Thank You for Your Great Effort

There is a story in the Pali suttas of a conversation between the monks Sariputta and Anuruddha (AN 3.130). Anuruddha comments that he has attained clairvoyance and has excellent energy and concentration, and yet he is not awakened. Sariputta deftly points out that Anuruddha’s attitude toward these three accomplishments reveals that his mind still contains conceit, restlessness, and remorse, and it would be good to abandon those things. When Anuruddha does so, he becomes an arahant.

This sutta demonstrates one quality of friendship on the path: Our spiritual friends might be able to see what we have not yet let go of and find the right way to encourage us. Thus, it can be useful, at the right time, to reveal to our spiritual friends where we are stuck.

The Theravadan tradition tends to be straightforward like this. We can also look at a similar exchange in the Zen tradition, which is more elliptical:

When Suzuki Roshi was dying, his friend Katagiri Roshi came to visit. Suzuki Roshi said, “I don’t want to die.” Katagiri Roshi bowed and said, “Thank you for your great effort.”

What is going on here? Is this a non sequitur? I prefer to interpret this exchange as similar to the one between Sariputta and Anuruddha.

A surface-level reading of the exchange might see Suzuki Roshi’s words as indicating literally how this great master is dying. Even Suzuki Roshi didn’t want to die! Perhaps he was not really awakened? Perhaps it is OK that I cling to the pleasures of my life? This largely misses the point of what is being exchanged.

Another interpretation is that Suzuki Roshi was taking an opportunity to awaken more fully. Like Anuruddha, he revealed his stuckness: “I don’t want to die.” Suzuki Roshi knew that not wanting to die is futile when one is dying. And he knew that there is no fixed “I.” What he is doing is letting the stuckness speak—there is a part of him that doesn’t want to die, and he gives it a voice.

Katagiri Roshi is a wise and compassionate teacher. He can hear this. He addresses the stuck part with a phrase designed to help Suzuki Roshi to let go: “Thank you for your great effort.” One thing that holds us back from full liberation is secretly (or not so secretly) wishing for acknowledgment. We want to be thanked and praised. Being thanked feels wonderful, and it is good to offer our gratitude frequently and freely to others. But if we need that acknowledgment, we are not free because receiving it is not reliable.

Good friends help us see and name what is stuck. But they can do that only when we are willing to reveal these parts to them.

Nonetheless, Katagiri Roshi did that for the part of Suzuki Roshi’s mind that needed it, as a bodhisattva gesture of helping a suffering being by giving it what it needs. It is possible that the result for Suzuki Roshi was to see clearly that the stuckness was a matter of not being appreciated or thanked. Perhaps, during that very exchange, he was finally able to let go of what didn’t want to die. Just as Anuruddha understood what was holding him back—conceit, restlessness, and remorse—and could then let those aspects of himself go.

Good friends help us see and name what is stuck. But they can do that only when we are willing to reveal these parts to them.

We can also practice being our own best friend. What would it be like to say to a tight, painful part of your own mind, “Thank you for your great effort”? Possibly there are aspects of you that don’t want to die, and would find great ease and relief in simply being thanked. Maybe they would then let go.

I tried this on my own mind and found it fruitful. Use it like a koan. Suffuse the body with gratitude. Consider the great effort some aspects of you have made to protect you, help you, and make you happy. Can you thank them for their great effort, even as you now see that at least some of those protections are no longer needed?

Standing in what is firm and does not need thanking, you can thank everything else that helped you to get to the point of knowing that firmness. It is indeed a great service. See this and be free.

♦

This article was adapted from a piece originally published on Uncontrived.org.