Always Willing to Learn

Someone once asked one of the Buddhist lay followers about the Buddha’s position on the hot issues of the day—whether the world was eternal or not, finite or not, whether the soul was the same thing as the body or something different, what happened to enlightened person after death: Did that person exist, not exist, both, neither? In all the cases, the layman said, “The Buddha doesn’t make a position on those issues.” So, the other person said, “Well, in that case, he’s a nihilist. He doesn’t teach anything at all.” The layman said, “No, that’s not true. He teaches that skillful qualities should be developed and unskillful qualities should be abandoned.”

Later, the layperson went to see the Buddha to make sure that his answer was right, and the Buddha said, “Yes, that’s right.”

It’s a good, very simple and very basic way of expressing his teachings. As the Buddha said, if developing skillful qualities and abandoning unskillful qualities didn’t lead to happiness, he wouldn’t teach it. And if it was something that people couldn’t do, he wouldn’t teach it either—which means that we can change our habits.

In fact, we have to if we want to put an end to suffering. What we’re doing is causing suffering, even though we don’t want to. The whole purpose of the practice is to catch ourselves doing things that we think will lead to happiness, but instead lead to suffering.

So we have to be willing to change our habits—be willing to learn. And we have to have confidence that we can do that.

There’s another passage where Ven. Ananda is talking to a nun. He’s telling her we come to practice putting an end to conceit—here conceit means anything built around the concept of “I am”—but we need to use conceit in order to get there. And the conceit he recommends is this, “Other people have gained awakening; they’re human beings. I’m a human being. If they can do it, why can’t I?”

So, you have to have the confidence that you have within you the possibility to follow the path and to benefit from following the path.

We read the teachings that Ajaan Mun gave to his students. You have to remember that many of his students came from one of the poorest parts of Thailand. Other parts of Thailand tend to look down on people in that section of Thailand. And so, a lot of his talks have to do with building confidence that what’s needed for this practice is a body and a mind. You’ve got a body, you’ve got a mind, you’ve got what it takes.

So you have to have that confidence. But the confidence has to be tempered by the fact that you have been doing things unskillfully. You have to be willing to admit that and be willing to learn. If you’re going to be proud about something, be proud about your ability to admit your mistakes and learn from them.

The Buddha recommends how to do this.

You look at your intentions, and if you anticipate that the actions you’re planning to do, whether they’re in thought, word, or deed, are going to lead to any harm, you don’t do them. You have to act only on intentions that seem to be good, harmless. While you’re doing them, you look at the results. If you see that you actually are causing harm, you stop. You don’t see any harm, you can continue. When you’re done, you look at the results over the long term. If you see, “This action that I did led to harm,” you resolve not to repeat the mistake. Then you talk it over with someone else who’s more advanced on the path. You’re not too proud to admit your mistakes. You’re not so proud that you think you’re going to figure everything out on your own. You need help sometimes.

But if you see that you haven’t caused any harm, then the Buddha says that you take joy in that fact and then you continue training. This is the important part. Sometimes we do well in the practice, and the mind comes to a stop. The Buddha talks about cases where people get into the first jhāna and they get proud: They’ve got the first jhāna; other people around them don’t have the first jhāna. As the Buddha said, that destroys it right there.

So you have to learn how to take joy in your progress but not be satisfied with where you are. You have to keep looking, “Where am I still doing something wrong?” After all, as long as you haven’t attained full awakening, you’re doing something wrong. The question is, “Where is it?” You have to be willing to look for it.

As the Buddha said, when you see that you’ve done something foolish, you’re to that extent wise. The really foolish people are those who won’t admit their mistakes. Wise people look for their mistakes with a sense that there’s something that those mistakes are a problem they can solve.

This is how you balance the conceit and pride needed in the practice with the humility needed to keep you from going astray.

After all, the Buddha himself said the secret to his awakening was not resting content, even with skillful qualities—to say nothing of unskillful qualities. But at the same time, he knew how to encourage himself. This is why he would not only instruct, but—as the verbs they used in the Pali Canon say—he would also urge, rouse, and encourage.

One part instruction, three parts encouragement.

That’s because he had learned to rouse himself as well. You can imagine what his quest was like. He was alone on his quest. He did have the five brethren to support him when he was undergoing self-torture. But then when he realized this was not the path, he started eating again. They left in disgust. So he was really alone.

He could have felt lost at that point, felt discouraged. But he had the determination: If there’s a path to the end of suffering, he wanted to find it. He had to open up his mind to the possibility he’d been on the wrong path. There had to be another path. So he cast around.

He remembered an incident from his childhood when his mind had spontaneously entered the first jhāna. The question arose, “Could that be the path?” And something inside him said, “Yes, it could.”

So he started taking food again. That’s when the five brethren left in disgust. But he was convinced that he had to try this path as well. It’s because he was willing to admit his mistakes that he was able to become Buddha.

And if he could make mistakes, what about you?

Of course you’re going to make mistakes. The important thing is your attitude toward them. If you’re too proud to admit your mistakes, you’re not going to learn. You have to recognize that you have been foolish as well. That’s what a lot of awakening is about, awakening to your foolishness. Something you should have seen long ago that you haven’t seen, and you suddenly see it. You’re not proud of the fact that you gained this insight. It’s more chagrin over the fact that it took so long.

So we’re not here for certificates and medals or other things. We’re here to look at our own foolishness and have the right attitude toward it—that it’s not something that’s going to defeat us. That’s what it means to take your pride in your willingness to learn. That’s the ideal way to combine the humility that’s needed and the honesty that’s needed and the confidence that’s needed to get on the path and to stay there.

The important thing is that you learn how to talk to yourself properly. Learn how to laugh at your mistakes in a good-natured way. people who take themselves too seriously end up burning out. But if you can see how foolish you’ve been and laugh at your foolishness, then you’ve got the right attitude.

So be confident that you can do this—confident that you can discover your stupidity and not get blown away by it, and figure out how to get past it.

If you’re going to have a sense of self, identify with that willingness to learn. If you’re going to be proud, identify with that willingness to learn. If you’re going to be humble, at least have the confidence that when you see you’ve made a mistake, you’re willing to correct it.

That’s when you approach the path with the right balance in mind.