The Noble 8fold path - "The Conscious Evolution of Man" - Right Effort

Samyak Vyama - Perfect Effort

Context: stages 2,3,4 deal with the individual, 5 society as a whole, this 6 with the individual - specifically will / volition - against a background of the whole range of sentient existence. Culmination of the whole path of evolution.

Perfect effort - vyama = exercise / gymnastics in present day. => spiritual life is active! Not necessarily physical, but mentally/spiritually/aesthetically active. "Spiritual athleticism" - a prominent feature of Buddhism. Effort needed at all stages of the path.

Consists of a set of exercises - 4fold: preventing, eradicating, developing, maintaining: unskillful / skillful thoughts / mental states (first 2 are wrt unskillful, last 3 wrt skillful).

Primarily psychological: unremitting work on one's own mind. Dire warning against slackening off, against letting inertia set in.

• e.g. putting effort into getting up early in the morning vs staying in bed
• Requires self-knowledge
• Which requires honesty with ourselves - not an ideal picture of ourselves but to see ourselves as others see us. Not easy: requires mental stock-taking.

(1) Effort in preventing the arising of unskillful thoughts i.e. contaminated by craving / selfish desire, hatred, delusion / lack of perspective etc.

• where do they come from? The 6 senses - we notice or remember something.
• To prevent it, need watchfulness wrt senses & the mind - 'guarding the doors of the senses'
• Need to be aware of the senses, how they are operating, what they are perceiving, all the time

(2) Effort to eradicate such thoughts - usually means the 5 hindrances:

• craving for material things - much more than is necessary
• hatred - aggressiveness, antagonism, violence, dislike, righteous indignation...
• restlessness and anxiety (also haste, worry...) - endemic in modern society - turning from one thing to another cos nothing really satisfies
• sloth and torpor - inertia, stagnation (despair says I)
• doubt & indecision - inability, unwillingness to think things out then commit oneself.

Consciousness often compared with water: hindrances defile it in various ways:

• craving = water stained by coloured dyes
• hatred = boiling water, bubbling and hissing and giving off steam
• restlessness = water whipped up into waves by a strong wind 
• sloth = pond whose waters are choked with weeds
• doubt = muddy water

How to clear this water of the mind? How to eradicate these hindrances? Four methods recommended:

• Considering the consequences of that unskillful mental state e.g. anger could lead to murder 
• Cultivating the opposite - e.g. practice metta bhavana
• Letting them just pass - taking no notice of them, as clouds in the sky, witness-like attitude
• Forcible suppression - by willpower - not popular with psychologists...

What if all four of these fail? Nothing left if one confines oneself to psychology. But in a religious context, have one more thing to do: take refuge in the Buddha, together with your failure.

3) Effort to develop unarisen good thoughts = development of a higher state of consciousness

• Possible through meditation whose real purpose is to transform consciousness, to make you a higher state of being than you were before
• Dyanas - 4 of them - similes from the Buddha: 
• (1)soap powder [which actually comes from a tree] mixed with water till it is a ball saturated with water, with no powder left dry - whole psycho-physical bring is saturated with higher consciousness 'something of a higher nature'
• (2) tank of water filled by a subterranean spring - something dynamic bubbling up constantly
• (3) lotus flows soaked by the water, permeated by the water, and separate from the water
• (4) man on a hot day takes a bath & dresses in a white garment & sitting there. It is protecting you so that nothing from outside can affect you.
• Also 4 higher dyanas.
• state of the realisation of infinite space - awareness of infinity, no barrier, no obstacle
• state of infinite consciousness - realise the mind itself is infinite - not mine or yours or tied to the body
• no-thingness - nothing in particular - 'nothing special' - can't distinguish one thing from another, things lose their sharp edges
• state of neither perception nor non-perception - no subject, no object
• By developing all of these, the good states of mind are more developed in our own minds
• Meditation can be classified into 2 kinds - that which depends on conscious effort, that which arises spontaneously / as the natural result of our higher spiritual life. We are concerned with the effortful type here and elsewhere.

4) Effort in maintaining the arisen good thoughts

• Very easy to slip back - give up for a day or two and one slips back
• Eventually reach a state of non-regression but that's a very long way away
• So need regularity!

Context / background for perfect effort

• Implications extend to the whole evolutionary process. Spiritual life is a special phase of the evolutionary process itself: the higher evolution. There is another talk about Lower and Higher evolution that he points us to. Few points: 
• Concept of evolution is the dominant modern concept
• Concept of the whole universe becoming / evolving. Man is part of this.
• Man = self-conscious aware human being, aware, responsible. Can understand him in two ways- past and future. What he developed out of = lower evolution, from the sciences. What he can evolve into = Higher Evolution - covered by religions incl Buddhism. 0->2 = lover evolution, 2-> infinity = higher evolution (infinity = buddhahood / nirvana). 1 = pt where the animal becomes human. 3 = pt where transcendental awareness begins to emerge / stream entry / perfect vision / irreversability.  0->1 = infra-human. 0->2 = human both primitve and civilised 2->3 = ultra-human 3->infinity = supra-human / trans-human.
• Science and religion are embraced in a single vast sweep - inspiring, envigorating prospect.

Back to perfect effort. 6th step of the noble 8fold path, which is the section 2->infinity in his schema. Lower evolution is collective, higher evolution is an individual affair - presupposes self-consciousness and awareness. It also presupposes individual effort. perfect effort in the 4 right efforts - then we shall reach the end of the path.

Have to remember that S was talking mainly to 20 year old men, and the forceful way he described some of this is perhaps a consequence. Also he is trying to convey that effort really is the start end and motive power of the path - it doesn't just happen through wishing it. But it has to be the right sort of effort.

My way of thinking about the four right efforts: it's not effortful in the sense of striving against an opposing force, but rather it is like a wise older sister who knows you very well and can tell what would be helpful for you. For instance you are staying up too late getting wound up on the internet, and she knows you would be better off taking yourself to bed with a soothing drink and a cheery book. Or she knows that if you watch some particular thing it will wind you up, and can choose something better. We can learn to look after ourselves in this way - that wise sister is our care for ourselves, our kindly attentiveness towards ourselves. So my take on the 4 right efforts is to develop this way of relating to ourselves, where we watch how we are spending our time and choose what will be best for our mental states - we care for ourselves. Love mode not power mode.

The questions

1. If you had to choose just one, which unskilful mental state do you most need to “prevent and eradicate”? 

None using that language. But I guess something I battle with is power mode towards myself, forcing myself past tiredness or some emotion. Sometimes it is necessary for a greater good but usually a better way is to pay attention to what is going on for me and to attend to it. and then I can get back to the thing I'm trying to do.

2. Which of the five hindrances most affected you in meditation this week, based on the exercise above? Choose the most prevalent, and think about what you could do to counteract it in meditation. 

Probably restlessness and anxiety that gets in the way of concentration

• Consequences: impatience, not thinking straight, unable to contribute +vely
• Cultivation of the opposite: allowing spaciousness, not taking it too seriously, metta
• Letting it be: Exactly so - not feeding it, but patiently waiting for it to dissipate. But more effective than that, I think, is finding ways to get out of my mind and into my body - which can naturally curtail it
• Willpower has no real effect on this one, I think - it only makes it worse.

3. Does the hindrance you identified in question two affect you in your general life, when you are not meditating? In what ways? How could you act against this hindrance in your life as well as in your meditation? 

Yes! Stay in touch with myself, stay in my body, get less 'heady'.

4. Which methods of dealing with the five hindrances in meditation do you use? Which do you find most useful and effective? 

Letting the emotion be without feeding it, letting it naturally work through. V difficult for anxiety and anger due to the feedback loop: we feel anxious about anxiety, and angry about anger. Getting more into the body can help break the prapanca & the cycle. 

5. Which skilful mental state do you most need to “develop and maintain”? 

Love, always love! Also always awareness. Mindfulness and metta.

6. How might you bring a positive mental state which is currently absent into existence? For example, if your mind seems to lack metta or calm, how do you bring these into existence? 

• Give space to what is going on for me, allow it without feeding it - allow it to be seen and to dissipate (only if already in a v good place)
• See things in wider perspective - what I am worried about or angry about may matter less that way
• Develop a good basis through regular practice of awareness and metta in meditation - that can stand me in good stead through the ups and downs of life
• If it is a strong hindrance and won't loosen, then wise distraction can help e.g. watch something that will put me into a better mood
• It's all a process of getting to know ourselves more and more intimately 

7. How might you maintain and intensify a positive mental state you are currently experiencing? For example, if you are experiencing a degree of metta, how do you maintain this and allow it to grow? 

• Notice it and focus on it, give it space. 

8. It is frequently said that we need to accept the thoughts and emotions that come up when we meditate. How can we reconcile this advice with the Buddha’s teaching of the Four Exertions (often called the Four Right Efforts)?

• Accept = don't react to them with either craving or aversion. It does not mean endorsing them, or feeding them, or indeed getting in the way of the 4 right efforts. 

9. Do you have any experience of dhyana or dhyana-like states? What did this feel like? Under what circumstances did it arise?

I find the language of dhyana unhelpful. But sometimes there is some absorption present - noticed through it becoming more and more effortless to keep focus, and eventually focus naturally stays where it has been put. For me it is a sliding scale. Most noticeable on retreat when it grows during the week, occasionally can be cultivated in daily life, through practice (thorough sitting more than usual). But it can't be commanded.