Thread: Practicing Mindfulness wrong. Active vs passive awareness.

Originally Posted by Memm

@VinceField

I think both our definitions of effort are equally valid because they seem to be used interchangeably. For example from your definition of effort:

Effort - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Some of these are obviously more negative and others are more neutral or positive.

While the sentences as a whole may have a particular tone leaning towards positive or negative depending on the situation they are describing, the word effort itself remains neutral in all of them.

From this you can see that simply meditating until you bleed doesn't produce results, even though a lot of effort might be put in.

That it is why it is important to distinguish between right and wrong effort. Meditating until you bleed is probably wrong effort. Right effort can appear effortless because there is no mental resistance involved.

You can see from this that the first step is to generate desire and endeavour to do something, activating persistence for something you already want to do is easy and afterwards you may exert this intent and energy, you might sweat physically or bleed but you do it happily and without forcing any sort of self control, rather you do it because you want to.

Like even playing games requires effort, but if you ask someone if their game requires effort and work they'll tell you no because they just enjoy doing it, this is what I mean by effortless action.

Right effort is generally joyful and stressless because by definition it requires the generation of the desire and intention to rid the mind of unwholesome states and cultivate wholesome states, and the actions lead to further purification of the mind. Thus there is joy in the activity because desire and intention are aligned with what one is doing, and the activity itself results in the development further joy and other wholesome qualities of mind.

I understand what you mean by effortless action and I see no real problem using that phrase metaphorically. But I believe it is important to understand the role of effort in the path so that one does not become complacent or passive in their approach.

Maybe we can combine the two and say that there is effort physically but no effort mentally; mental effort is replaced by intent, desire and energy.

So there is effort but there also isn't effort.

In the case of meditation, there is generally more mental effort than physical effort, as one is simply sitting and not moving. The work of meditation is done in the mind, not the body. Intent, desire, and energy are the result of mental effort, and the maintenance of these likewise require effort, although when it is right effort then it may appear effortless. A case of physical effort with little or no mental effort is doing physical labor requiring little thought.