---
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ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
  - date: '2021-11-15'
    mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/14548/20211115-Diana_Clark-IMC-the_parami_of_resolve.mp3
    speakers:
    - speaker_name: Diana Clark
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240
    talk_start_time_seconds: 0
    title: The Parami of Resolve
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/14548
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location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: false
youtube:
  id: t1ldg68lOgw
  imprecise_upload_date: '2022-05-04'
  title: The Parami of Resolve
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  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ldg68lOgw
---

# The Parami of Resolve - [Diana Clark](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240)

*This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.*

## [The Parami of Resolve](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/14548)

So welcome. Welcome, a really warm welcome for all of you. It's so nice to be practicing together. I was smiling underneath my mask a little bit there when I was just thinking how great an opportunity it is to come together. So a deep bow to all of you for coming, and to our friends on YouTube who are here with us.

So tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about... you know, we often have these good intentions, these good ideas of things that we're going to do, and maybe they don't always come to fruition, don't always happen. And we all know this, right? It's so much easier to have ideas about things to do, and then it's something completely different to actually do them. We all have this experience, I'm sure.

So one of the things I'd like to talk about today is one of these paramis[^1]. Parami is a word that often gets translated as perfection, but that doesn't feel quite inspiring. Perfection just feels like some idealistic, otherworldly quality. But this idea of parami, these are ten qualities that are associated with awakening, that really support awakening. They're associated with this movement towards freedom, towards greater ease. The tradition holds that there are ten of them, and these are practices that are in our daily life, not just on the cushion. You know, so much of the Buddhist teachings are about what happens with our eyes closed, but these are about what's happening in daily life as well as in our meditation practice.

Some time ago I started on this list of paramis, and so now I'd like to add one. And this is the parami of adhitthana[^2]. It rhymes with satipatthana[^3]. Some of you may know the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Adhitthana has that same ending, 'thana', like foundation, something we can stand on. It's derived from what we can stand on. And 'adi' has this idea of fullness or completeness, or maybe the next step. So adhitthana often gets translated as determination, like this foundation which allows things to come to completion. So determination, resolve, resoluteness, tenacity, stick-to-itiveness. Something like this.

And resolve is the eighth in this list of paramis. Quickly, I'll just say what the other ones are: generosity, ethical behavior, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truth, and resolve is number eight. Number nine is loving-kindness, and number ten is equanimity.

So you can see that resolve is kind of down there in the list. It's number eight out of ten. Part of the reason why it's there later in the list is because it requires a mind that already has a little bit of experience with some of the peace, some of the ease that can happen with renunciation, with letting go, with generosity, with ethical behavior, working with truth. This allows this mind to say, "Yes, okay, this is the direction I want to go." So resolve is a commitment that's combined with a sense of, "Okay, I want to stick to this, find my way with this."

So one way to think about resolve is that it's like a gentle and persistent wind that keeps blowing and is supporting us in this particular direction. So we can feel it at our backs, just encouraging us to take the next step. Just the next step.

For some people, this idea of resolve or steadfastness, persistence, is not something that really needs to be cultivated. There are some people who, this is the way that they move through the world. They set a goal, they start, and they complete, and they finish, and that's just what they do. Their life is filled with this. So maybe just the stick-to-itiveness and completeness isn't part of the parami for them. But what might be the parami for those types of individuals is to be able to stay connected to others, to stay connected to themselves while they're completing a task. Instead of slipping into some sheer doggedness that has this mood of, "Get out of my way, I have something to do," or maybe a type of tunnel vision of not paying attention to the impact it's having on others, or not being aware of the impact it's having on ourselves, and maybe not taking care of ourselves because we feel like we have to finish this thing.

So resolve, adhitthana, resoluteness, is not stubbornness, even though from the outside it might look a little bit like that. But stubbornness also has this ignoring the concerns and welfare for ourselves and for others.

Often when we have a direction we want to go, we focus on what's getting in the way. And often that comes with replaying and rehearsing and resentment and blaming, and we can find ourselves in this loop of just thinking, "Well, if only that hadn't happened," or "I should have done this, I should have said that," or something along these lines that takes a tremendous amount of energy. So resolve isn't about just pushing through no matter what. It's associated with wisdom. Of course it is, right? If it's part of this path of practice towards greater freedom, it's going to have freedom and wisdom as part of the practice itself. The means is not completely different than the goal, of course not.

So one of the things that makes adhitthana, this resolve, a parami rather than just another wholesome quality, is that it's associated with freedom, awakening, enlightenment. So it points us in that direction. And it also expresses, as best we can, as what's available to us at that time, these qualities of going towards awakening, going towards greater freedom with some compassion and warm-heartedness.

Adhitthana serves to strengthen all the other paramis. It helps us to be generous and to refrain from harm, and to be truthful when it's difficult, and certainly all these other good qualities. But just to recognize that we need resolve for this practice simply because it is not always easy. Sometimes it's difficult. Having a regular meditation practice is difficult. Going on retreats is difficult. Organizing one's life so that you can go on retreat is difficult. Or once you're on retreat, that's difficult too, right? So sometimes we need resolve just to be with the difficulties that arise. When the mind starts to quiet and settle down, this can be the time when some of these difficulties from earlier in our life, maybe even decades ago, start to arise.

So the purpose of this practice is to help us to see what we haven't seen before, to realize what we haven't realized before. In order for us to do this, to be stretched a little bit beyond what we've seen before, we need to allow ourselves to be stretched. So resolve, determination, is a way to maybe stretch us just a little bit out of our comfort zone, but not to the point of breaking. This is where wisdom comes in, right? Of course, we need wisdom with this. There can be a way, this sheer doggedness, that ends up just being harmful and painful. I certainly have done this too, being on a long retreat and having this feeling like, "Okay, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but something better happen on this retreat." And so just kind of having this sense of pushing and striving, and not really noticing that at the same time I was pushing and striving, I was developing all this aversion and ill will towards everything else that I thought was distracting me. And including all this poor self-recrimination: "Diana, get it together! Come on, you have to go!" I was not noticing how mean I was being to myself, and getting filled with irritation with everybody around me. And week after week of this, you know, it wasn't pretty. And after the end of that retreat, I was a little bit of a mess.

So there's so many different ways that this can show up, this pushing and striving in a way that's not helpful. We need resolve, we need determination to stretch us, but not to break us. And this is part of the art of practice, is to know what is appropriate stretching. Because this practice is about transformation. And of course, for transformation to happen, it requires a little bit of effort. It requires some sustained effort, some persistence.

So what are some of the things that get in the way? I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know. We know that this takes some effort. Sometimes we might have these underlying beliefs, these ideas that, "Okay, my spiritual life is going to be about as long as I'm just nice and pleasant and calm, that should be enough." It is certainly part of this practice, but it's not enough. There are times in our practice when that is perfectly sufficient and enough, and it's all we can do to get to the cushion, it's all we can do to practice at all. But if we think the entire practice at all times, under all situations, just has to be about acceptance... And I do teach a lot about this because for me, this has been a little bit of my edge, just learning to accept and allow. But at the same time, there are times when there needs to be a little bit of a warrior spirit. Joseph Goldstein describes it as, when you're noticing that there's some thoughts that are coming up that are just unhelpful and you find yourself kind of ruminating or in this loop going around and around, he describes it sometimes it's helpful just to use his expression, "just chop off the head of the thoughts." So maybe sometimes that's what's needed. Like, "No, this isn't helpful, I'm not going to do it." And so of course this is part of the art of practice to know, okay, when is it more about opening, allowing, and accepting, and just watching things arise? And when is it time to have a little bit more of that warrior spirit and to say, "Nope, I'm going to go a different direction, this isn't helpful"? Practice requires both. And for us to not think that it's only one way—that could be a hindrance to our practice, to think that there's only one flavor, only one way to meet all the different things that arise during practice.

So one thing I do want to say is, so I'm talking about this tenacity, stick-to-itiveness. But I don't want us to think that when we don't follow through is a failure. Instead, this practice is about, "Okay, what can I learn here? What were the conditions that made it difficult for me to follow through? Is there something that I can understand here? Is there something that can support me for my other aspirations, the other things that I want to do?"

So instead of completely giving up when we feel like, "Oh, okay, I didn't follow through on this resolve that I had made, that I had intended," okay, what can I learn here? Maybe to investigate what was happening. Maybe the resolution that I made was too vague. Maybe I made a resolve about something really far in the future without also considering the steps that would get there. It can be inspiring and beautiful to have aspirations for our practice, aspirations of greater freedom, greater peace. But also an integral part of this is, again, to bring in some wisdom. "Okay, so what can I do today? What can I do this moment that's moving in that direction?" So maybe there wasn't follow-through because there wasn't a step, it wasn't thinking of, "Okay, what's the next step?" Instead of thinking, "I just want this," or having an idea about some future state without thinking about, "Okay, how can this moment right now contribute?"

And recently I've made this little statement that I remind myself on occasion that says "physiology is paramount." And just to remind me that if I'm not feeling well, haven't slept, not eating well, not exercising, you know, all these types of things, it has an impact. That sometimes just sitting on the cushion or whatever we're doing can't surmount that. We have to take care of ourselves. As well as half of the human population has hormones that are shifting on a regular basis, and to just kind of honor and respect that too. And just kind of respect our physiology, like, "Okay, we can't pretend like it's not there." So maybe our resolutions, our resolves, have to really honor and respect our physiology as well, where we are with that. And maybe we learn like, "Okay, if I haven't eaten, I'm more likely to be grumpy and to say things that I wish I hadn't said." We all know this, I'm not saying anything we don't know, but sometimes it's just helpful to say it out loud or to have this idea that, or to be reminded of it in some kind of way.

So what do we make resolves on? What do we make aspirations on? What is the aspiration that comes forth after we've been practicing a little bit, once we've tasted some of the fruits of practice? Probably in a generic idea, or in a broad brush, is that we want to move away from suffering. We want to have more freedom. But is there a way that we can make it more specific for us? Is there a way that we can make it more relevant for us? And this is part of the art of practice too, is to have a grand aspiration, which for me I think is a beautiful thing to think about. It is possible to have greater freedom, it is possible. The Buddha points to this. We know individuals and teachers and people that have found greater ease and freedom, so why not for us? Why not? But then to join with this kind of aspiration, it's, "Okay, so what can I do now that's related to this?" And just to recognize that we don't all have to have the same aspiration. And of course, different times of our life, different seasons of our life, different seasons of our practice, we'll have different ones.

And so can we make an aspiration and a resolve something that's inspiring, but also to do it in a way in which the resolve itself is a beautiful thing? As not harsh, not this sense of hard obligation, but the resolve itself is a beautiful thing. What would that be like?

So the Buddha taught that there were four supports for resolves. We could also call them four resolves. So four things that could support us in making resolves. The way this works kind of is that these are supports for all our resolves, and so because they're supports we can also resolve on them, and they will help us with anything else we want to do. So the first of these four is wisdom. And this makes perfect sense, right? We need to bring some wisdom to the aspirations we have, to the resolves we have, the ones that are appropriate for us, and help bring in some of this quality of what's helpful, what's not helpful, what's skillful, what's not skillful. It helps us to set aspirations that aim at something worthwhile for our life energy, to put our life energy towards. And one, as I said, that's a stretch for us, but not up to the point of breaking. As well as wisdom is needed for clearly understanding what are the different things that would be required. What are the different steps? How can I create the conditions for this aspiration to arise? So wisdom. And to be sure, all of us have enough wisdom to know what the next step is. It's not like we have to wait to have enough wisdom.

The second one is truth. Part of bringing truth in with our aspirations could be just asking ourselves, "What's needed here? What are the conditions? What's the next step?" But then the truth part comes in in being honest with ourselves. If I want to have more settledness, maybe I need to spend less time on the internet, for example. Maybe I need to spend less time ruminating about my favorite thing to ruminate about. And sometimes it's difficult to see what we might have this idea what's required of us, and we might feel like, "No, no, I don't want to do that." But this honesty about what's required.

And then the third one is relinquishment. Of course, there can be some letting go that's going to be required, some letting go that's going to be needed. We know this from the Dhammapada[^4], this famous verse, right: "If by giving up a lesser happiness, one could experience a greater happiness, a wise person would renounce the lesser to behold the greater." So just recognizing that there'll be some letting go that has to happen. Of course there does. If we want to exercise more, then we have to do less of something else in our life just to fit the time in.

Four resolves: wisdom, truth, relinquishment. Then the last one is peace. Is there a way that we can keep the mind calm while working towards an aspiration? There will be difficulties. It wouldn't be an aspiration, it wouldn't require determination if there were no difficulties. There will be difficulties. Is there a way that, as best we can, we can keep some composure, some ease about, "Okay, this is hard. This is hard. And maybe I don't feel like I can take the next step right now, but I'm not going to abandon myself." Maybe it's not going to look pretty. Maybe it's not going to be in a straight line, but to just not abandon ourselves. Maybe it doesn't look the way that we were expecting, hoping, imagining, but to hang in there with our aspirations, to hang in there with ourselves. Just one step at a time. Just one step at a time.

Resolve, determination, resoluteness, tenacity. Just this ability to begin again, and again, and again. Not only for ourselves, but for our communities and our loved ones. To hang in there with them, to hang in there with ourselves when we come across some difficulties, in a way that brings peace, brings freedom, and has that peace, that freedom, the letting go, the truth, as integral parts of it. So that our practice is a benefit not only for ourselves, but for those we come in contact with. And maybe they come in contact with others, and this way our practice can be for the benefit of all beings everywhere. Thank you.

## Closing

So thank you all. And maybe we'll call it an evening with me having this heart full of appreciation of our coming together, practicing together. I'm trying to look and trying to see, yes, my microphone is still on so our people on YouTube can still hear me. But it's finding our way, right, with this pandemic, with coming, practicing together again, and one step at a time. And you know, I think here at IMC we're just finding our way, and I'm appreciating that all of you are showing up and like, "Okay, let's see what's happening, how this is going, and what are we doing here." So I appreciate that very much. I feel like together, as a community, we'll find our way. So with deep bows.

---
[^1]: **Parami:** Ten qualities or "perfections" cultivated in Buddhism that are associated with and support awakening.
[^2]: **Adhitthana:** A Pali word often translated as "determination," "resolve," or "resoluteness." It is one of the ten paramis.
[^3]: **Satipatthana:** A key Pali term referring to the establishing or foundations of mindfulness, primarily detailed in the Satipatthana Sutta.
[^4]: **Dhammapada:** A collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures.