right effort of letting go

right effort in the face of adversity

What is right effort when you realize there is nothing you can do to effect skillful behavior or wholesome change in the mind?

What is right effort when a persistent thought keeps arising, robbing you of peace of mind?

What is right effort when unwholesome will not die?


letting go

Consider surrendering any efforts to be free, accepting things as they are, stopping and simply recognizing the characteristics of existence:

Nothing is permanent, nothing can be clung to.
There is nothing that is ultimately satisfying or fulfilling.
We are not as substantial as we take ourselves to be – no me, my, or mine.

Revisit an investigation of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, recognizing their insubstantial and continuously fluctuating nature. Is there clinging to anything? Is there clinging internally or externally? Clinging to personal states or to relationships?

Remember that whatever is arising is due to causes and conditions, causes and conditions of which you are a part. You influence positively the next moment and future moments by stopping the struggle, by letting things be as they are.

dukkha

[The word dukkha] is often translated as suffering, but it means something deeper than pain and misery. It refers to a basic misunderstanding running through our lives, the lives of all but the enlightened. Sometimes this unsatisfactoriness erupts in to the open as sorrow, grief, disappointment, or despair; but usually it hovers at the edge of our awareness as a vague unlocalized sense that things are never quite perfect, never fully adequate to our expectations of what they should be. -Bhikkhu Bodi

An unsatisfactoriness? A vague unlocalized sense that things are never perfect? Can you relate to this?

It is really a blessing if you can be aware of these subtle nuances of the heart. Unless you are awake, unless you are attentive to experience, you may miss these subtleties. Or assume them to be dis-ease, depression, something that is not a natural part of life. Have you been awake enough to notice this hovering at the edge of awareness?

Are you willing to experience what is difficult, what is challenging? If so you can come to a new kind of happiness, a happiness that includes the whole of life, the good and the bad, the sweet, the sour, and the sorrow. A happiness that rises among and above the vicissitudes and cruises in its own space of peace - despite circumstances - in wisdom and integrity.