Right attitude

Ajahn Sona, the Theravada Buddhist monk, has an excellent series of lectures on metta. These are available on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxh9h__4Fcc&list=PLCXN1GlAupG1o9fJBruNaEjNCy7LVdZaN

In these lectures, Ajahn Sona discusses metta as taught by the Buddha, in the original suttas attributed to the Buddha. There is some debate (and I use the qualifier some with my habitual tendency for understatement) in Buddhism on the disparities between the original Suttas and later commentorial texts, most notably the Vishuddimagga. It is outside the scope of this post to discuss this, but by studying the teachings of Ajahn Sona, Ajahn Brahm and Bhante Vimalaramsi, you can get a good idea of what this debate is all about. However, here, I’d like to discuss what Ajahn Sona teaches on how one should approach life in general, and spiritual practice in particular. 

Ajahn Sona paints the picture of right attitude using a very joyful image, and this metaphor points us to a very lighthearted way of doing things. This image, in fact, has been very helpful in my personal practice, and can also be used as the object of metta meditation. So, what is this image?

Picture a dog enthusiastically launching itself through the air in order to catch a frisbee. The attitude of that dog is what we’re aiming for. The sheer abandon of the dog going after the frisbee, and her playful attitude, this is what Ajahn Sona is pointing to here. 

I spent a large part of a day picturing a golden retriever flying through the air, her mouth closing in on a frisbee. The result was that it made my understanding of this playful attitude to life clearer, but as an added bonus, it made a warm affection suffuse my heart. In other words, this image can be used to also generate metta.  

Ajahn Sona also brings up the attitude of children building sandcastles as an example of the right attitude to practice and to life. Children are very sincere in their construction efforts, and they may even appear serious, but this is all a part of their play. Ajahn Sona asserts the importance of such a sincere yet playful attitude to one’s practice, without ever getting serious (as in too attached to the results and forgetting the playfulness in it all). The interpretation of what he means by “serious” is mine, but I suspect that it’s close to the mark. 

This idea of a playful, happy practice is something that I see as a theme that is repeated by many Buddhist teachers, regardless of tradition. I can see that as I keep playing with visualizations and putting in efforts to shift my baseline view of the world, things end up being easier, and I make more progress. 

Such contemplation brings me to the idea of ‘right attitude’ in living one’s life, and how one should approach one’s career, one’s personal life and one’s spiritual life. This same playful attitude is the key. To keep approaching every new challenge with a sense of adventure, eager about the flow experience that is potentially there in this activity, and working hard, but in a creative and playful sense - this seems to be the only way to make serious progress.