6. Right Effort
A year and a half ago I came to the conclusion that my life was floundering. And to remedy this I was doing… nothing. I had been scrounging for work I didn’t care about and didn’t believe in, and all for… nothing. It was a horrible time. Opportunities were passing me by, and I curled up and did… nothing. Though I did not understand it at the time, at the root of my troubles was the complete renunciation of Right Effort.
Though Right Effort is classically understood to be about the mental effort of cultivating wholesome states, I have always thought of it as being about all effort, mental and otherwise. So, in my case, in one bold stroke, I left everything behind in order to start anew, and inadvertently jumped onto the sixth step of the Eightfold Path, actively cultivating a belief that has to exist in order to make any changes.
As with all the steps on the Path, there’s an ethical component to Right Effort. While training the mind may be commendable in the abstract, Right Effort is about the will to act in accordance with Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood. So, if you’re clearing the decks to figure out how to sell more tabloids or drugs, you’ve missed the point.
In my work I (now) try to be in a state of constant improvement. I aspire to be the best actor I can be, the best person to work with, and keep my mind focused on what is possible. It is not easy, and I stumble all the time. More than a few hours and days go by when I see distinctly unwholesome thoughts rattling around my head and I do little to stop them. In fact, the brain being the brain, I often search for reasons to keep thinking the bad thoughts I’m thinking.
These things happen. My mindfulness training, though, reminds me that there is no “error” in stumbling or straying, but rather a chance to come back. And that is the greatest effort a person can make. That is Right Effort. And if we can consider Right Effort to be about attitude - will I make the effort to cultivate my thinking? – then it’s easy to see how big a role this can play in a career. Staying focused, staying positive, putting your best foot forward, eliminating the negative, these things matter greatly in what I do.
Tomorrow… Right Mindfulness, which I just alluded to. (It’s all tied together in the end. A thing of beauty, indeed.)