Right Effort, or Energy, plays a prominent role in Buddhist practice. It is one of the “5 Spiritual Faculties”, one of the “7 Factors of Awakening”, one component of the “8 Fold Path”, and is a foundation for the “4 Foundations of Mindfulness.” It’s obviously pretty important for the Buddha to have included it as an element in all of these groupings of core spiritual tools.

This talk is a follow up to the initial discussion of Right Effort held July 28. We switch gears and look at Right Effort or Energy from a different perspective – as the application, monitoring, and adjustment of both physical and mental energy as the basic underpinning of all of our practice efforts.

In its most basic form, this involves non-conceptually figuring out, and using our effort to support, what works — what allows us to remain mindful and see into the nature and consequences of what is unfolding — in any moment of experience. In this sense, Right Effort’s contribution to helping us get free of suffering in our lives involves using it to stay focused on a particular way of investigating our experience and the nature of our lives. Understanding Effort in the context of meditative psychology, and how to use it as a reliable and practical tool in formal meditation practice, as well as daily life, is essential to developing, stabilizing, and maturing our practice.

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“What is the benefit of living the contemplative life?”

This is the question put to the historical Buddha by King Ajatasattu. The dialogue that continues is one of the most comprehensive and eloquent presentations of the Buddha regarding his teachings; a comparison of his teachings to the other major spiritual and philosophical theories of the time; the original Sangha’s code of ethics; the Buddha’s own lifestyle, and more.

This talk is part of a continuing discussion of this fascinating Sutta that began during Dennis’ talk on June 9th. You might listen to that talk as a way of preparing for this evening.

The evening will explore the specifics of this sutta and how they have direct application to our practice and daily life today in an urban setting.

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This second of two evening discussions is about what we all find difficult – strong experiences in daily life that threaten, or do, throw us spinning out of balance. To review Part 1 of this topic, click here. For Part 2 on this topic, we look at what the historical Buddha had to say about the roots of such strong experiences. We explore a number of important and practical questions including:

• How do we lay a sound foundation for working with such challenging experiences?
• How do we directly apply the Buddha’s teachings to our experience in a skillful way?
• What is reasonable to expect regarding our ability to make real strides in dealing with strong experiences that have proven problematic for us in the past?

Dennis’ discussion references three teachings of the Buddha:

• The Discourse Concerning Malunkyaputta
• The Kumma Sutta: The Tortoise
• The Sutta on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness

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• Handout in PDF: Neutral, Unpleasant, Uncomfortable, Painful, An Expanded Sensory Spectrum Tool

Dennis also suggested to read the two Suttas he spoke of in his talk. Here are the two links: Malunkyaputta Sutta and Kumma Sutta

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