Appamāda (; ; Tibetan Wylie: ) is a Buddhist term denoting the quality of not being negligent and of remaining continuously mindful. It occupies a prominent place in the Pāli Canon and its commentaries, while in Mahayana Abhidharma teachings its Sanskrit counterpart, , is listed as one of the eleven virtuous mental factors and defined as taking great care concerning what should be adopted and what should be avoided.
Etymology is a negation of , which means 'negligent' or 'lax'. It therefore means 'non-negligence' or 'non-laxity'. The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary lists a range of renderings, each of which captures only part of the sense, among them 'thoughtfulness', 'carefulness', 'conscientiousness', 'watchfulness', 'vigilance', 'earnestness' and 'zeal'. No single English word captures the essence of the term.
Theravāda Buddhism
In the Suttas Dhammapada The second chapter of the Dhammapada, a part of the Khuddaka Nikāya, is devoted entirely to the term and is named the . Its opening verse, Dhp 21, states that is the path to the Deathless while is the path to death, and that the negligent are as though already dead.
Saṃyutta Nikāya and Aṅguttara Nikāya A number of discourses place foremost among wholesome states (). A series in the of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and the of the Aṅguttara Nikāya, use the simile that just as the footprints of all legged creatures fit within the footprint of the elephant, and the elephant's footprint is reckoned foremost among them in size, so too all wholesome states are rooted in , converge upon , and is reckoned foremost among them.
Dīgha Nikāya
The term also closes the Buddha's life. According to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16), the last words he spoke before were "", that all formations are subject to decay and that one should strive with . Soma Thera holds that everything the Buddha taught from his awakening to his passing is summed up in that final exhortation, and that runs through the whole of the Buddha's word.
Commentarial explanation In the Theravāda tradition the technical sense of is fixed by the commentaries. The , the commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya, glosses the term as , the non-absence of or mindfulness. The same gloss appears in the . Nyanatiloka notes that this explanation, as the presence of , is common throughout the commentarial literature.
Soma Thera describes as accompanied by sustained (energy, diligence, enthusiasm, effort), functioning thereby as a spiritual power and destroying the wavering of . He states that in meaning it is the non-neglect of , and that the term denotes mindfulness that is always active and constantly at work.
In the Abhidhamma Unlike the Mahāyāna Abhidharma, which lists as a distinct mental factor, the list of fifty-two in the Theravāda Abhidhamma does not include as a factor in its own right, consistent with the commentarial explanation of it in terms of .
Mahāyāna Buddhism
The Buddhist text Abhidharma-samuccaya states the following:
What is concern? From taking its stand on non-attachment (), non-hatred (), and non-deludedness () coupled with diligence (), it considers whatever is positive and protects the mind against things which cannot satisfy. Its function is to make complete and to realize all worldly and transworldly excellences.
The scholar Alexander Berzin comments on carefulness: A caring attitude (, carefulness) is a subsidiary awareness that, while remaining in a state of detachment, imperturbability, lack of naivety, and joyful perseverance, causes us to meditate on constructive things and safeguards against leaning toward tainted (negative) things. In other words, being disgusted with and not longing for compulsive existence, not wanting to cause harm in response to its suffering, not being naive about the effects of our behavior, and taking joy in acting constructively, a caring attitude brings us to act constructively and to refrain from destructive behavior. This is because we care about the situations of others and ourselves and about the effects of our actions on both; we take them seriously.
The scholar Robert Thurman emphasizes the high degree of of a person who has realized emptiness: This denotes a type of awareness of the most seemingly insignificant aspects of daily life, an awareness derived as a consequence of the highest realization of the ultimate nature of reality. As it is stated in the : "He who realizes voidness, that person is consciously aware." "Ultimate realization," far from obliterating the relative world, brings it into highly specific, albeit dreamlike, focus.
The term is described at length in the fourth chapter of the Buddhist text Bodhicharyavatara.
Alternate translations Heedfulness, often used in Theravāda sources Earnestness (Soma Thera) Carefulness (Alexander Berzin) A caring attitude (Alexander Berzin) Conscious awareness (Robert Thurman) Concern (Herbert Guenther) Conscientiousness Diligence
See also Sati (Buddhism) Sampajañña Mental factors Buddhist meditation
References Notes
Citations
Book sources
Web sources
External links Appamādavagga of the Dhammapada (Pali) Appamādavagga of the Dhammapada (English) Appamāda Sutta (AN 10.15)