Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Buddhism and Motivation

Businesses, behavioral scientists, educators, and religious leaders spend a lot of time, effort, and money trying to understand and control human motivation. What makes people behave the way we do? Why do we so often engage in counterproductive, even destructive, behavior? How can we help people, ourselves and others, behave in ways that are safer, smarter, and more productive? I believe that Buddhism offers insight to the problem, and more importantly, offers an effective and self directed practice to change motivation for the better.

First, there are two basic Buddhist terms related to motivation.

One of these is cetana 思; which is translated variously as intention, motive, aim, or volitional impulse. It's meaning is similar to that of the English word conation.  For what it's worth, I think cetana is considered a mental factor (cetasika or caitta 心所有法). The Buddha is quoted as saying, "Cetanaham bhikkhave kammam vadami ..." (O Monks, what I call karma is motive; ...). This is followed by "cetayitva kammam karoti kayena vacaya manasa" (Having made a decision / choice, one creates karma by bodily deeds, spoken words, and mental ideas).

In other words, we create Karma in three ways; through intentional or motivated deeds, speech, and plans. The moral quality of karma is determined by the moral quality of the cetana or motive behind the acts, words, and ideas. In very simple terms, constructive motives yield karmic merit and / or lead to emancipation from suffering, while counterproductive motives yield karmic demerits and bind us further to suffering.

The other term is sankhara (samskara 行), as used in the context of the fourth aggregate, that of volitional conditioning (sankhara khanda, samskara-skandha 行蘊). Our volitional conditioning, much of which is unconscious or semi-conscious, constructs our thoughts, words, and deeds. In order to change our karma for the better, we must recondition our minds, by exchanging counterproductive motives for constructive motives.

The practice to recondition the mind is the 6th branch of the Noble Eightfold Path; Correct Effort (samma vayama, samyag vyayama, 正精進). Note that vyayama also means physical exercises or drills. Also, Correct Effort is explained in detail as the Fourfold Correct Struggle (cattaro samma padhana, catur samyak-pradhana, 四正勤); which is a kind of exercise for the mind. It consists of (1) blocking and (2) letting go of counterproductive motives, emotions, attitudes, and so on; while (3) cultivating and (4) maintaining constructive motives, emotions, and mental attitudes.

  1. Restraint (samvara-padhana): In practice, the struggle to stop counterproductive motives before they arise. Samvara 三跋羅 is also translated as blocking, suppression, obstruction, hindrance, warding off.
  2. Let go (pahana-padhana 断勤): In practice, the struggle to let go of counterproductive motives that have already arisen. Pahana 斷 is also translated as abandonment, cutting off, severance, destroying, ending, elimination, stopping.
  3. Cultivation (bhavana padhana 修勤). In practice, the struggle to cultivate constructive motives that have not yet arisen. Bhavana 修 修行 is also translated as development, nurturing, training, education, producing, stimulation.
  4. Maintaining (anurakkhana padhana 隨護斷): In practice, the struggle to maintain constructive motives after they have arisen. Anurakkhana is also translated as guarding, protecting, preservation,

The suttas, sutras, and various commentaries and manuals have a number of lists of both counterproductive mental states that should be avoided, as well constructive mental states that should be cultivated and maintained. It is up to us to observe our minds and figure out it out. For Nichiren Buddhists, the Mandala Gohonzon can help us by serving as a mirror of our consciousness. The various lists can help sort out what we are seeing, and what to do about it. I shall explore that more in a future blog.