The Need for Balance

A common set of teachings the Buddha gives are the five spiritual faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom: saddhā, viriya, sati, samādhi, paññā. These are things to be working on and cultivating. One can be looking at them as qualities to be working on in a linear way.

First you lay a foundation for a sense of faith, confidence, trust, and when one does that there is some energy; so effort arises. As we put forth that energy and effort, mindfulness arises, and attention needs to be cared for.

As these qualities start to gain momentum in the mind, then the heart will settle. The heart will become more composed; it will become more still. With that as a foundation, then wisdom, discernment and understanding arise. That’s looking at it from a linear perspective.

There is a certain validity to it, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture because there are also the qualities of balancing that need to be attended to.

A sense of faith and wisdom informing each other, the first quality and the last quality. We have to learn how to have those qualities inform each other, to have those qualities nourish and support each other because faith needs to be informed by wisdom and discernment. Otherwise it is just blindly believing something, or there is excitement and enthusiasm with faith. But it is not being tempered by reflection, investigation and discernment.

Similarly, the wisdom faculty needs to be tempered with faith and confidence and trust because you can’t just be analyzing and logically pounding out a system of practice through the intellect. It just doesn’t work. It is not satisfying. As intelligent as one can be, if one is just relying on the intellect and rationality, then it doesn’t go very deep. It is pretty superficial.

The aspects of energy and effort need to be balanced to bring a certain stillness and composure because energy can be agitating, or even on a certain level, it can be addictive. ‘I’ve got to do more; I’ve got to push myself; I’ve got to really keep pushing; I’ve got to put more energy in; The more I do, the more I will achieve.’

Well, not really. That isn’t necessarily true because sometimes the more effort we put in, the more frantic and agitated the mind becomes. So, it needs to have the qualities of settling and stilling. It needs that composure element; it needs samādhi: that firm establishment of the mind, as a balance and as a support. They need to feed each other.

And if we are constantly just trying to still the mind, trying to compose and settle the mind, without applying some effort and energy with it, then it often tends towards dullness. It tends towards a kind of turgid quality in the mind, which can be like sludge. ‘I’ll keep focusing the mind and one pointing the mind and making the mind more and more still,’ and then it just sinks into this puddle of quicksand. It isn’t bright. There needs to be some energy in the system, but it needs to be balanced.

You need to be attuning to these different qualities. That’s what mindfulness is for. Mindfulness, awareness, attention that’s checking in on, “What am I experiencing? Is it useful? Is it beneficial? Is it in line with the Dhamma?”

Mindfulness isn’t just some global awareness; it isn’t a non-discriminating attention. Mindfulness has got work to do, and it needs to be alert. It needs to be attentive.

With these different qualities of faith, confidence, wisdom, discernment, effort, energy, stillness, composure, and mindfulness working together, then there can be a felt sense of release from dukkha. When they are functioning together, there’s a release from that sense of stress, discontent, dissatisfaction and dis-ease.

In the way I was reflecting on my experience of the massage – after having a massage, the body was feeling really light. There was a felt sense of ease. Similarly, in the mind, in the heart, there is this sense of ease and freedom from dukkha.

This reflection from Ajahn Pasanno is from the book, More Than Mindfulness: Widening the Field of Practice ,”The Need for Balance,” (pdf) pp. 1-3. Link to Source: https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/651-more-than-mindfulness