The Practice Which leads to Nibbana - A Buddhist Library

strength to stop himself from giving up the development of tranquillity.So a person who is developing concentration with a meditationsubject like mindfulness of breathing needs strong faith. He shoulddevelop mindfulness of breathing without any doubts, thinking,ÒJhŒna can be achieved if I follow systematically the instructions ofthe Fully Enlightened BuddhaÓ.If, however, a person lets his faith be excessive concerning theobjects that he should have faith in, and here we are concerned withthe meditation subject of mindfulness of breathing, then because ofthe function of faith to decide about an object being in excess, thefaculty of wisdom will not be clear and the other faculties of effort,mindfulness, and concentration will also be weakened. Then at thattime the faculty of effort will not be able to perform its function ofraising the other concomitant factors to the object of the paÊibhŒganimitta and not letting them fall away. Also mindfulness will not beable to perform its function of establishing knowledge of thepaÊibhŒga nimitta. The faculty of concentration will not be able toperform its function of stopping the mind from going to anotherobject other than the paÊibhŒga nimitta. The faculty of wisdom willnot be able to perform its function of seeing penetratively thepaÊibhŒga nimitta. This leads to a decrease in the faculty of faithbecause of wisdom's inability to understand the paÊibhŒga nimittaand to support the maintenance of the faculty of faith.If the faculty of effort is too strong then the other faculties of faith,mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom will also not be able toperform their respective functions of decision, establishing, absenceof distraction, and seeing penetratively. Thus excessive effort causesthe mind not to stay calmly concentrated on the object of thepaÊibhŒga nimitta and causes the enlightenment factors of calm, concentration,and equanimity to arise insufficiently.w 55