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Eightfold Path: Right Effort (1 of 3)

With this talk, I start a few talks on the sixth factor of the Eightfold Path: Right Effort. As an analogy for this, I'll mention that if you're driving on a multi-lane freeway and you see that up ahead on a different lane than you're in, there is some debris or an accident, then it's best not to move into that lane because that could be dangerous. If you're in a lane and you see up ahead in your lane there is debris or an accident, then it's wise to get out of that lane and into another lane. Once you're in a good lane, it's useful to stay alert for other possible obstacles along the way. You might have been daydreaming or lost in thought and distracted, and you realize, "Oh, it's really good if I actually drive alert, attentive, and mindful." Then you are mindful and alert, and you decide, "I should stay this way as I'm driving; there might be other dangers up ahead."

So, there are four different ways of driving. One is to avoid putting oneself in danger. If one is in danger, get out of danger. If one is not driving well, then drive well—drive alertly and attentively with all the skills you have for driving. If you are driving skillfully and alertly, maintain that; keep doing that. These would be an expression of what Right Effort is in the teachings of the Buddha. He said there are four right efforts: the effort of avoiding danger, the effort of getting out of danger, the effort of arousing, prompting, or evoking beneficial ways of being, and then the effort of maintaining those beneficial ways of being.

I use this example of driving to suggest this idea of Right Effort. There is a technical explanation for what it means in Buddhism, and I could read that technical definition, but it's kind of dry, complicated, and not very inspiring. I want to make the point that all of us are constantly practicing right effort. It's just part and parcel of human life. When something is dangerous or we're going to hurt ourselves, we try to avoid it. It's pretty common in many small ways in our daily life—we try to stay out of trouble. When there's something good going on for us, we try to maintain it. Or we arouse and evoke something good and helpful. We do that in driving. If we don't do it, driving can be much more difficult and dangerous.

What Right Effort is varies depending on the context—how we make effort, how we engage in doing something in our activities. If I'm driving, which I did some years ago in a massive snowstorm up in the mountains, right effort took a lot of energy. To really drive safely, I had to drive when it was clearly dangerous with cars around and icy roads. The right effort there looks very different from when the highway is wide open and clear, there's no traffic at all, and it's a straight passage. Then, the right effort can be much more relaxed and peaceful. Part of life is to discern what the right effort is.

That applies to meditation as well. What is the right effort for meditation? Some people are very challenged by, or even aversive to, the topic of effort. As I was learning about the Eightfold Path, I really appreciated seven of the eight factors, but this Right Effort factor was one that I actually kept at a distance. I didn't want to know it; I didn't like the idea. My association with the word "effort" was to strain, to make a kind of self-centered effort, to be engaged in trying to fix something or do something in a way that carries with it a lot of ego, attachment, clinging, or strain. It just felt like work.

What I've come to appreciate—partly through Buddhist practice and time in monasteries—is the joy of effort. The joy of really being fully present for an activity. It might be that a lot of energy is put into some activities, but there's play; it's enjoyable. It's great to absorb oneself in something. Effort is no longer something I recoil from. Now, the associations I have with effort are really delightful. It's like, "Oh boy, I get to put myself into something without resistance, without holding back, without straining, just being there fully for this activity."

I was taught that a little bit when I was in a Zen monastery in Japan. It was my job sometimes to carry the dinner food to the dining table. There were pots of rice and things that I had to carry. I would just pick up the pot of rice—they had two handles, but I'd pick it up by one handle and carry it with one hand. Another monk said, "No, Gil-san, you have to do things with Zen power." What they meant by that was to hold both handles, holding the right spot with both hands, to really give yourself over to just holding the pot. That was the activity of the moment, to give yourself really to it and just do that. At first, I thought that was kind of silly. Why all this extra effort of two hands instead of one? But I learned that really being present for that pot—just me and the pot, communing with the pot—felt delightful to have that kind of presence. I learned that how we make effort is the art of Right Effort.

Part of this is that these four right efforts are defined with a very important Buddhist term. In Pali^[1], it's kusala^[2] and akusala^[3]. Kusala is spelled k-u-s-a-l-a, and akusala has an 'a' in front of that. It is translated into English as either "skillful" or "wholesome," and akusala as "unskillful" or "unwholesome." It's the common word in the ancient Pali language for a skill that a craftsperson develops. Someone who trains animals—horses or elephants back then—is skilled in the training. A Buddhist practitioner develops the skills of practice. Sometimes the word kusala seems to have associations with the English word "wholesome," "healthy," "nourishing," or "helpful." It even has associations with the English word "ethical," what is ethical and unethical. There's a range of meanings, so depending on the context, we might translate the word differently.

In the context of meditation practice, the word often means "skillful," because clearly, the Buddha relates meditation practice to an activity that's similar to the skill of learning a musical instrument or a craft. Part of the association with that is repetition—that a skill is learned through repetition, over and over again. This is true for meditation practice. It's best not to be like a little child in the back seat of a car telling the parents who are driving, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" When you meditate, don't have any concern for "getting there." Be content to just be here with your experience. Just keep practicing and doing the simple practice as if you're holding both handles on the pot. It's just you and your breathing. You're there to be with the breath, come back to your breath, let go of your thoughts and distractions, and start again.

People who meditate regularly will find that slowly over time, the body changes. Especially if you sit cross-legged, but even if you sit upright in a chair, very slowly the body begins to become more skilled in the meditation posture. It took me seven years when I first started meditating, without really efforting or trying to do it, until I was sitting for a while in full lotus and developed a kind of yogic body. But it was repetition, day in and day out, that does it. It brings imperceptible changes. The same thing is true with focusing on the breath. We're developing a skill, and it's the repetition of coming back, letting go, and coming back. We're developing the skill of not clinging and holding onto thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions. We're developing the skill of not being reactive. We're developing the skill of beginning again in a simple, relaxed way, to start again with the breathing in a receptive, allowing way, without straining, wanting, getting, or trying to attain something. Just here with this experience of breathing. Just here with Zen no chikara, with Zen power—not forceful, macho power, but the power of presence, being here for this breathing.

Throughout the day on a retreat, for example, or in daily life, this applies to all kinds of circumstances. We develop the skill of really being present for what we're doing while we're doing it. For those of you who are not in a monastery, probably one of the best practices you have to replicate the benefits of really being on retreat—or to enhance a retreat and bring the Dharma into your daily life—is to more often give yourself over to just doing one thing at a time. Just hold both handles of the pot. Just be at the sink washing the dishes. Just sweep your kitchen floor without thinking about plans for the day, or ruminating about how someone else tracked mud onto the floor. Just sweep. Do one thing, and be present for it.

Learning how to do that one thing without strain, without hesitation, without complaining, and without being over-eager—just slowly finding a delightful, settled, enjoyable, skillful way of doing whatever we're doing through repetition—makes us free of rumination. It frees us from the ruminating mind that gets caught up in all kinds of things in ways that undermine and debilitate us. We want to develop a mind that is skillful, wholesome, and helpful. Learning the art of skillful engagement in the activity of the moment becomes one of the great delights of this practice.

I'll say more about these four right efforts in the next couple of days, and I hope that by the time I finish, you'll appreciate their tremendous value. Especially if you were like me when I first started this practice and learned about right effort, thinking, "Oh no, this is not for me, this is going in the wrong direction." I hope that you'll hang in here and find your way through this until you also feel the joy, discovering the joy of effort. Thank you, and I look forward to continuing tomorrow.