January 8 – What we let go of and what we cultivate

Dear Friends,

The next aspect of viriya that Gil discusses is right endeavor.
https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11093
(Gil talks about the word “right” elsewhere: “it’s useful to think of it as meaning ‘appropriate,’ as when we speak of having the ‘right’ tool for a particular task.”)

He uses the word “endeavor” as it is “what we are trying to do, what we are aiming towards in our practice.”

There are things we can do that are helpful, skillful, healthy, and there are things we can do that are unhelpful, unskillful, not healthy. In our practice, we want to avoid doing the unhelpful things, or if we find we’re doing them, then to stop doing them. We want to cultivate or nurture the helpful things and maintain them when they are present. (The short-cut version Gil gives is: avoiding, removing, cultivating, and maintaining.)

One purpose of initiating effort in mindfulness practice is to bring us to being present enough that we do begin to see, feel, sense, or perceive this very simple distinction between where the suffering, tension, pressure, or stress is — and where we find non-suffering: that which is wholesome, freeing, opening, relaxing. What activities of mind or body lean more in one direction or in the other direction? We want to see, and then make a very simple course correction, letting go of what is harmful, unhealthy, unhelpful — and pick up what is healthy.

I notice that often what I can cultivate as a skillful thing also works as a way prevent the unskillful thing. If my fridge is full of vegetables, I’m less likely to eat junk food — right? Cultivating kindness and compassion builds skills that help prevent self-criticism from arising so often. Or when self-criticism does arise, I can turn to compassion as a way to lessen its grip.

Reflection:
What is something skillful you want to cultivate? What is something unskillful you want to abandon? Can cultivating the skillful help prevent the unskillful?

Meditation:
I’d like to suggest you do a kindness practice today, to cultivate skillful qualities in practice. Here’s a guided meditation from Gil on “Meeting the Unwholesome with the Wholesome” (31 minutes, including about 3 minutes of preamble)
https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13630

With every good wish,
Andrea