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Skillful Effort - Jim Podolske

The following talk was given by Jim Podolske at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 05, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Skillful Effort

Good evening, everyone. As I mentioned at the beginning of the sit, Diana is off teaching a retreat, so I'll be filling in for her tonight. My name is Jim Podolske.

If you've been following the talks over the last five or six weeks, Diana has been talking about some of the characteristics or qualities that are required to achieve a goal. What things do you need if you really want to achieve something? I think, in particular, she's talking about achieving freedom from suffering—freedom from greed, delusion, and hatred—and a sense of peace and calm.

One of those five elements she talked about was energy or effort. It takes some energy or effort if you want to accomplish something. She often reads some poetry. I don't have any, but when I think about a song that I know from my youth, "Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying" won't get you to where you want to go. It does take effort.

Right Effort and the Eightfold Path

The Buddha's primary teachings about how to do this are encompassed in what's known as the Eightfold Path¹, and one of them is called Right Effort, Wise Effort, or Skillful Effort. That's what I want to talk about tonight. It just so happens that IMC has a nine-month program about the Eightfold Path, and this coming Sunday, there will be a half-day event here all about Right Effort. It's the first of the three elements of the path having to do with cultivating heart and mind.

One of the books for that class is Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness by Bhante Gunaratana. I've read it a couple of times. In fact, I was just going through the chapter on Right Effort over the weekend in preparation for this Sunday.

Right Effort isn't relegated to just the times when you're doing formal sitting practice; it is definitely something that you can do throughout the day, as long as you're awake and conscious. It's a way to cultivate states of heart and mind that are skillful for achieving freedom from suffering, and for weeding out those states that aren't helpful. You could think of skillful effort as a bit of mental gardening. How do you water, nourish, and tend to those things that you want to grow? And how do you uproot the weeds—the things that get in the way and sap the energy from your garden?

The Four Great Efforts

There are four skillful efforts:

1. Preventing the arising of unarisen negative states of mind. If you can catch yourself before one of these things arises, then you don't have to go through and experience it. It's easier said than done.
2. Abandoning arisen unskillful states of mind. Once they're there, what do you do with them?
3. Bringing into being unarisen skillful states. How do you cultivate and recognize that this might be a time where you can bring forth a wholesome state?
4. Maintaining an arisen wholesome state. Once it's arisen, what do you do to keep it going?

I'll share some of the things that Bhante Gunaratana has written, alongside some of the things that over the years I've acquired either from other teachers or from direct experience—what works for doing this.

The Ten Fetters and Five Hindrances

The first thing is knowing: what are these unwholesome states? How do you know what is wholesome and what is unwholesome?

At a deep level, the Buddha said there are these Ten Fetters². These are habits of mind and perception that keep us fettered to suffering, keeping us from really seeing things clearly. Those are things that take a period of time to uproot—I would imagine years or decades, although for some people maybe it's only days or weeks. I suspect for most, it's a long-term practice to see these fetters and uproot them.

In the shorter term, there are five conditions or activities of the mind called the Hindrances³, which are described as the intense, gross manifestations of the fetters. I'm guessing at least some of you have heard of the Five Hindrances. If you haven't, there's this wonderful book that Gil Fronsdal wrote a few years ago called Unhindered⁴ that both describes them and offers particular practices you might do to work with them, get to know them, and over time reduce them or get free of them.

1. Greed or Lust: I imagine most people have some notion of what that is. It isn't just desire or wanting; it's that compulsive, obsessive grasping after something. It is often a sense experience, but it could also be an object or an identity—some way that you want to be seen. That hindrance distorts our perception of what's going on; everything is colored or flavored by it. One place to start is not by saying, "I'm never going to lust again, I'm never going to have greed again," but rather to really get to know it. How does it feel? Under what conditions does it arise? Knowing that is very helpful, even essential. I don't think you can say, "I'm going to practice the Buddhist path and become enlightened, but I'm not going to look at greed and lust." It's there, so you might as well make a conscious decision that it's something to look at.
2. Aversion or Ill Will: Sometimes called hatred. This is the movement toward pushing away. But pushing away in an unskillful way—either not acknowledging that it's operating, or having some kind of judgment or opinion about a sense desire, a person, an object, or an identity that you're trying to get rid of. You are trying to get rid of it by contracting your mind around it rather than looking at it carefully. These first two hindrances are often the strongest.
3. Sloth and Torpor: This is described as a pair of hindrances. These are words that I suspect none of you use in everyday language. What they point at is a certain sluggishness, a certain dullness, or a low energy that's either in the body or in the mind. When those are operating, it's like trying to walk through thick mud. It's very slow going and hard to see clearly. This is often referred to as "sinking energy."
4. Restlessness and Worry: Again, it's a pair like sloth and torpor. It's energy, but it's fairly high energy that is scattered. Restlessness is a physical manifestation of that scattered energy, and worry is the mental manifestation. It's not just that there's a lot of energy there; it's also all over the place. It's not collected or unified.
5. Doubt: I've tried to come up with a good way for myself to understand this one. One way to describe it is a tendency to keep second-guessing yourself. "Should I do this? Well, no, maybe I should do it this way." It's like never centering on one track. It isn't that doubt is never useful—there are times when you have to say, "I've been following a certain path and this doesn't look right, so it's time to try something different." But when the mind is continually jumping around, always second-guessing itself, that's doubt. When that's happening, it's hard to be mindful.

You can think of those five as a basis set into which all the other descriptions of unwholesome mind states fit. So it's helpful in starting this practice to become familiar with the hindrances and get to know how they work for you.

Preventing Unarisen Negative States

The hindrances are really what you're going to be looking for in the first two elements of Right Effort. To prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome mind states, it's helpful to know what the conditions and triggers are. How can I recognize that an unwholesome mind state lies ahead and do something differently?

The example that came to my mind is my commute. I've been managing here at IMC on Monday nights for 25 years, and I live in Mountain View, so I've always had to drive on Highway 101 to get here in the early evening. For many years, I would get on the freeway, drive a couple of tenths of a mile, and then the traffic would just stop right where Highway 85 comes into 101. I would immediately feel frustration and a sense of, "Why is this happening to me?"

Over time, it dawned on me that number one, I'd often not eaten supper, so my blood sugar was low and I had low energy. I'd also often try to cut it close and not leave any earlier than I had to, so if there was any hold-up, I'd be feeling anxious about getting there. There were some conditions that I recognized I had control over, in terms of eating and timing.

The other thing that I had some influence over was how I related to the experience. When I looked at it as something bad happening to me, it would really cause suffering. "These people are sitting in their cars, why aren't they driving? Don't they know I need to be somewhere?" One of the things that I found helpful was changing my attitude towards the whole experience. "Okay, this is an opportunity to practice patience, or an opportunity to feel compassion for all the other drivers that are in the exact same place that I am." It's not like they don't all have places to go.

After a number of years—too many for me to want to confess—I came to realize that there were conditions I could change, like the time that I left and the amount that I ate, but also my expectations. I had an expectation that I should be able to do it in 20 to 25 minutes. Sometimes I could, but sometimes it took 45 minutes. So, changing that expectation from "this is the way life is supposed to go" to getting in the car and saying, "I don't know how long it's going to take, so why don't I go early and get a hot chocolate at Peet's?"

I don't think you can really do the first element of preventing until you've spent enough time in the second one: being in the unwholesome states and getting to know them. What are the causes and conditions? What are the flags that I can see? If you're going to have a difficult conversation with somebody, it might be that there are some times of the day that you're just more stable and clear-headed than other times. Getting to know your own heart and mind is helpful in that first element.

Abandoning Arisen Unwholesome States

The second effort, abandoning arisen unwholesome states, can be more difficult because you're already in it. When mindfulness cuts back in or you start to pay attention, you might find, "Oh, okay, well now I'm really angry, or I'm really anxious or restless."

There are five strategies that the Buddha laid out⁵, and I'm sure there are other ones that you can come up with for yourself when you find yourself in an unskillful state:

1. Ignore it: If it's not very strong, you may be able to just ignore it. That doesn't mean pretend it's not happening or not be mindful, but rather decide, "I'm not going to get involved with it." I know it's operating, but I don't need to get involved. I was in a car once with two people trying to decide who was to blame for something. I realized it was kind of a worthless argument, and there was no reason for me to even offer an opinion because it didn't seem like it would lead anywhere useful. This is not a delusion; you are still mindful.
2. Divert your attention: When I'm sitting in my car and the traffic's not moving, rather than watching every single movement of the car and wondering if we're going to start moving, I could just turn on the radio and listen to classical music. I can let that be a more soothing, satisfying experience than getting caught up in wondering when the traffic's going to move.
3. Replace the hindrance with its opposite quality: Each of those five hindrances has some opposite to it. Lust and greed might be countered by renunciation or generosity—instead of trying to get something, giving it away. For ill will, hatred, and aversion, the opposite is goodwill, loving-kindness (Mettā)⁶, wishing well, and offering people harmlessness and safety. For sloth and torpor, the opposite would be bringing some bright energy, maybe through investigation or joy. For restlessness and worry, it would be bringing a feeling of calm, collectedness, and peacefulness. And the opposite of doubt would be some sense of confidence, trust, or faith.
4. Reason with yourself: Examine what the downsides are of being in this state. How does it feel? Where is it going to lead? Is this how I want to live my life? Sometimes just bringing the mind and reasoning to the experience may help you recognize that this isn't something you want to feed energy into.
5. Crush it with all your might: Sometimes, if it's beyond ignoring, diverting, replacing, or reasoning, you just use your will: "No, I'm not going there." This doesn't mean repression in the sense that you're pretending the impulse isn't there. It is there, but part of you knows, "I'm not going to give into this impulse." I think of things where you're ready to do some physical damage or violence. It could be a really strong desire to take your coffee cup and throw it across the room. Just knowing, "I'm not going to do that." This is the last option the Buddha gave, and I think it's also maybe one of the least effective. As you cultivate with time, you hopefully won't get there that often.

To prevent negative thoughts from arising, maintain mindfulness. Your mind is always going to be doing something, so with mindfulness, at the very least you can know what that state is—what it feels like, and the emotion associated with it. Mindfulness combined with wisdom, patience, and effort can help you both prevent and abandon the unwholesome states. The longer that you wait to notice it, the stronger it may get. There's real value in noticing these unskillful states sooner rather than later. Noticing it before you say the first word is much better than after the last word has been said.

Bringing Into Being Unarisen Wholesome States

Bringing into being wholesome states wasn't talked about as much in this book, but there are several practices that come to mind.

Number one is practicing the Brahmavihārās⁷: loving-kindness, compassion (Karuṇā)⁸, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. There's a book called Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg on this heavily traveled topic. That's something that you can do either in a period of meditation or anytime throughout the day. I usually try to do a little bit before I get out of bed in the morning.

Somebody taught me a practice where, when you're waiting in the airport to get on a plane, you can just wish well for all the strangers that are walking by on the concourse. They're people you've never seen before, and you'll probably never see them again, but can you just wish them well? "May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be peaceful." I think it's a much more productive practice than sitting and reading a magazine or listening to the news on the big television screens in the waiting area.

There's also a whole series of foundational practices called the Pāramīs⁹—things like practicing generosity, patience, determination, ethics, and renunciation. They don't necessarily immediately create the state that you want, but they set the conditions for it. For example, if you're doing loving-kindness practice, there are phrases that you can create for yourself. Sometimes you say the phrases and it just doesn't seem like much is happening, but it's creating the conditions for wishing well for yourself and for others.

Maintaining Arisen Wholesome States

For maintaining them, there is the suggestion in Bhante's book—and I wholeheartedly agree with it—of gathering with like-minded friends and reading Buddhist texts. Finding other people that are interested in this, that you can talk to, share the challenges that you're facing, and who support you in cultivating wholesome states of mind.

I'm in a group that meets once a week on Tuesday nights where we talk about our practice with each other. There's another group I meet with once a month where we do the same thing. And then I come here and get a chance to talk to people. It doesn't necessarily need to be another Buddhist practitioner. There are people who follow other paths who also want to cultivate kindness, harmlessness, and freedom. You might find a family member, a friend, or a coworker who will help you maintain some of these wholesome states.

It isn't "one and done." It isn't like, "Okay, now I've cultivated loving-kindness, I don't need to do that anymore." The mind has a tendency to go back to the habits it's had over a long period of time, so it's a long-term project to keep moving your awareness from these afflictive states to ones that are peaceful and free.

I hope that was useful to you all. We've got a few minutes if anyone wants to ask any questions or make comments.

Q&A

Speaker 1: A friend of mine said, "Janet, you're talking negatively again." Everybody could hear that—well, there's people online. "Janet, you're talking negatively again." She reminded me of that last night. I thought, "Oh no, I need her around me more often to remind me that I'm doing that."

[Laughter]

Speaker 2: Thank you. Just a comment, your anecdote about your commute on 101 reminded me of a quote I read online. I think it was a systems engineer discussion. A lot of people like to say, "Oh, I'm stuck in traffic," right? The quote went something like, "The reality is you're not in traffic; you are traffic." It got me thinking about that, so I wanted to share.

Jim Podolske: Thank you. Yeah, that's right. You are part of it. It isn't something that's happening to you.

Speaker 3: When I'm in one of those negative states, I think of it as time to weather the storm. I'll recognize it, allow it, maybe be with it a bit, and then it fades away eventually—hopefully sooner rather than later.

Jim Podolske: Part of this practice is that if you recognize it, you can at the very least open your umbrella. You have some volition in what happens. Thank you for that.

Well, it's just about 8:30, so I'll thank you all for coming tonight. I'll encourage you to may all your effort be skillful.