2025_Wise Effort

One could safely assume that we tend to over effort in our meditation practice. If you've ever gotten a headache or physical tightness when you are sitting in meditation, chances are you are over efforting. Wise effort is a light touch. It is as simple as asking the question, "Am I Aware?"

Transcript

So the Buddha,

It's said,

Gave 60,

000 different types of meditation and strategies and approaches to waking up.

Kind of the understanding is that one size doesn't fit everybody,

Right?

So there are all these different ways,

But all of them,

All of these different types of meditations and strategies,

All of them include effort.

And we've been,

You know,

Going through these eight steps,

And today we're on wise effort,

The sixth factor of this,

Of the eight fold path.

And the way that the teachings,

These eight steps have been divided up,

They're divided up into three different categories.

So the first two are called the wisdom factors.

They have to do with wise understanding and the intention in our lives.

So that's one basket.

The next basket is the factors that are ethical,

Our ethics.

So these relate to our speech,

Our actions,

And our livelihood.

And the next basket,

The next three,

Which we're starting today,

Have to do with our inner development,

Developing ourselves,

Caring for your mind and your heart.

And they are wise effort,

Wise mindfulness,

And wise concentration,

And how they work together.

So these three categories are known as the three baskets.

Wisdom,

Ethics,

And concentration or meditation.

So effort for our own development is kind of the root of our practice.

And effort and mindfulness together,

The combination,

Gently and persistently,

This kind of receptive attention,

They actually create concentration.

They create concentration.

And it's important to understand that wise effort can become wrongly applied.

What happens is we confuse effort with ambition.

Like we're trying to get somewhere.

It gets confused with our expectations.

And we kind of know that from experience,

You know.

I think many of us have experienced the burnout that comes from over-efforting in our lives and in our practice when we're in that mode.

It leads to agitation,

Tension,

Restlessness.

So as you know,

Lately I've been practicing the teachings of the Burmese Vipassana teacher,

Sayadaw U Thaygenia.

And he emphasizes practicing in a relaxed but continuous way.

So rather than forcing our efforts in formal practice to open the field of awareness to all of our experiences,

His approach is really about our relationship to everything.

And in his book,

Relax and Be Aware,

U Thaygenia has this lovely way of expressing wise effort.

Saying the way that we wake up every morning and we open our eyes when the alarm goes off or when we naturally wake up and seeing begins to happen.

It's that effort of,

Oh,

I'm aware that I'm seeing.

I'm aware of my visual field.

Seeing is happening.

Or hearing is happening.

The alarm goes off,

Buzzing in your ear or some sort of other sound that's programmed on your alarm.

And hearing is happening.

It's that effort of hearing.

Just simply aware of hearing.

But how often are we consciously noticing this?

Not very often.

But when we do it this way,

What these two examples that I'm describing,

That's awareness.

We're just realizing our present moment experience.

That's all.

It's a very gentle turning our attention over and over to what's happening right now.

Like right now,

Do you notice the experience of your hands?

How about your feet?

Do you experience the sensation of your lips touching together?

How hard is it to know those experiences as I name them?

Usually it's not hard at all.

Noticing your hands right now.

There.

Right there.

Noticing your hands right now.

Your attention is right there in the hands.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to just be aware in the moment.

What's more difficult is sustaining awareness.

What happens for us when we try to sustain awareness over time is we get tight.

I remember in my early retreat practice,

The schedule alternates between 45 minutes of sitting and then 45 minutes of walking.

And my approach was kind of like,

Okay,

I'm going to do this.

I want to bring all my energy and all my effort to being present with my body and my breath for the 45 minutes sit.

And so there was this sort of gearing up for it.

And that can be really exhausting.

What often happens is the mind thinks,

You know,

I have to do this again and again and again.

And even thinking about that narrative in the mind is exhausting.

But that's just the mind making up a story about the experience.

What's needed,

The effort needed for practice is very gentle.

It doesn't take much effort to be present for the moment.

And then to do it again for the moment and then another moment.

The instruction that Sayadaw Uteshania gives his students is the only work you give your mind is to remind yourself to be aware.

Am I aware?

Moment after moment,

Am I aware?

And the tuning of the effort has to do with how frequently we remind ourselves to be aware.

You know,

The effort of our mindfulness practice is reminding ourselves to frequently check,

Like,

What is being known?

What am I aware of?

What's obvious in this moment?

Am I aware?

Aware of what?

That's the effort.

Very light.

And at first,

This kind of training,

We have to remind ourselves frequently.

Am I aware?

What am I aware of?

And as you explore the practice for yourself,

You may find that you remind yourself,

You know,

Maybe too often or not enough.

It's sort of like a process of finding,

Am I asking that?

What am I aware of?

Am I aware?

What is known?

Am I doing this continuously and it's actually and I'm not aware of anything or I'm not doing it at all.

So finding that middle path.

The meaning of wise effort is simply to see clearly,

To be aware moment by moment.

And it can be hard because sometimes we don't want to see.

You can say,

You know,

OK,

I'll be here now,

But maybe what's here now is not really good.

So what happens when you're here now and you're not liking?

What do you have to be with?

Do you have to be with pain or boredom or agitation or fear or loneliness?

Joy,

Perhaps pleasure.

Do you have to be with people are dying?

Illness,

Losing things.

When we are just aware in the moment,

We are opening to the full catastrophe of being alive.

And sometimes we don't want that.

Sometimes it's hard.

But remember that mindfulness awareness and I use these terms interchangeably is a receptivity.

It's a receptive practice.

Awareness doesn't have an opinion of what it's aware of.

So the pain arises or the boredom.

It's just arising.

And then just like that,

Our perception of not liking comes.

So then aware of not liking.

And if we settle back,

Something else will come into awareness.

Awareness is always aware of something.

You know,

And the way that side out,

Tasia Nia describes it like.

Awareness is.

It's aware of something.

And he describes it as kind of like an object or an experience.

And awareness and experience or object happen together.

So the practice,

The practice of effort is a light effort.

Of cultivating continuous mindfulness.

And we're learning to expand our capacity to be willing to be here.

With what is.

What is beautiful and what is difficult.

The Buddha,

He likened spiritual effort to tuning a stringed instrument.

If the strings are too tight.

The instrument doesn't play correctly and the strings can break.

And if the strings are too loose,

It doesn't sound right either.

So the effort is neither too tight nor too loose.

This is the middle path.

And we're learning to fine tune our effort.

So just to close with side out Tasia Nia again.

The only work you give your mind.

Is to remind yourself to be aware.

So thank you for your consideration.

Reviews

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