A Conversation About Buddhism
Author: Anup Poudyal
Publisher: The Middle Way Publications
Edition: Authorised Machine-Accessible Edition
Section: Chapter 9
Chapter Title: Right Resolve
Pāli Title: Sammā Saṅkappa
Copyright: © 2026 Anup Poudyal. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER TEXT

CHAPTER 9: RIGHT RESOLVE
Sammā Saṅkappa

Author’s Note 9.1

This limb of the Noble Eightfold Path is called Sammā Saṅkappa in Pāli. It

is often translated as Right Intention, yet that rendering misses something essential for me. In Nepali, Hindi, and Sanskrit, the related term saṅkalpa carries a stronger sense of resolve, a sustained inner commitment that has continuity and direction. It is not simply a passing mental wish, but an orientation that holds over time.

This distinction becomes important when practice is viewed as something lived rather than imagined. If we understand this limb purely in terms of intention, it can begin to sound like a passive desire to move in a particular direction. We have chosen to use the term Right Resolve throughout this book, although saṅkappa perhaps carries something of both intention and resolve. Intention gives us direction; resolve keeps us on the path through difficulty, distraction, and doubt.

Approached in this way, Sammā Saṅkappa is not a forceful pushing 111

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towards an ideal. It is the steady orientation and follow-through that allow intention to become lived practice.

Question 1

In the Pāli texts and the Buddha’s discourses, this limb, Sammā Saṅkappa (Right Resolve), appears remarkably short and straightforward. It seems almost self-contained, as if it stands alone without explicitly affecting the other limbs. This limb contains only three resolves, yet each carries immense psychological and spiritual weight.

1. The resolve of renunciation

2. The resolve of non-ill-will

3. The resolve of non-harm

There were entire spiritual movements, even before the Buddha, built upon just one of these. The Ājīvikas, for example, centred their entire discipline around the principle of renunciation. This shows how powerful even a single component of Right Resolve can be when fully embraced.

I also notice that, while non-ill will is emphasised here, the Buddha elsewhere encourages the active cultivation of love and kindness for all beings. Yet within the Eightfold Path, the wording leans toward restraint rather than expression: non-ill will rather than goodwill, non-harm rather than helpfulness. It mirrors the pattern we saw earlier: Buddhism often frames training as the removal of the unwholesome rather than the deliberate cultivation of the wholesome, even though both are ultimately part of the path.

This leaves me with a sense that there is a subtle message hidden in this framing, almost like a whisper beneath the words: ‘Stop trying to fix the world. Purify your inner being. When the inner is right, the outer will naturally follow.’

It seems to say: You do not need to make yourself into a saviour of the world; you need to find yourself, uproot your own distortions, and let the outer world reflect the clarity of your inner state. Is that an accurate way to interpret the spirit of this limb?

Answer

Our reading of Sammā Saṅkappa captures something important in how this limb functions, but it helps to place it carefully within the structure of the path. Although Right Resolve appears brief and almost self-contained, the early texts consistently place it in close relationship with Right View. Resolve is ‘right’ because its direction is shaped by seeing clearly.

The three forms of resolve, renunciation, non-ill-will, and non-harm, are not minor ethical preferences. They establish the direction in which the mind is deliberately oriented. This is where the distinction between intention, resolve, and effort becomes useful. An intention may arise in the mind, but resolve gives it direction and continuity, while effort provides the active energy needed to cultivate what is wholesome and abandon what is unwholesome.

Understood this way, renunciation directs the mind away from grasping at sensual satisfaction. Non-ill-will directs it away from hostility and towards goodwill. Non-harm directs it away from cruelty and towards harmlessness. These orientations then influence how we perceive situations, what we attend to, and eventually how we speak and act. Right Resolve therefore forms an important bridge between the understanding of Right View and the ethical limbs that follow.

The negative phrasing of these forms of resolve is also deliberate. The Buddha frequently frames training in terms of restraint rather than expression. This is not because wholesome qualities are absent, but because removing what obstructs the mind is often the most direct way to clarity. When

ill will is absent, goodwill does not need to be manufactured. When inner violence subsides, care and kindness arise naturally. In this sense, the path often works by subtraction rather than construction. At the same time, the discourses also speak of deliberately cultivating wholesome qualities. Practices such as generosity, goodwill, and rejoicing in the good fortune of others strengthen these tendencies in the mind. The training therefore unfolds

in two complementary ways: by abandoning what obstructs clarity and by intentionally nurturing the qualities that support wisdom.

This helps explain the intuition you describe beneath the wording. The emphasis is not on becoming a saviour of the world through strained moral effort, but on correcting the distortions within one’s own mind. When the mind is no longer directed by craving, aversion, or confusion, action begins to align more naturally with understanding. Wholesome qualities may still be consciously cultivated, yet they mature most reliably when the mind itself becomes clear. This is not passivity, nor withdrawal from responsibility, but a recognition that outer conduct stabilises most deeply when inner orientation is rightly established.

In the bigger picture, Right Resolve is not a stand-alone ethical com113

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mand, nor a forceful push towards an ideal. It is the deliberate orientation of the mind, shaped by Right View, that in turn influences the rest of the path. Right Effort supplies the sustained energy needed to cultivate and maintain that direction. When resolve is rightly established, action increasingly follows from an understanding that is no longer being continually distorted by craving, ill will, and harm.

Question 2

I’m glad we’re moving slowly into the finer texture of the Dhamma. I’d like to continue by examining the three components of Right Resolve one by one, beginning with the first: the resolve of renunciation.

According to the early texts, after his enlightenment, the Buddha hesitated to teach. He reflected that the Dhamma was profound, difficult to see, and that beings who delight in desire would find it unsettling rather than comforting. Truth, when offered without readiness, could deepen confusion rather than relieve it. This hesitation seems especially relevant when we encounter the first resolve of the path.

When the Teaching Is Stated Plainly:

- There is suffering

- Desire is its cause

- Freedom requires renunciation

This can sound confronting, even uncompromising. For those deeply invested in pleasure, identity, or accumulation, renunciation may feel less like an invitation and more like a demand for loss.

Yet the Buddha repeatedly emphasises that renunciation is primarily an inner orientation, not the mere giving up of objects or relationships. This is where my uncertainty remains, not in principle, but in practice.

So I Would Like to Ask Three Related Questions:

1. How does the Buddha distinguish genuine renunciation from aversion or suppression? In lived experience, what marks the difference between letting go through understanding and pushing away through resistance?

2. What practical signs indicate that restraint is liberating rather than punitive? How can a practitioner recognise whether renunciation is arising from insight into desire, or from a subtle wish to purify, punish, or distance oneself from experience?

3. To what extent do the Pāli suttas explicitly address this psychological nuance?

Answer

Your intuitions are aligned with both the Pāli suttas and modern psychological science, and the way you have framed the paradox shows that you already see the danger hidden within this word ‘renunciation.’ Let us explore it slowly.

What the Buddha Actually Meant by Renunciation

In the suttas, the Pāli word for renunciation is nekkhamma; it does not mean giving up possessions, relationships, or comfort as ends in themselves. The Buddha defines renunciation as the letting go of craving, not of objects.

- A person can abandon wealth but still crave poverty.

- A person can leave home but still cling fiercely to being ‘a renunciant.’

- A person can fast but crave purity.

- A person can even cling to the idea of having no clinging.

This is why he warned against self-mortification, calling it ‘painful, ignoble, and unbeneficial.’ He saw that many ascetics of his time had simply replaced sensual craving with the craving for deprivation. So the Buddha emphasised

a different kind of renunciation: the joy that comes from freedom from compulsion. Not the joy of ‘having little,’ but the joy of ‘not needing.’ This is why the Buddha speaks of nekkhamma-sukha, the happiness of renunciation (AN 9.34). Renunciation is not grim. It carries its own quiet pleasure.

Why Does the Idea of Renunciation Often Feel Threatening at First?

One reason is that the mind easily confuses renunciation with loss, and loss with misery.

The Buddha, however, repeatedly described renunciation as a form of relief. It is not the loss of the world, but the easing of the restless pressure that keeps us chasing the world. For this reason, he compared sensual attachment to things like a debt that must constantly be repaid, a disease that agitates

the body, or a burning torch carried against the wind. These similes do not condemn pleasure itself. They point out that dependence on pleasure easily produces instability.

From a psychological perspective, this observation is not difficult to understand. When rewards become something the mind feels compelled to pursue, cycles of anticipation, consumption, and renewed craving begin to form. Modern neuroscience describes similar patterns through reward-learning systems involving dopamine signalling. These systems help explain how repeated reward-seeking can strengthen habits of desire and dissatisfaction. In this light, renunciation can be understood not as deprivation, but as interrupting a cycle that continually renews restlessness.

The Danger You Named: Craving for Non-Craving

Your concern is understandable. The Buddha repeatedly warned that even wholesome practices can become objects of attachment when the mind grasps at them in the wrong way. Renunciation itself can be misunderstood if it becomes another identity to defend or another standard by which to judge oneself and others.

When the abandonment of desire is pursued through force or repression, the mind often becomes tense, dry, and conflicted. Instead of freedom, there can arise pride, rigidity, or subtle forms of self-judgment. In the discourses, the Buddha frequently cautions against this kind of attachment to views, practices, or identities. Liberation does not arise from clinging to the idea of renunciation, but from understanding the processes of craving themselves.

From a psychological perspective, this concern is also familiar. Research on thought suppression suggests that when desires are forcefully pushed away, they often return with greater intensity. Efforts to control experience too rigidly can increase mental vigilance and strengthen the very patterns they are trying to eliminate. In this sense, renunciation is not about fighting desire but about understanding it clearly.

This is why the Buddha framed his teaching as the middle way, avoiding both indulgence in sensual pleasure and harsh self-mortification. Renunciation, in this context, is not repression. It is the gradual cooling of craving as the mind begins to see more clearly where real peace lies.

What Healthy Renunciation Feels Like

True renunciation is marked by a distinctive emotional texture that the suttas often describe: - Lightness

- Non-compulsion

- Ease

- Unburdening

- Spaciousness of mind

- Growing contentment

- Clarity

In practice, it feels like this: ‘I can enjoy this, and I can walk away from it.’ ‘I can feel desire, and I do not have to obey it.’ ‘The mind is free to choose.’ It is freedom, not deprivation.

Question 3

That was a very detailed explanation, and I was ready to move on to the resolve of non-ill-will. But something happened yesterday that brought me back to the first resolve in a new way. While driving and listening to Swami Vivekananda’s writings, I heard a line that stayed with me. I am paraphrasing, but the essence is this: when one renounces the fruits of action, the seed of karma dissolves. The echo of the Bhagavad Gītā was unmistakable, where Krishna speaks to Arjuna in almost identical terms. This made me realise that the entire framework of Karma Yoga is, in a sense, already contained within the resolve of renunciation.

A related discourse may help clarify this. In it, the Buddha explains

a chain of processes linking intention, attention, memory, thinking, and inclination, showing how they gradually shape action and karma. He makes it clear that when the mind inclines towards renunciation, life begins to move in one direction, while inclining towards attachment leads in another. This is one of the clearest explanations in the Buddha’s discourses of how intention shapes destiny, not in an abstract sense, but moment by moment through the choices we make.

So My Question Is This:

• Can we explore this chain more deeply, both from the Buddhist perspective and from a scientific one, particularly through psychology, neuroscience, and learning theory? • How is karma understood in Buddhism, and what would be the closest scientific analogue to the Buddhist concept of karma?

Answer

The chain you are referring to from the Cetanā Sutta provides a useful way of examining how intention can influence future experience.

Before going further, it is worth clarifying the terminology. Here, ‘intention’ translates the Pāli word cetanā. This is different from saṅkappa, which I have translated throughout this chapter as ‘resolve’. Saṅkappa refers more to the orientation or direction of the mind, while cetanā refers to the volitional or intentional quality involved in action. Cetanā is commonly translated as either ‘intention’ or ‘volition’. For speakers familiar with related words in Sanskrit, Nepali, or Hindi, it may also carry broader associations with conscious knowing or awareness. In this particular Buddhist context, however, ‘intention’ most clearly captures its function in relation to karma.

A central insight in the discourses is that actions begin before they become visible in behaviour. They arise through subtle movements of intention, attention, and thought. What the mind repeatedly turns towards, it gradually begins to favour, and what it favours, it becomes increasingly inclined to repeat.

From this perspective, karma can be understood as an unfolding process of cause and consequence in which intention plays a central role. Intentions interact with attention, thought, and behaviour, and repeated patterns can gradually become familiar ways of responding. Karmic conditioning can therefore be developing before it becomes visible in outward action.

This relationship between repeated thought and mental inclination

is particularly clear in Majjhima Nikāya 19, where the Buddha explains that whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects upon becomes the inclination of the mind. Thoughts of sensual desire incline the mind towards sensual desire, while thoughts of renunciation incline it towards renunciation. The same principle is applied to ill will and non- ill will, and to harming and nonharming.

This also helps us understand the relationship between intention and Right Resolve. The resolve of renunciation orients the mind away from grasping. Cetanā concerns the intentional or volitional quality involved as we think, speak, and act within that orientation. Right Resolve therefore establishes a direction, while our intentions and actions express and reinforce that direction.

Aṅguttara Nikāya 10.2 approaches this process from another angle. It describes how qualities can develop naturally when the appropriate conditions are present: Virtuous conduct → freedom from regret → joy → tranquillity → happiness → samādhi → seeing things as they are → dispassion → knowledge and vision of liberation.

At each stage, the Buddha says that one does not need to deliberately intend for the next quality to arise. When the supporting conditions are established, one stage flows into the next. Practice involves intentional action, but its results cannot simply be commanded into existence.

The Neuroscience of Karma (A Modern Parallel)

From a scientific perspective, some contemporary parallels to aspects of Buddhist karma may be found in research on neuroplasticity and predictive processing models of the brain. Repeated thoughts, intentions, and behaviours can influence patterns of attention and response, while repeated behaviours can become increasingly habitual. Predictive processing models also propose that previous experience influences how present experience is interpreted and how we respond to it.

The comparison has limits. Neuroplasticity, habit formation, and predictive processing can help explain aspects of conditioning within a lifetime, but they are scientific models of brain and behaviour rather than scientific explanations of karma itself. In the early Buddhist framework, karma operates within a much broader account of causality that includes ethical consequences and rebirth.

Within those limits, science can illuminate some of the mechanisms through which patterns of mind and behaviour develop, while Buddhism considers these processes within a broader framework concerned with suffering and liberation.

Question 4

Let us now turn to the second and third aspects of Right Resolve: the resolve of non-ill will and the resolve of non-harm. Earlier in this chapter, we explored the Buddhist tendency to emphasise restraint over action, the ‘stop feeding the poison’ approach. For this section, I want to consider these two resolves in a different light. Even in Buddhism, where there is no divine record keeper, external punisher, or cosmic judge, these teachings remain central. Responsibility is internal rather than imposed. Why is that? Why does deep wisdom simply not arise in those who behave immorally? Why is genuine insight incompatible with harming others?

I am using Buddhism as the starting point here. But what quickly becomes apparent is that this concern is not unique to Buddhism. Principles such as being free of ill will and free of harm appear across nearly every religion, ethical system, and spiritual tradition. Why does every tradition that claims awakening seem to arrive at the same ethical ground?

This convergence becomes equally intriguing when viewed through the lens of non-dual traditions such as Sāṅkhya, Advaita, or aspects of Mahāyāna. If everything is ultimately one, why does it matter whom you harm? If everything is a dream, why does it matter what you do in the dream? If everything is Brahman, untouched and unchanging, what difference does it make how the character behaves?

For a Moment, Let Us Entertain a Wildly Optimistic Idea

Humanity invents a way to speed-run awakening through some hyper-advanced spiritual technology involving AI, alien intelligence, quantum simulation, or any other conceivable shortcut. I would wager that even then, it would fail to produce awakening without the purification of character, intention, and conduct. The only conceivable shortcut might be a controlled virtual reality in which time is slowed, allowing someone to undertake years of inner work in minutes. But even inside that simulation, I believe the same principles would hold: the mind cannot realise truth while rooted in hatred or harm.

As I write this, I am reminded of the Buddha’s frequent analogy of this world to a bubble on a stream, empty of lasting substance, arising and dissolving in a blink. Perhaps what we call ‘reality’ is already that accelerated training ground. Maybe we are already inside a virtual bubble, practising at hyper-speed, living out countless cycles of intention and consequence, refining the heart, moment by moment.

So the core question becomes this: what is it about the structure of the mind, or about the nature of insight itself, that makes the resolves of non-ill will and non-harm indispensable for awakening? Answer

Your question touches a paradox that appears across every serious contemplative tradition: If reality is ultimately empty, dreamlike, non-dual, or Brahmanic in nature, why do intentions of non-ill-will and non-harm remain indispensable for awakening? And why does deep insight consistently fail to arise in those who disregard these foundations?

From a Buddhist perspective, this insistence on ethics is particularly significant because there is no divine judge, no cosmic punishment, and

no external moral ledger. The constraint is internal and functional. The Buddha’s emphasis suggests that ethics are not imposed rules, but necessary conditions for perception itself.

We can approach this from three angles: psychological, ethical, and metaphysical.

Why Harm Obscures Insight

From the Buddhist standpoint, morality is not about reward or blame. It is about how the mind functions under certain conditions.

When the mind inclines toward ill-will or harm, even subtly, several predictable changes occur:

- Physiological and emotional activation increases: the nervous system shifts toward defence. Tension rises, muscles tighten, and perception narrows.

- Attention becomes biased: ill-will or hostility orients attention toward threat and opposition, making neutral or subtle phenomena harder to register.

- Self-representation intensifies: harm reinforces a strong ‘me versus them’ framing, strengthening the very sense of self that insight must loosen.

- Receptivity diminishes: the system becomes inwardly sealed. A mind preoccupied with defence or justification loses the openness required for direct seeing.

In short, unwholesome intentions distort perception by altering the conditions under which perception operates, while wholesome intentions clarify perception by reducing internal interference. This is not moralism but psychological causality. When the mind is contracted by ill will or harm, it cannot sustain the openness required to perceive impermanence, non-self, or emptiness directly; insight depends not on effort alone, but on a receptive, unguarded field of awareness.

Why Unity Cannot Be Seen from Division

This helps explain why even non-dual traditions never bypass ethics. If awakening involves recognising unity, then acting from division undermines the very perception one seeks. Harming another reinforces separation, not as a belief, but as a lived orientation. Non-harm, by contrast, trains the nervous system and attention toward continuity rather than opposition.

This is why traditions as different as Buddhism, non-dual traditions, and yogic practices often arrive at similar conclusions. The ethical requirement is not symbolic. It is perceptual. A mind organised around conflict cannot directly apprehend non-separation, regardless of philosophy.

In this sense, ethics function less as commandments and more as training conditions. They shape the qualities of mind through which reality is perceived. As conflict, hostility, and self-centredness diminish, clarity becomes increasingly possible.

The Virtual Bubble

Your speculative illustration works best as a thought experiment rather

than a literal claim. Even if humanity were to invent technologies capable of accelerating inner development, through artificial intelligence, immersive simulation, or time-dilated environments, the same fundamental constraint would likely remain. No system can produce clear seeing in a mind that is still governed by conflict.

First, the mind would need space to observe itself without being pulled constantly toward stimulation and distraction. This is the function of renunciation. It frees attention from compulsive seeking so that experience can be seen clearly.

Second, inner conflict would have to settle. A mind driven by hostility or resentment cannot examine reality calmly, because its attention is already organised around opposition. This is why the resolve of non-ill-will becomes essential.

Finally, external conflict would also need to diminish. When the mind remains oriented toward harming others, perception becomes defensive and fragmented. The resolve of non-harm restores the basic safety and openness that insight requires. Conclusion

This is why no amount of intellectual clarity can substitute for ethical orientation. Insight does not occur in a vacuum, but within a mind already conditioned in particular ways. Renunciation, non-ill-will, and non-harm help establish the conditions in which deeper understanding can arise. The obstruction is structural, not imposed from outside. The mind must be sufficiently settled, open, and undistorted to see clearly.

Author’s Note 9.2

As this chapter draws to a close, two things stand out with increasing clarity. The first is how central Right Resolve is to the path, and how easily it is misunderstood. Resolve is essential because it sustains practice over time, especially when enthusiasm fades or conditions become difficult. Yet it is also demanding, because it cannot be maintained through enthusiasm alone. For resolve to remain alive, it depends on awareness. Without mindfulness, intention quietly slips back into habit. In this sense, Right Resolve is sustained by both intention and awareness, strengthened over time through a cycle of faith, mindful commitment, and lived results, each reinforcing the other as practice matures.

The second concerns how Right Resolve appears in lived experience. It begins as an inner orientation of the mind, yet it cannot remain merely internal. Speech, action, and livelihood reveal whether this orientation is genuine. One can refrain from speaking or acting, but the mind’s underlying intentions eventually show themselves in behaviour. For this reason, Right Resolve functions as the hidden driver of the ethical limbs of the path. When renunciation, goodwill, and harmlessness are firmly established inwardly, they naturally express themselves outwardly in the way a person lives.