Feeling helpless

It is good to feel helpless every moment, seeing
yourself helpless in success, just as in failure. For
above your capacity there is a greater Capacity,
and your will is subject to that greater Will in
every case. You are not divided into two halves,
now capable, now helpless. You are always helpless,
only sometimes remembering, sometimes for-
getting. When you remember, then the heart of
that moment becomes visible, and the way opens
up before you.

Rumi
from DISCOURSES OF RUMI

The Pleasure of Peace

The Lord Buddha taught, N'atthi santi param sukham: No other pleasure is greater than peace. What this means is that there are other pleasures, such as the pleasure of watching a play or a movie, mixing with society, having a spouse, the pleasure of gaining wealth, status, and praise. These things are actual pleasures — but they all contain hidden stress, they all require continual contriving, adjustment, and repair — which is where they differ from the pleasure that comes from peace, a pleasure that is cool and tranquil, without any hidden pain, without any need for a great deal of contriving — a pleasure that is easily attained, right here in our own body and mind. We can give rise to it while sitting alone in a quiet place or while surrounded by society, as long as we have a sense of how to make a separation, inclining the heart toward the pleasure of peace so that while the body may be involved in turmoil, the turmoil doesn't reach into the heart.
Even when we are seriously ill, with pain racking the entire body, if we have a sense of how to put the mind in the pleasure of peace, the pain won't be able to disturb the mind.
And once the mind is calm — it can calm the body and cure its pain, at the same time experiencing the pleasure of peace — and there is no greater pleasure.
The Lord Buddha taught us to practice in three ways:
To begin with, he taught us to put our words and deeds at peace through virtue, not allowing any gross faults or dishonesty to arise in word or deed.
He taught us to give rise to the pleasure of peace in the heart through concentration, training the mind not to think thoughts of lust, anger, greed, delusion, fear, restlessness, or uncertainty — things that make the mind irresolute and indecisive. Once these things can be abandoned, the heart is calm, giving rise to the pleasure of peace within.
He taught us to put our views at peace through discernment, reflecting so as to see that:
All things are undependable and inconstant (aniccam).
They can't last. They must alter, deteriorate, and disband. (Thus they are said to be dukkham, or stressful.)
They don't lie under our power or control. We can't force them or plead with them to follow our wishes. (Thus they are said to be anatta or not-self.)
When we see these truths, the mind becomes strong, resilient, stable, and resolute, unaffected by events — because we have seen the truth, with our own discernment, that such things are undependable and unstable; that they have to change, deteriorate, and disband; that they don't lie under our power.
Don't waste your strength of mind trying to force them. Keep the mind free and stable at all times, unaffected by events — and this will keep the mind firmly established in the pleasure of peace.
The mind will be free and gain power — mind power — which we can use to make all our duties and affairs succeed in accordance with our goals.
N'atthi santi param sukham:
No other pleasure is greater than peace.
It takes a peaceful mind to support a peaceful body, and a peaceful body to support a peaceful mind; and both a peaceful mind and a peaceful body to attain all the success that you wish.

by Chao Khun Nararatana Rajamanit (Tryk Dhammavitakko),

translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 7 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/nararatana/iridescence.html . Retrieved on 27 October 2011.

Composure and Self-awareness

In avoiding mistakes, the important point is composure. If we have composure guarding our thoughts, words, and deeds at every moment, we won't make any mistakes at all. The mistakes we make are due to lack of composure. We're forgetful, absentminded, heedless, complacent, exuberant, or deluded — and thus we make mistakes. Remember the maxim, "Keep your composure as a protective shield, and you'll do bravely in the field."
Every form of life — human, animal, even plant life — survives through struggle, in line with the saying, "Life is struggle." At whatever moment we can no longer keep up the struggle, we have to die. So as long as we keep our composure, then even when death comes, only the body dies — just as with the life of the Lord Buddha and the arahants: They had full composure with every mental moment, so that they never made mistakes. That was how they reached deathlessness, the state of immortality. Thus their death was called parinibbana: the disbanding and extinguishing of nothing more than the physical and mental phenomena termed the five aggregates (khandha): body, feeling, perception, mental processes, and consciousness.
Thus we should develop composure (mindfulness before acting, speaking and thinking) and self-awareness (clear comprehension while acting, speaking, and thinking). Once we are done, we should use mindfulness to check back and consider if anything is defective or if everything is in proper order. If anything is defective, then immediately make corrections so as to be perfect the next time around. If everything is already in order, keep trying to have things in even better order until reaching the ultimate.

by Chao Khun Nararatana Rajamanit (Tryk Dhammavitakko)

 translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 7 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/nararatana/iridescence.html . Retrieved on 20 October 2011.

Effort

I once read in a Jataka tale about our Buddha when he was still a bodhisatta. He was like you: He had ordained and encountered a lot of difficulties, but when he thought of disrobing he was ashamed of what other people would think — that he had ordained all these years and yet still wanted to disrobe. Still, things didn't go the way he wanted, so he thought he'd leave. He came across a squirrel whose baby had been blown into the ocean by the wind. He saw the squirrel running down to the water and then back up again. He didn't know what it was doing. It ran down to the water and stuck its tail in the water, and then ran up to the beach and shook out its tail. Then it ran down and stuck its tail in the water again. So he asked it, "What are you doing?"
"Oh, my baby has fallen into the water. I miss it and I want to fetch it out."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I'm going to use my tail to bail water out of the ocean until it's dry so that I can fetch my baby out."
"Oho. When will the ocean ever go dry?"
"That's not the issue. This is the way it is with the practice. You keep bailing out the water, bailing out the water, and don't care whether it ever goes dry. When you're going to be a Buddha, you can't abandon your efforts."
When the bodhisatta heard this, it flashed in his heart. He got up and pushed through with his efforts. He didn't retreat. That's how he became the Buddha.

Ajahn Chah