What is the Right Effort?

I'm delighted to summarize our recent meditation session exploring Right Effort: one of the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path. Right Effort is part of the ethical and mental development aspect of the path, also known as Right Diligence. It involves making a sustained effort to overcome unwholesome mental states and cultivate wholesome ones.

We discussed the four processes of Right Effort, which are:

Preventing the rising of unwholesome states

Abandoning existing unwholesome states

Cultivating the rising of wholesome states

Maintaining and enhancing wholesome states

We began the discussion with preventing the rising of unwholesome states in our daily lives. For example, to prevent the stressful situation of rushing to work, you need to put a bit more effort into waking up early. This way, you will have time to prepare for the day and head to work productively. Without this effort, you might wake up later, leading to rushing or missing your morning routine, such as yoga or meditation, which can result in dissatisfaction.

Let's say we are unhappy with how the morning situation ended, but we need to put effort into abandoning or letting it go. Instead of complaining or attaching to the idea of "Oh, if I had woken up early, I might have been able to do yoga," we should find a way to let it go as the past that we lived, even if it is a short period.

To do so, we need to cultivate the wholesome state of our feelings, meaning finding a way to feel happy from feeling sad. In psychology, we often talk about searching for patterns. To feel satisfied from dissatisfaction, you need to realize the consequences of dissatisfaction so that you would want to abandon it. Look to achieve things that you can easily accomplish and that bring you happiness, such as volunteering to help others. This can help you see a different reality.

By doing so, as you realize how happy you are by helping someone through their difficulty, you should maintain or continue similar actions to keep yourself happy. If there is any unclear point feel free to drop questions in the chat box.

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