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We continue our series of talks from the book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, by Thich
Nhat Hanh, and this morning I’ll talk about a key component of the Eightfold Path- Wise Effort. We often talk about The Middle Way in Buddhism,
finding the path between the extremes.
Wise Effort is often described as “not too tight and not too
loose.” How do we practice Wise Effort
in everyday life?
First,
it is helpful to understand that religion
has a tendency to run in cycles. Someone
has a direct experience of awakening, seeing themselves and the world in a dramatically
different way, an experience of that inter-connectness, of themselves with
everything around them, as well as with a greater "energy" or some might say innate
potential all around them. This
experience is often so powerful that others flock to them--like Buddha, Jesus,
Mohammed--to study, learn and experience it themselves. Then, the original person dies, and those left try to study, learn and practice as best they can. Herein lies the problem--there is a tendency to hold on to the
original direct experiencer’s experience, and work to preserve exactly what
happened and what was said and what was done.
Slowly, the power of the direct experience gets less emphasis, and the
power of the religious organization starts to dogmatize, concretize and use the
teachings for gaining power over others.
Then, someone bucks the system, decides to go back to the direct experience,
then reform arises and new enthusiasm, new teachings, leading eventually to new
dogmatism and new power struggles. Buddhism
is no different. There are many cycles
of direct experience, rise of the organization, concretization of the
experience, power struggle and decline of original purpose.
The
joy of this moment is that we are living in the time when Buddhism is being
integrated into Western culture, and we are finding anew these amazing
teachings. We have this precious
opportunity to have a direct experience of what the Buddha experienced, of what
Jesus experienced, of what Mohamed and Moses experienced. The books, the
Dharma talks, the practice are simply tools to support the direct experience.
Wise
effort teaches us how we can utilize these tools to experience awakening.
Surprisingly, reading and practicing can
also become obstacles. For example,
once anyone starts to practice meditation, it is a common occurrence that we
inadvertently start to judge each meditation session as “oh, that was a good
one!” or “that was awful—my mind just spun like a tornado the whole time—that
was of no value!” Awareness of what is
happening in your mind and your body is very helpful, BUT judging each meditation session is NOT
helpful. Wise effort includes just
continuing to practice whether the meditation feels blissful or boring or
beautiful or painful. An Indian man named Goenka, who
founded the modern Vipassana movement would always say, “Continuity is the secret of success”, and “Start again”.
Goenka had this clear understanding that awakening is available here and now, in the
midst of ordinary practice. As we
meditate and become aware of more present moments in life, we begin to awakened to the habits, judgments, labels, preferences, stories, rationalizations and
everything else that may or may not be serving our greater good. So, we can practice Wise Effort by continuing
to meditate and be fully present, even when we don’t feel like it, even when
it’s uncomfortable, even when, ESPECIALLY WHEN, we are having a strong emotion
or thought or story. That’s when the
power of the practice really gets turbo-charged.
I
have a visual aid—this vase. It seems
that many of us often think of ourselves as individual silos of stuff, stuff
collected from a lifetime of experiences.
What’s in your vase? Probably some good stuff, some bad stuff, boring stuff and joyful stuff and painful stuff. This Buddhist practice is about clearly
seeing it all, everything that we are holding onto and think of as “Who We
Are”. Most importantly, this
practice is about clearly seeing that we are NOT all this stuff in the
vase. Look inside, can you locate where exactly that story is you’ve been telling yourself about who you are and what
kind of person you are? Where are the stories
about your family and your upbringing and what's right about you and what's wrong about you?
Where are those bad habits and judgments that often cause so much suffering?
Through
this practice, we can become aware that we often assume our vase is solid,
separate and permanent, when that is simply not true. The Buddha had a direct experience of this Truth. The vase is just an
illusion that we hold on to. We are
permeable, porous living beings with cells that are being born anew and dying
in each second. We have this incredible ability to see clearly our stories,
then to let fall away those stories that are no longer serving us.
We can even create new stories
that might be more helpful to this practice of awakening. Thich Nhat Hanh has a beautiful, simple
“story” that we could tell ourselves each day:
“Waking
up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four
brand new hours are before me.
I
vow to live fully in each moment as best I can
And
to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
These
are words that he suggests, but I encourage you to come up with your own
words. What words of encouragement could
you re-iterate to yourself regularly to remember to practice being present?
Goenka said to himself, “Continuity is the secret of success.” And it was!
And is! He also said, “Start again.” This simple phrase encourages us to
simply start again, at the beginning of each meditation session, at the
beginning of each morning, even at the beginning of each moment. No matter how distracted or confused or
frustrated or angry or anxious we might feel, we can start again with the
practice of directly experiencing this moment, beyond old habits, judgments and
stories. Just start again and again,
fresh and anew. See through the vase
full of “stuff” to the essence of aliveness that you are.
Nagarjuna
wrote:
“Clinging is to insist on being
someone, not to cling is to be free to be no one”.
In being no one, we are free to have the direct experience of simply being awake.
