What is the goal of one’s life?

The Bodhisatta cultivated jhana during many lives. Jhana is a high degree of renunciation, because at the moment of jhana one is free from sense impressions and, thus, not enslaved to them. However, if satipatthana is not being developed enlightenment cannot be attained and defilements cannot be eradicated. If one has accumulated skill for jhana it can be developed together with satipatthana so that the realities which appear and also the jhanacitta can be known as not self. If right understanding of the present moment is not developed calm will be the object of clinging. What is the goal of one’s life: to develop calm or to develop right understanding of realities?

One may believe that it is difficult for a beginner to be aware of lobha or dosa which are intense. One cannot force sati and if it does not arise should one not try to be calm first, for example by thinking of the Buddha’s teachings?

It is true that in the beginning mindfulness of the reality which appears at the present moment does not often arise. There may be conditions for kusala citta with calm but without right understanding of the present reality. Because of our wrong understanding it may seem to us that we can tell ourselves, "Now there cannot be mindfulness of nama and rupa, but I should think of the Buddha’s teachings so that there will be less akusala". In reality all cittas which arise do so because they have their own conditions for their arising, not because we could control them. At some moments it may be possible to think of the Buddha’s teachings and to become calm, but at other moments we may be unable to do so.

If one tells oneself that one should become calm first before there can be mindfulness of the present reality one clings to calm already and then there is akusala citta. If one wants to do something else first before one develops satipatthana is that not an excuse not to begin to develop understanding right now? Even while we are thinking in that way are there no realities appearing? It is a type of nama which thinks in that way and it arises because of conditions. One has accumulated such inclination. Without the development of right understanding we are lost because we do not know when there is subtle clinging to "my kusala". Even though we understand in theory that the development of right understanding is urgent there can be many moments that we are distracted from our goal by clinging. While we try to avoid the types of akusala we do not like another type of akusala, a subtle clinging we do not notice, arises. Until one has become a sotapanna one may deviate from the eightfold Path, led by clinging. But also such moments can be object of mindfulness and that is the way to follow the right Path again. If we are resolute to develop understanding of any reality which appears now, even if it is very unwholesome, we are not tempted to try other ways of practice first, we are not tempted to put off the development of right understanding.