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Eightfold Path: Right Effort (3 of 3)

Today I'll give the third talk on Right Effort, and this time about the effort to evoke skillful, wholesome states and actions, and to maintain or protect the wholesome and skillful activities that we're involved in—activities of mind, body, and speech.

To introduce this topic, one of the most natural things about life is that a living being, the human being that's born, if all the appropriate good conditions are present, that person will grow. They will grow physically, mentally, and emotionally as they grow up. It's delightful to watch a young child grow and develop, learn skills, learn how to walk and talk, learn how to navigate the world, find their way, eventually become independent, and be able to take care of themselves. It's a completely natural phenomenon to watch this growth. You can't really stop it. If you keep feeding and caring for a young child, generally, you can't stop them from growing; they just grow.

That growing and maturing of human beings, that unfolding and movement, continues into adulthood. It isn't that we turn 18 or 21 and something gets turned off, and you will never mature ever again. We continue to mature and develop psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually, even if we are not thinking we're doing that.

What also happens is that we have all kinds of influences on how that evolving and growing happens, and some of them are not so healthy. The influence of media, community, society, advertisers, politicians—all kinds of things—can skew a person in the direction of unhealthy states of mind. And they'll grow; those states will grow and develop. Someone can start off with a tendency towards a little bit of hostility, and it can get fueled and fed by conditions, by repetition, and by habit, and it becomes full-blown hate. Someone else has conditions or situations where the positive unfolds and develops, and they grow in that direction.

Now, if we don't do anything, if we make no choices, if we are not taking some responsibility for what influences us and what direction our habit formations go, then society—where people are paid a lot of money to influence others and to affect how people's mind streams go and develop—will take over. Meditation places us in a place where we can start being wise, attentive, and choiceful about which of these two directions we go. Do we go in the skillful direction, or do we go in the unskillful direction? In the direction of what's wholesome and helpful, conducive to happiness and well-being, and conducive to deep peace, or conducive to the opposite?

Something as simple as being really present mindfully for your experience, and maybe even learning to not do anything else—not have positive thoughts, not promote more kindness, not try to develop yourself in any kind of way, no self-improvement project, just to be mindful. Well, that continuity of being mindful, that letting go of all kinds of self-improvement projects, not only can it be healthy and wholesome itself, it actually brings along with it—like a magnet—the development of all kinds of healthy things.

This is partly because it interrupts the flow, the influence of the unhealthy thoughts and unhealthy choices and ways of being that we have. When the unhealthy things are interrupted, stopped, and put to rest for a while, there's a lot more room for a different kind of sensitivity to be there. There's a tendency then to allow what is good, what is healthy, what feels good, what feels freeing, what feels kind and compassionate. There's a tendency and gravitation to it, or a space for that to operate. There's a space for wisdom to operate, to come about. The more clearly we see, the more clearly we get out of the way of our experience and just be there, the more there is a lot of wisdom. There's a wisdom of freedom, a wisdom of how we get caught and how not to be caught, and that makes a world of difference.

So, just simple mindfulness by itself develops the skillful, because it is a very skillful thing in itself. But also, we could choose—ideally not out of greed, not out of hatred, not out of expectation, not out of conceit—we can choose to redirect our mind stream in healthy ways. If we find ourselves going along in our day and starting to have a lot of mean thoughts, it might be possible to let go of that. Then, in an appropriate, natural, and easy way—not artificially—start thinking about the things in our life we appreciate.

Instead of following along with this negative bias that many human beings seem to have, we can choose to reinforce the positive bias, the positive side of things. This is not to pretend that everything is good, or to avoid understanding the difficulties and what's unhealthy in life. Rather, it is so that the unhealthy is not what influences us. We want to be influenced by the positive side of us, the healthy side, the supportive side. In the Eightfold Path, it's really about being influenced by that which is freeing, that which frees us from suffering. Suffering is not necessary, though to understand that is very difficult.

But as we go on this Eightfold Path, the whole path is oriented towards a healthy direction. The whole path is skillful, and as we engage in the different parts of the Eightfold Path, we're beginning to recondition the mind. We create different habits and create different conditioning that supports a healthy, skillful way of thinking.

So in this Right Effort, the Buddha talks about first evoking, or bringing about, skillful states. You have to start being mindful, for example, or you have to think, "Oh, I think kindness is a good idea. Maybe I should think about where I already have kindness. Where is it natural for me to be friendly?" "Oh yeah, I have this good friend, and when I think of my friend, I just feel warm and kind, and I get a smile in my heart when I think about that person." We can move our mind to what already brings kindness or compassion, and then from that, begin seeing if that could spread and if there could be more friendliness.

Can you even find a place inside where you evoke friendliness to a person you normally are not friendly towards? Maybe privately—you don't have to tell them—but begin to experiment, stretch, and open to a kind and friendly way of being. This is supported by the Eightfold Path, which means it is supported by the idea to develop kindness, friendship, and friendliness without any clinging, suffering, stress, or strain. Remember, it's not a "should," it's not an obligation, but rather it's a kind of inspiration to be freer, to breathe more easily.

How is it we can be kind and compassionate? When we do so, we breathe more easily, and we feel more at ease in doing it. That's the art to making it really skillful.

Generosity is also a skillful thing—to live a generous life, to let generosity be a habit. Not because it's a burden or a stress, but in a way that's freeing. It's like, "Of course I'll be generous, because that's good for me. I just feel so much easier. My breath becomes easier and more relaxed, my chest becomes more open, my mind opens up, and I'm not so narrow in my mind when I'm generous." And to learn that.

Patience is skillful. Learning the art of letting go is skillful and healthy. Equanimity is skillful, as is learning to develop a sense of resolve, and a little bit of determination or aspiration: "Yes, this is important. I'm going to really follow through and have the strength here to do it."

There are all kinds of inner qualities of the mind that will either develop in you in the wake of practicing mindfulness meditation, or, as you recognize them in yourself, you can evoke them more often. You can tap into them, let them be a companion in your life, and let them be what influences you, inspires you, and changes you for the better.

Then, once you've aroused these things and recognized them, you want to maintain and protect them. That doesn't mean that we hold tight and guard them against all things at all costs. It can be very simple things. Like, once you start feeling more calm, more mindful, more present, and more at home in yourself, then safeguard that. Don't give it up easily.

Don't rush to see what the latest news is and lose touch with this deeper sense of at-homeness that you have. Maybe take your time. Start living at the speed of ease, the speed of freedom, because you're learning what it's like to lose that freedom by rushing, doing too many things, getting anxious, and spinning off in your thoughts. Living at the speed of freedom doesn't mean that you go slow, but it does mean you stay close to this freedom. And in that freedom, you can protect some of these other good qualities: qualities of kindness, compassion, care, patience, love, generosity, determination, and aspiration.

There is an abundance of these good qualities that we have. If you want to get more familiar and develop a vocabulary of good, skillful qualities, then you might want to learn about the ten pāramīs^[1], the ten perfections. These are ten particularly valued inner dispositions, qualities, and mental states that the Buddhist tradition puts a lot of value on. Simply learning them starts creating the condition to evoke and arouse skillful states, and then to learn the art of protecting them without it being a strain, without it being a duty, and without putting blinders on and avoiding the full range of what's happening in this world.

May it be that this Eightfold Path and Right Effort becomes the most natural thing in the world for you. Not something you do as a "should" or something that is a strain for you, but the opposite. Maybe you do it because you love it, and it makes you more free, more yourself, and more at ease. And then you become a gift to the world. May your ease, your freedom, and your peace be a gift to all the people you meet. Thank you.