---
ai_generation_date: '2026-05-03'
ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
  - date: '2024-09-16'
    mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/21283/20240916-Diana_Clark-IMC-wise_efforting.mp3
    speakers:
    - speaker_name: Diana Clark
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240
    talk_start_time_seconds: 0
    title: Wise Efforting
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/21283
    video_unavailable: true
location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: true
youtube:
  id: n18eFJUfSNE
  imprecise_upload_date: null
  title: Wise Efforting ~ Diana Clark
  upload_date: '2024-09-17'
  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n18eFJUfSNE
---

# Wise Efforting - [Diana Clark](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240)

*This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.*

## [Wise Efforting](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/21283)

Welcome. Could we turn the volume just a tiny bit higher? I'm getting a little lazy with these microphones and I don't want to project my voice. I think this is good. Thank you, Jim.

Good evening. I was thinking about this bell. When the bell rings, there was a time when I first started a meditation practice, and I would come to group sits like this holding on for dear life, just waiting for the bell to ring. The bell would ring and I'd think, "Oh, thank goodness." You know this kind of feeling. I didn't even notice really how much I couldn't wait for that bell to ring. Maybe I was in some physical discomfort, or maybe just some mental discomfort. There would be times when I would realize that I'd be in a setting where other people are meditating, and there would be a feeling—I don't know what would happen—but something like, "Oh, I can't meditate." And then I'd just say, "Okay, well, I guess I'm just going to sit here." I would totally stop meditating and just pretend to meditate. I was trying not to wiggle too much, but you can't help it when you're not meditating; you're just shifting your weight around.

I remember reporting this to a teacher, saying that I would just give up and wait for the bell to ring. This teacher told me, "What you're actually doing there is cultivating aversion[^1]. Just waiting, wanting something to happen that's not there." So there's this way in which we can practice with this effort, really striving hard, or really just being lackadaisical about it. Or there's a way in which we're kind of present, not completely present, but not completely lost in thought either. I'd like to talk a little bit about this tonight: this idea about balanced efforting, the right amount. We might say, wise efforting[^2].

This is certainly part of the art of practice: to know how much efforting to be doing. Even the whole notion of efforting—what does it mean to apply effort to a mindfulness practice, to a meditation practice? It's not uncommon to be a little bit over-efforting, having this sense that we're straining or striving. Maybe we don't notice it so much in a 30-minute sit like we did tonight. But when you're on a meditation retreat and you're doing sit after sit after sit, you just start to run out of energy. You wonder what happened and get exhausted, but all you're doing is just sitting. You start to notice, "Oh yeah, there's this draining, there's this quiet striving, this pushing."

Of course, we bring this to our meditation practice because chances are we've been doing this type of achieving and attaining in other areas of our life: in our professional life, our academic life, and with our hobbies. With almost most endeavors that we do, there's a certain amount of pushing that we do to get through, to make it to the end of it, or to achieve something. 

In some ways, there is a little bit of having to apply some effort. But we might say it's kind of like riding a bicycle, where in the beginning you have to pedal and apply some effort, but then you can coast. There can be a way in which, over-efforting, we get out of breath and we can't go so far on the bicycle. But if we are pedaling in such a way that it's sustainable, then we can actually ride our bikes further, and in all different types of terrain: through the city, out of the city, into the country, and to the next town.

With meditation practice, we're here and we're doing a formal 30 minutes with a beginning and an end, and there are certainly some real benefits to that. But there's also mindfulness practice that we're doing in our daily life, which is just being embodied for our life, being present for our life, and bringing a certain amount of awareness, attention, and mindfulness. So there's the amount of effort to do during a formal meditation period, as well as the type of effort to do when we're expanding the mindfulness to be in our daily life. And they're related, of course they are.

I'll say that in daily life, it's less common that there's a lot of serious straining in our meditation practice. What I mean by daily life is just bringing some mindfulness to some of our activities. In particular, some people find it easiest to do this on activities that we do a lot or that have a certain repetitious nature to them. Obvious examples are doing the dishes, brushing one's teeth, or folding clothes. There's something where that has a certain rhythm to it. So chances are with those types of activities, we have just this light sense of being embodied.

Maybe I should back up and say that this light sense of being embodied is a tremendous way to really bring some fullness to our lives, instead of just mindlessly going through our lives as if it didn't matter what we did, and what mattered more was what we were cooking up in our minds. There's a way in which this more gentle type of mindfulness that we bring to daily life is appropriate for the more formal sitting meditation. Because there is a way in which we strain—we might not even recognize it—but what's fueling the straining is this subtle sense of: "Whatever is happening here is not okay. I have to go find something else. I have to go make something else happen."

Either we don't want to be experiencing something, so there's this very subtle way we're dismissing whatever experiences we're having, thinking that the next moment is going to be better. There's this kind of straining, this leaning into a certain amount of greediness[^3] for the next moment because we don't like what's happening here. And this greediness for the next moment is really also tied up with this strong sense of "me": "I like things this way. I don't like things that way. I like it when it's quiet, my body is perfectly comfortable, and the meditation period is not too long, of course." But how often does that happen?

This meditation practice is so much about being able to show up for our life no matter what is happening. So even if we might have the sense of "I don't want this," or we might have the sense of "I do want that," that's another way in which there can be this straining. There's a sense of effort, and often we wouldn't even notice that we're having this sense of effort unless maybe we compared it to practice in daily life, or we compared it to an experience we have when we've been on a meditation retreat doing some longer meditation. We have this feeling like, "Oh yeah, okay, we've been riding the bicycle, and now there's a certain amount of coasting." There's a certain amount of momentum that arises, and this is a natural thing that happens. Just a few moments of mindfulness start to support one another, and then there doesn't have to be so much effort anymore. Mindfulness is just arising.

How can we apply the right amount of effort so that the practice is nourishing, supportive, and sustainable, and not something that turns into a grim duty? "I'm supposed to do this because it's good for me." Like taking our vitamins, eating whatever vegetables we don't like but we think are good for us, or doing some exercise that we think we should do but don't really want to. We don't want meditation to turn into something like that. But then the risk is that we just chase whatever it is that makes meditation pleasurable.

I would say that meditation is about practicing or persevering in a relaxed manner. This relaxed manner is largely about being receptive to what's arising, as opposed to going out and connecting with something and really working to stay with that object. There are times in which that style of practice is appropriate, and there are also times for this style of practice of being more receptive. There's a sense of receiving the objects of meditation, receiving the experience of the breath, receiving the sounds. This way of receiving is a way in which there isn't so much a sense of preferences. It isn't so much a sense of "I want this, I don't want that." It's more of a sense of allowing and accepting, and just noticing: what is the next thing that's being noticed?

This has a very different flavor to practice. This idea of being receptive highlights how little effort is required. If I were to ask you right now to just feel the sensations in your right hand, what does it feel like to have a right hand? That doesn't take so much effort. You just kind of incline the mind there. It's just a slight amount of effort. So this more receptive style allows for a lighter amount of effort, so that we can be more continuous, or have more consistent perseverance. This light amount of effort allows momentum to build.

If we are trying to have a particular experience, or trying to avoid something, we will over-effort. We will strain or strive to get rid of that discomfort in the knee, or get rid of the sound of the neighbor's dog barking. Have you ever tried to do that? We often think, "Oh, I could meditate if only that sound weren't happening." And then we try to strain even harder to just be with it, not noticing that actually what we could do is just be with "annoyance feels like this," and just be with that experience. We can receive or tune into, in a subtle way, "frustration feels like this," "irritation feels like this," and turn that into what's being known next. That way we don't have to fight with what's happening. We don't have to over-effort. We don't have to strain and strive.

I've told this story quite a few times, but there was a time when I was on a long retreat, and I somehow got it in my mind that I had to work harder, work harder, work harder. It didn't matter what I was doing; there was this sense of insufficiency in whatever I was doing. I got a little crazy. I'll just say this: I got so tense and irritated I ended up hating everybody and everything, just because I was trying to meditate. The teachers, after weeks of watching me do this, were like, "Okay Diana, just stop. Just go out for a hike. You need to be out walking in nature for hours." I just hadn't realized how I was straining and striving. I felt like that's what I was supposed to do on a long meditation retreat. But it's not like that. Instead, it's more about building this momentum. Especially on retreats, it's not only while you're sitting, but while you're getting up from the sit, and then walking, and then eating—everything is like that.

It can be helpful to have in mind the sense, with practice, to see if the mind itself is relaxed. We kind of notice: what does it feel like when the mind is relaxed? There's this sense of spaciousness and this sense of ease. Implicit in that—and this is also really subtle—is the sense of trusting that the next object of mindfulness is going to arise. We don't have to go get it; we can just be receptive, and it's going to arise. The next sound, the next bodily sensation.

If we're practicing in this way, that's open awareness. Maybe I should have said that earlier. With this receptive way of practicing, we're not choosing the different objects; we're just allowing the objects to arise. You can also do this flavor of receptive awareness with the breath. There's a way you can incline the mind towards the breath, but also a way in which you're receiving it, instead of going out there and jumping on it or grabbing it.

If you notice that the mind is not relaxed, or if you notice there's some efforting, what are some things you can do? One thing is to just take a breath, a larger breath, and do a big exhale. Get embodied back into the bodily experience, and then just rest attention on what's happening in the body in this moment. Often the straining is not in this moment; it's about "I have to get somewhere" or "I have to avoid something." So that's one thing to do.

Maybe we can remind ourselves that we just have to take this practice one moment at a time. We just have to meet the next moment. That doesn't take very much effort, just the next moment. For me, on those long retreats—this is something I do not recommend—I was there for a number of months, and we just meditated all day, so it was hundreds of meditation periods. I was counting down like, "Oh, 624 more to go," and I was making myself crazy. We just have to meet the next moment. That's all that's asked of us, just the next moment. There's a way in which that doesn't feel burdensome or oppressive. Just the next moment.

It can also be helpful to realize that the attitude we bring towards the meditation practice can have a big impact. It can be helpful to have a sense of, "Well, why not? I'll just be present for this." Because often what happens is we might have this rebellious attitude. Or maybe I should speak for myself—sometimes I have this rebellious attitude of "I don't want to simply because somebody told me to," or because it's what I'm supposed to do. I often have a little bit of resistance. But what would it be like to just say, "Well, why not? I'll just give it a go. I'm just going to be present for the next moment." These attitudes can be a big support in sustaining a meditation practice, not only during the meditation period but when we bring this home.

There's a way in which we might have this sense that to practice—especially in English, we often have this sense that practice is to exert oneself. We use this language, "I have a meditation practice." But really, having steadiness with the attention can be really beneficial because we start to see what our minds do. We start to understand some of the attitudes of the mind, and we start to recognize some of the habits and patterns of the mind. If we can bring mindfulness to more and more parts of our life, or even more consistently during the meditation period, we're less likely to be completely lost in thought, out in wherever it is that the mind likes to go.

To support practicing with a balanced amount of effort, I've been talking about not too much striving. I'll also say the opposite of too much striving can be this lackadaisical sense of, "Yeah, yeah, okay, mindful. I'll get to it later, but right now I'm having this juicy thought," or "I have to solve this problem," or "I have to remember the grocery list," or "I'm going to indulge in this fantasy." It's not uncommon to have this idea of, "I know I'm supposed to be mindful, but I'll do it later." I hadn't really noticed how early in my meditation practice I would do this until I heard a talk by Joseph Goldstein[^4]. He has this expression: "more or less mindful." Kind of mindful, more or less a little bit lost in thought and a little bit present. He was pointing out, why not just be completely present? It can be really supportive for our life and for our practice.

One way to support this balanced effort is to just learn what our patterns are. What are the patterns that we bring to tasks in general? Often the patterns or attitudes that we bring aren't necessarily obvious, but they're having an impact on us. You could even just inquire: when you realized I was going to be talking about efforting, was there a subtle sense where you said, "Oh great, I know that I need to effort more. I want to hear how much more I need to effort." Or maybe you had the idea, "Oh, really? Effort? I feel overwhelmed already with all the stuff I have to do, and now I have to apply effort to practice?" Or maybe you responded like, "What is she talking about? I don't even know this whole idea of effort. I just sit down and meditate."

Maybe those are three different extremes, but just notice what kind of attitude you have towards effort. I told you about how I was over-efforting, and I see how this shows up in other areas of my life. Just recently, I was doing a hike with a friend. It was a long hike for me, and the last bit I was tired, so I was walking faster. I was thinking, "I've got to finish this thing. I've got to push to get this finished, to get there." My friend asked, "Why are you walking so fast?" I just wanted to be done. So there's this way I have of pushing. Some other people might have a different way when there's a sense of "I need to do something."

One way to have balanced effort with your meditation practice is just to be aware of your patterns. What are the ways you often show up when there's something to be done? Just knowing about it can help sensitize you to notice when you find yourself doing something like that in your meditation practice. You don't have to change it, you don't have to make it different, but just knowing what our patterns are can be really helpful to sensitize you to it.

If you notice that there's a lot of striving or wanting to attain things, it might be that there's some fear underneath fueling that. There might be a fear of backsliding, or a fear of feeling regret if you don't put all this effort in, or a fear of missing out, or a fear of becoming a slug and people taking advantage of you. Maybe there's some fear underneath the striving pattern.

Or maybe there's doubt underneath this more lackadaisical pattern. Maybe there's doubt about, "Is this really what I should be doing? Is this valuable?" Maybe it's just a sense of hesitation: "Maybe I can't even really do this. Maybe this is not what's best for me." These are just things to consider, to be curious about. You don't have to find the answers to this, but recognizing what's fueling some of our patterns can help take some of the authority out of them.

Something else that can support having a balanced effort is to remind ourselves of why we're doing this in the first place. Or maybe I should reword that: tune into your aspirations. What is motivating or inspiring you? Because sometimes it can be that we just want to feel better, and we're doing anything we can. We're trying to avoid what's uncomfortable and chase what's pleasant. That works when it works, until it doesn't—and most of the time it doesn't. This practice is about learning to have some steadiness no matter what's arising. To have balanced effort, tune into your aspirations of why you're practicing: this wish for greater freedom, this wish for greater ease or peace, or whatever it might be for you.

Something else that can help with having a balanced sense of effort is to check in with the way our sense of self is tied in with how much efforting we do. This is tied in with our patterns, but we could just drop in a question. We could ask ourselves: "Who would I be if I weren't making this amount of effort?" I know this is an odd question, but it's something that you just drop in, and then maybe listen to see if there are any answers. We don't have to find the answers; we're just dropping in a question. It's a way of bringing some curiosity to the experience.

Because there's often a way that our sense of self is really tied up with, "Well, I'm the one who gets things done," or "I'm the one who often leaves things undone," or "I'm the one that procrastinates a lot." Part of our identity could be related to effort. What this practice points to is having a flexible identity, not identifying only one way. Maybe it's appropriate to have a lot of effort in certain situations, but not in other situations. Can we have this flexibility?

Whatever you recognize about yourself, your patterns, or this idea of who you would be if you weren't making that amount of effort, the point is to just meet it with kindness. Meet it with compassion and awareness. "Oh, okay." This practice is so much about understanding ourselves better, and understanding some of the ways we constrict our possibilities, blame ourselves, or beat ourselves up. That's not the way that's going to support having a practice and a life that is nourishing and supportive. With these inquiries, there's no need to be harsh on ourselves. We're just being anthropologists, in a way, learning about ourselves and how we're showing up in the world.

Wise efforting can often be this sense of receiving objects, and that can just be with open awareness of whatever object it is: sound, bodily sensation, breath, thought, emotion. Or there can be a combination of directed and received. Like, "I'm going to do mindfulness of the sensations of breathing," but there's a way in which you're receiving them instead of going out and getting them. This is a subtle movement, but it allows more sustainability in a meditation practice. So that when the bell rings, it's just like, "Oh, bell." Just noticing the sounds, realizing that's the end, and opening your eyes, instead of holding on like, "When is this going to be over?" 

I'll end there and open it up to see if there are some questions or comments right back here.

## Q&A

**Speaker 1:** For me personally, I find I'm most at peace when I'm not making any effort and just kind of resting, chilling out, relaxing. Not efforting at all, just being there. I find that, at least for me personally, that's when I feel the most mindful.

**Diana Clark:** Can you describe what the experience of mindfulness is like for you then?

**Speaker 1:** Resting. Just completely chilling out, not trying to be anything or anyone. I find in those moments when I'm not efforting at all—and I don't do it that often to be honest—but every once in a while, if I'm at the beach or there's a sunset, or maybe I'm with a friend who I really care about, there's a moment where I'm just not efforting at all. I'm just resting in that moment, and I find that's when I feel like I'm the most awake.

**Diana Clark:** So just being present for what's happening.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, just letting go of everything and just being there. Sometimes I tend to overthink the spiritual path, thinking that I can think my way into more peace. I feel the best when I'm just keeping it simple.

**Diana Clark:** Yeah, simple is good. Great, I appreciate that. Thank you. Anybody else have a comment or question?

**Speaker 2 (Jay):** Hi, I'm Jay. I know this all goes back to a time when there was no writing, right? It was an oral tradition.

**Diana Clark:** That's right.

**Jay:** I've experimented with tracking my thoughts on paper while meditating. We tend not to do it in this tradition, so I'm curious if there's any value in it, or if people have tried it. As I'm meditating, let's say a distracting thought comes up, I write it down, then I go back to the breath. I was wondering if there's any value in that, or is there some inherent value in *not* doing it, which is why people don't do it?

**Diana Clark:** I see. I haven't done this practice, so I don't know. Can you tell me what happens? You have a thought, you write it down, and then what happens after?

**Jay:** When I finish, I go look at it, and the craziness of it jumps out. Like, "My God, what is this?" It's all over the map. I've done it just three or four times to see what it feels like. I was concerned it would disturb my sit—it's not a solid 30-minute sit because I'm going in and out—but I wanted to see what the effect was. I don't know what the long-term effect is, but sometimes a whole sit can go by and I'm barely there. If I don't do this, I feel like I've lost 30 minutes, or maybe I'll come back to the breath only three times for the whole sit.

**Diana Clark:** I can see part of the value is starting to see—you used the word "craziness"—the craziness of our thoughts. It's helpful to see that for them to lose some of their authority. Often we feel like thoughts are so important, we have to pay attention to them to solve something. But when we really start to look at the content, we see there's a tremendous amount of repetition, going to all these different places. Writing it down might have helped you see that. In this tradition we don't write them down, but I could see where it would be helpful to just recognize the craziness. When we really start to pay attention, we start to see that, and then the allure of being lost in thought starts to diminish. We can just say, "Oh, I might as well just be here with this moment." I don't have a good reason why we don't do it.

**Jay:** The reason I mentioned the original context is I was wondering if writing had been more widely available at the time, maybe the Buddha would have said to write it down. I'm just speculating.

**Diana Clark:** Writing existed, but it was used just by a few people for accounting purposes, for merchants, or for taxes. It certainly wasn't used to share information, or in a religious context. That didn't happen until hundreds of years later.

**Speaker 3:** At some point in the talk, you mentioned the idea that there's a time for meditations where you focus on an object, and then times where you just try and accept what is. I feel like my practice has been haphazard; sometimes I am accepting and other times I'm trying to focus. I'm curious what's a good way to think about when it's time for the more focused meditation versus the accepting kind?

**Diana Clark:** That's a good question. I would say that it differs for different people. For some, being more relaxed and receptive just works best, and that's their entire practice. They don't have this more focused style where you choose an object and stay on it. They might say that the object is awareness itself. They're just being aware of awareness, noticing, "Oh, here's a sound, here's a sensation." 

Other people would say, "No, I'm just going to choose the breath and stay on the breath." Being aware of awareness is more receptive, and the object-oriented approach is more directed. Often people will do a little bit more directed practice to help the mind settle, because that takes a little bit more effort. If you're feeling like your mind is everywhere and you can't settle down, you might stay with the breath for a certain duration until some settling arises, and then open up and just receive. 

Some people will do the opposite. They realize the mind is all over the place, so they don't even try to direct it. They just notice what's happening with a more receptive approach. Then, once there starts to be a little bit of settling, they want to get concentrated, so they choose a particular object and stay with that. 

So my answer is that different people have different propensities. For some, it's easier to just be with awareness and have a bunch of different objects as opposed to just one. It also depends on your objectives, like if you want to get concentrated. Having said that, you can get concentrated both ways.

**Speaker 3:** Thank you. I didn't think of it that way. I thought you kind of pick one type or style throughout the meditation, and I didn't realize that even awareness itself could be the object.

**Diana Clark:** Thank you all, and I wish you a lovely rest of the evening.

---
[^1]: **Aversion:** (Dosa) In Buddhist psychology, aversion or ill-will is one of the three "unwholesome roots" (along with greed and delusion) that lead to suffering.
[^2]: **Wise Efforting:** Relates to Right Effort (Samma Vayama), a factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, which emphasizes balanced energy—neither too tense nor too slack.
[^3]: **Greediness:** Original transcript said 'greetin', corrected to 'greediness' based on context. In Buddhism, greed or desire (Lobha) is another unwholesome root.
[^4]: **Joseph Goldstein:** An American Buddhist teacher, author, and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts.