Appamāda (Pali: appamāda; Sanskrit: apramāda; Tibetan Wylie: bag yod pa) 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 MahayanaAbhidharma teachings its Sanskrit counterpart, apramāda, 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
Appamāda is a negation of pamāda, 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.
The second chapter of the Dhammapada, a part of the Khuddaka Nikāya, is devoted entirely to the term and is named the Appamādavagga. Its opening verse, Dhp 21, states that appamāda is the path to the Deathless while pamāda is the path to death, and that the negligent are as though already dead.
Saṃyutta Nikāya and Aṅguttara Nikāya
A number of discourses place appamāda foremost among wholesome states (kusala). A series in the Maggasaṃyutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and the Appamāda Sutta 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 appamāda, converge upon appamāda, and appamāda 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 parinibbāna were "vayadhammā saṅkhārā, appamādena sampādetha", that all formations are subject to decay and that one should strive with appamāda. Soma Thera holds that everything the Buddha taught from his awakening to his passing is summed up in that final exhortation, and that appamāda runs through the whole of the Buddha's word.
Commentarial explanation
In the Theravāda tradition the technical sense of appamāda is fixed by the commentaries. The Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, the commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya, glosses the term as appamādo vuccati satiyā avippavāso, the non-absence of sati or mindfulness. The same gloss appears in the Dhammapada-aṭṭhakathā. Nyanatiloka notes that this explanation, appamāda as the presence of sati, is common throughout the commentarial literature.
Soma Thera describes appamāda as sati accompanied by sustained viriya (energy, diligence, enthusiasm, effort), functioning thereby as a spiritual power and destroying the wavering of pamāda. He states that in meaning it is the non-neglect of sati, and that the term denotes mindfulness that is always active and constantly at work.
In the Abhidhamma
Unlike the Mahāyāna Abhidharma, which lists apramāda as a distinct mental factor, the list of fifty-two cetasika in the Theravāda Abhidhamma does not include appamāda as a factor in its own right, consistent with the commentarial explanation of it in terms of sati.
What is concern? From taking its stand on non-attachment (alobha), non-hatred (adveṣa), and non-deludedness (amoha) coupled with diligence (vīrya), 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.
A caring attitude (bag-yod, 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 apramāda 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 Anavataptaparipṛcchasutra: "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.
↑Soma Thera settled on 'earnestness' while explaining the sense of the term at length (Soma Thera 1998, Translator's Introduction).
↑The Pali of the verse reads appamādo amatapadaṃ, pamādo maccuno padaṃ; appamattā na mīyanti, ye pamattā yathā matā.
↑The same simile, together with that of the great rivers flowing to the ocean, also appears at AN 10.15. Soma Thera quotes the elephant's footprint simile in his introduction (Soma Thera 1998, Translator's Introduction).
↑Soma Thera also records an alternative explanation offered by some, namely that appamāda is the four mental aggregates (feeling, perception, consciousness and formations) proceeding with the application of sati and [[Sampajañña|sampajañña]] (satisampajaññayogena pavattā cattāro arūpino khandhā appamādo); see Soma Thera 1998, Translator's Introduction.
Bodhi, Bhikkhu (1999). A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
Bodhi, Bhikkhu (2000). The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Guenther, Herbert V.; Kawamura, Leslie S. (1975). Mind in Buddhist Psychology: A Translation of Ye-shes rgyal-mtshan's "The Necklace of Clear Understanding" (Kindleed.). Dharma Publishing.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
Kunsang, Erik Pema (2004). Gateway to Knowledge, Vol. 1 (translation). Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
Nyanatiloka Mahathera (1980) [1952]. Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (4thed.). Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
Rhys Davids, T. W.; Stede, William (1921–1925). The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary. Chipstead: Pali Text Society.
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