12. Training in Determination and Insight

AN 4:12 Training in Determination and Insight

Translated from the Pali by Nyanaponika Thera and Bhikkhu Bodhi

You should dwell, O monks, devoted to virtue, restrained by the restraint of the Patimokkha, perfect in conduct and resort, seeing danger in the slightest faults. Having undertaken the training rules, you should train yourselves in them. But if a monk lives like that, what further should he do?

If while he is walking, standing, sitting, or reclining, a monk is free from greed and ill will, from sloth and torpor, from restlessness and worry, and has discarded doubt, then his will has become strong and impregnable; his mindfulness is alert and unclouded; his body is calm and unexcited; his mind is concentrated and collected.

A monk who in such a manner ever and again shows earnest endeavour and moral shame is called energetic and resolute. Controlled when walking, controlled when standing, Controlled when sitting and lying down, Controlled when drawing in the limbs, Controlled when stretching out the limbs: Above, across and below, As far as the world extends, A monk observes how things occur, How aggregates arise and fall.

When one thus lives ardently Calm and quiet in demeanour, Ever mindful, training oneself In the practice of calming the mind, They call a monk of such behaviour “One who is ever resolute.”