's middle watch. Thus he strives and struggles.
From: The Worn-out Skin: Reflections on the Uraga Sutta by Nyanaponika Thera

With metta / dhammapal.

[Spiny Norman]

From: Days Fly Past by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

What you’re trying to do here as you meditate is to make a consistent line through time....
But when you give it a place to stay for good, long, consistent periods of time, it can begin to relax, can begin to unwind, loosen up, soften up. And that allows you to see a lot more clearly what’s going on — all the little bits and pieces that work together to create this sensation of “the body” in the present moment.

A phrase I associate with samatha is "resting in the present".

[dhammapal]

We're not making the mind still simply to have a nice restful place to be, a nice experience of ease to soothe our stressed-out nerves. That may be part of it, but it's not the whole practice.
The other part is to see clearly what's going on, to see the potential of human action: What are we doing all the time? What are the potentials contained in this doing?
Then we apply that understanding of human action to see how far we can go in stripping away the unnecessary stress and suffering that come from acting in unskillful ways.
From: Watch What You're Doing by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

With metta / dhammapal.

[Samma]

I had assumed that the goal of Buddhism was to Rest In Peace (R.I.P.) after death which is the same goal as people who don't believe in rebirth.

Yea its kind of interesting. The goal is to get out of samsara, or the repeating cycle of birth, life, death. Yet for those that don't believe in this cycle, they are kind of out of the cycle already due to there being no cycle for them. But not sure how much this could be called resting in peace though, since its just being dead, lack of mental activity, nothing. So what peace could there be? Also they don't really see it as a goal, its just what happens. So then some get into ideas of experience after life, like dimensions of mind that are outside space and time, and that invites insinuation about some soul-type thing, and well how much can be said about it all. Tathagata existing or not after death was one of the unanswered questions.

One is the unbinding in this lifetime, symbolized by a fire that has gone out but whose embers are still warm. This stands for the enlightened arahant, who is conscious of sights and sounds, sensitive to pleasure and pain, but freed from passion, aversion, and delusion. The second level of unbinding, symbolized by a fire so totally out that its embers have grown cold, is what the arahant experiences after this life. All input from the senses cools away and he/she is totally freed from even the subtlest stresses and limitations of existence in space and time.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... bbana.html

[dhammapal]

I had assumed that the goal of Buddhism was to Rest In Peace (R.I.P.) after death which is the same goal as people who don't believe in rebirth.

Yea its kind of interesting. The goal is to get out of samsara, or the repeating cycle of birth, life, death. Yet for those that don't believe in this cycle, they are kind of out of the cycle already due to there being no cycle for them. But not sure how much this could be called resting in peace though, since its just being dead, lack of mental activity, nothing. So what peace could there be? Also they don't really see it as a goal, its just what happens. So then some get into ideas of experience after life, like dimensions of mind that are outside space and time, and that invites insinuation about some soul-type thing, and well how much can be said about it all. Tathagata existing or not after death was one of the unanswered questions.
<snip>

[/quote]
I checked my Anguttara Nikaya and the lifespan of the base of nothingness is sixty thousand aeons which sounds like a state of limbo. Euthanasia and suicide usually involve the R.I.P. wrong-view. I used to be a firm atheist and my idea was that the lights went out when you died which struck me as kind of eerie.

With metta / dhammapal.

[Mkoll]

Regarding Nibbana, no matter what one thinks about it, one is wrong. As it is to be "experienced by the wise", no matter how eloquent the words are or how vivid the simile is, the description will always miss the mark. What is skillful is developing the path and working on what can be experienced right now. Like understanding suffering and the Four Noble Truths, wholesome and unwholesome thought (MN 19), etc.

Regarding when to be restful and when to be putting forth energy: for the completely dedicated person wholeheartedly seeking the cessation of dukkha, all moments except when they're sleeping they are mindful and alert. However, most of us haven't developed ourselves to that point so we should be realistic with our progress. Each of us should find a balance between rest and striving based upon our life circumstances and spiritual motivation/strengths and gradually work our way up to that ideal level, winning a little every day and not giving up what was won.

At least that's how I see it now.

[dhammapal]

When things don't go well, just drop whatever it is that's not going well. Move back to a level where you're pretty sure you can do things properly.
From: Good Humor by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

If you can learn to enjoy this process, you're more than halfway there. If you see the effort simply as a chore, something you've got to get through, you're going to miss an awful lot. You'll end up at the point where you tell yourself that this isn't working at all. You'll want to go back to what people in the 19th century called "the gospel of relaxation," the idea that relaxation, simply accepting things as they are, is going to cure all your ills. This has been with us for a long time in America: the idea that if only we could learn how to relax, everything would be okay. We've been at this for more than 100 years, and even though it still hasn't worked out, the idea hasn't lost its appeal.
From: Joy in Effort by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

Synonyms for restfulness (good feeling, ease):
amenity, contentment, convenience, enjoyment, happiness, luxury, pleasure, relaxation, relief, satisfaction, warmth, well-being, abundance, alleviation, assuagement, cheer, cheerfulness, complacency, coziness, exhilaration, facility, gratification, opulence, peacefulness, plenty, poise, quiet, repose, rest, snugness, succor, sufficiency.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/restfulness

With metta / dhammapal.

[Spiny Norman]

Synonyms for restfulness (good feeling, ease):
amenity, contentment, convenience, enjoyment, happiness, luxury, pleasure, relaxation, relief, satisfaction, warmth, well-being, abundance, alleviation, assuagement, cheer, cheerfulness, complacency, coziness, exhilaration, facility, gratification, opulence, peacefulness, plenty, poise, quiet, repose, rest, snugness, succor, sufficiency.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/restfulness

It made me feel better just reading that list!

So can we say that restfulness is the antidote for the hindrance of restlessness (uddhacca-kukkucca)?