• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1059 0

who has ever gone on a diet knows how much effort is required to change entrenched behavior patterns. Let’s say you have gained some weight and decided to give up the cake and cookies you crave. Suddenly you have new cravings—frozen yogurt, sweet fruit juice, and baked potatoes. You don’t lose weight; in fact you may even gain weight. So you give up the yogurt and potatoes, and you start stuffing yourself with bagels, popcorn, dried fruit, and bananas. No matter what you give up, you still manage to find things that you want to eat in excess. Working on your food desires has made your eating pattern a little healthier, but cravings and the impulse to overeat are still there. The same principle applies to a wide range of negative thoughts and patterns. For there are deeper hungers causing us to overeat; inner hungers waiting to be addressed.

Each of us has a past and a past life that has conditioned our behavior. We all carry around negative habits, old angers and resentments, worn-out obsessions, weary vendettas, and counterproductive ways of being. Diane nags and screams at her family; Bob’s work-related anxiety reveals itself as tyrannical behavior toward his employees; Gigi is jealous of her sister; Donald resents his parents; Pamela lies to her husband; Carrie is flirting with her best friend’s husband; Marion can’t stop criticizing others. It costs us a great deal to carry all this negativity around. Yet we can change; we can choose to use spiritual effort to chip away at unproductive behavior; we can choose to let go of what isn’t helpful, either to us or those around us. What’s past is past. We create new karma by what we do from this point forward. Here and now is the turning point upon which our present and future existence revolves. Now is the border between samsara and nirvana.

Take a breath, and think about your existing thought-behavior patterns. What would you like to get rid of? What would you like to change? Use the practice of meditation and deep introspection to gain greater self-awareness and insight. We can use Right Effort to transform ourselves while making room for more satisfying thoughts and fulfilling mind-moments.

3. The Effort to Develop only good and wholesome thoughts and lead an enlightened life.

Consider how you would like to be and to live. Reflect on what it means to be a Bodhisattva, a spiritual warrior; reflect on what it means to lead an enlightened life. Bodhisattvas practice the Six Paramitas or Perfections—six transcendental virtues which I like to call the Six Principles of Enlightened Living. We make an effort to lead an enlightened life by striving to embody these Six Perfections:

Generosity—Giving, yielding, boundless, unconditional love—open hands, open mind, open heart.

Virtue—Ethics, honesty, morality, integrity, helping others.

Patience—Tolerance, forebearance, acceptance, forgiveness.

Effort—Energy, diligence, courage, enthusiasm, endurance.

Meditation—Concentration, focus, self-inquiry, and reflection, presence of mind, mindfulness.

Wisdom—Discernment, sagacity, sanity, centeredness, understanding.

A friend has a problem. You show generosity of spirit by listening and supporting. Who is doing whom a favor? As an example of our interconnectedness, the Dalai Lama points out that when anyone presents you with the opportunity to embody one of these Six Perfections, you are the one who is actually receiving help on the path to Buddhahood. Remember this the next time someone tries your patience to the limit. Perhaps then even an adversary can become your best teacher.

4. The Effort to Maintain the goodness that already exists. We all have purity of heart. Effort is necessary to find the Buddha within. Realize the Buddha-nature in every moment, the clear light shining in every moment. Reflect on a time when you felt pure joy and unconditional love—even if only for a few seconds. Can you return to this feeling and carry it with you? As Chogyam Trungpa once said, “We are far more Buddha-like than we know.”

MAKING THE EFFORT TO

MEDITATE DAILY: “JUST DO IT!”

Milarepa