Dear Friends, Joseph Goldstein poses some questions about viriya: “What is effort? When is it balanced? When is it counterproductive?” (Mindfulness, page 242) He highlights how effort can sometimes be unskillful, such as when there’s a forcing of the mind, what he calls an “in-order-to” mindset. Joseph shares a story of his own experience with this, recounting how… Read More »
Dear Friends, Joseph Goldstein suggests reflecting on the preciousness of this human birth as a way to support the first effort of preventing unwholesome states from arising. He reminds us:“It’s precious because now we have the opportunity to weaken and eventually uproot these latent defilements that have been with us throughout our lives.” (page 392) Ajahn Sucitto offers… Read More »
Dear Friends, Today, we’ll shift to the next of the faculties – viriya – the effort, energy, spark that gets a person started and continuing on the practice. We all know that doing things can sometimes be hard – it’s hard to get started, it’s hard to keep going. That might be why viriya shows up in so… Read More »
Dear Friends, Continuing with Kamala’s talk, “The Five Spiritual Faculties’ relationship to Equanimity,” and in particular her comments on the faculty of effort and energy. This effort and energy is balanced. Kamala shares an analogy from Sayadaw U Tejaniya: This is not like a 100-yard dash, it’s more like a marathon. Kamala describes the qualities as patient and… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Bhante Gunaratana starts chapter 12 of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English with the Gilana Discourse. One of the Buddha’s senior pupils was very ill, so the Buddha went to visit him and asked how he was… Read More »
