Vision and Routine - Why you need both to
strike a balance
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
All human
activity can be viewed as an interplay between two contrary but
equally essential factors—vision and repetitive routine. Vision is
the creative element in activity, whose presence ensures that over
and above the settled conditions pressing down upon us from the
past we still enjoy a margin of openness to the future, a freedom
to discern more meaningful ends and to discover more efficient ways
to achieve them. Repetitive routine, in contrast, provides the
conservative element in activity. It is the principle that accounts
for the persistence of the past in the present, and it enables the
successful achievements of the present to be preserved intact and
faithfully transmitted to the future.
Although they pull in opposite directions—the one toward change,
the other toward stability—vision and routine mesh in a variety of
ways, and every course of action can be found to participate to
some extent in both. For any particular action to be both
meaningful and effective, the attainment of a healthy balance
between the two is necessary. When one factor prevails at the
expense of the other, the consequences are often undesirable. If we
are bound to a repetitive cycle of work that deprives us of our
freedom to inquire and understand things for ourselves, we soon
stagnate, crippled by the chains of routine. If we are spurred to
action by elevating ideals but lack the discipline to implement
them, we may eventually find ourselves wallowing in idle dreams or
exhausting our energies on frivolous pursuits. It is only when
accustomed routines are infused by vision that they become
springboards to discovery rather than deadening ruts. And it is
only when inspired vision gives birth to a course of repeatable
actions that we can bring our ideals down from the ethereal sphere
of imagination to the somber realm of fact. It took a flash of
genius for Michelangelo to behold the figure of David invisible in
a shapeless block of stone, but it required years of training, and
countless blows with hammer and chisel, to work the miracle that
would leave us a masterpiece of art.
These reflections concerning the
relationship between vision and routine are equally applicable to
the practice of the Buddhist path. Like all other human activities,
the treading of the way to the cessation of suffering requires that
the intelligent grasp of new disclosures of truth be fused with the
patient and stabilizing discipline of repetition. The factor of
vision enters the path under the heading of right view—as the
understanding of the undistorted truths concerning our lives and as
the continued penetration of those same truths through deepening
contemplation and reflection. The factor of repetition enters the
path as the onerous task imposed by the practice itself: the need
to undertake specific modes of training and to cultivate them
diligently in the prescribed sequence until they yield their fruit.
The course of spiritual growth along the Buddhist path might in
fact be conceived as an alternating succession of stages in which,
during one phase, the element of vision predominates, and during
the next the element of routine. It is a flash of vision that opens
our inner eye to the essential meaning of the dharma, gradual
training that makes our insight secure, and again the urge for
still more vision that propels the practice forward to its
culmination in final knowledge.
Though the emphasis may alternate from
phase to phase, ultimate success in the development of the path
always hinges upon balancing vision with routine in such a way that
each can make its optimal contribution. However, because our minds
are keyed to fix upon the new and distinctive, in our practice we
are prone to place a one-sided emphasis on vision at the expense of
repetitive routine. Thus we are elated by expectations concerning
the stages of the path far beyond our reach, while at the same time
we tend to neglect the lower stages—dull and drab, but far more
urgent and immediate—lying just beneath our feet. To adopt this
attitude, however, is to forget the crucial fact that vision always
operates upon a groundwork of previously established routine and
must in turn give rise to new patterns of routine adequate to the
attainment of its intended aim. If we are to close the gap between
ideal and actuality—between the envisaged aim of striving and the
lived experience of our everyday lives—it is necessary for us to
pay greater heed to the task of repetition. Every wholesome
thought, every pure intention, every effort to train the mind
represents a potential for growth along the Noble Eightfold Path.
But to be converted from a mere potential into an active power
leading to the end of suffering, the fleeting, wholesome thought
formations must be repeated, fostered, and cultivated, made into
enduring qualities of our being. Feeble in their individuality,
when their forces are consolidated by repetition they acquire a
strength that is invincible.
The key to development along the Buddhist path is repetitive
routine guided by inspirational vision. It is the insight into
final freedom—the peace and purity of a liberated mind—that uplifts
us and impels us to overcome our limits. But it is by
repetition—the methodical cultivation of wholesome practices—that
we cover the distance separating us from the goal and draw ever
closer to awakening.
An earlier version of this essay
appeared in the BPS Newsletter, Buddhist Publication Society,
Kandy, Sri Lanka.