Skillful Effort
Part I
We have completed our group investigation of two of the three aspects of the Threefold Training: wisdom/prajna (Understanding,
Thinking) and virtue/sila (Speech, Action, Livelihood). This month, we begin our examination of skillful effort, the first
step of the third area of training known as concentration/ samadhi.
If you have begun reading this section in Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness, you have noticed that Bhante Gunaratana
has much to say about this topic and that this is the lengthiest chapter in the book. He discusses the ten fetters, the five
hindrances, and the four steps of skillful effort. Reduced to its essence, Skillful Effort is about maintaining ones balance,
making the proper adjustments or corrections as we navigate the course of our lives. By proper, I mean that which is necessary
to maintain a steady course on the path to liberation.
Have you ever visited an arcade, dropped your coin into the race driver video game, started your imaginary vehicle and then
raced through the obstacles that appear on the screen? If you hit the accelerator, speeding faster and faster, you inevitably
reach a point at which you lose control and your car crashes. Sometimes, we do not control the speed. Finding the point at
which you can skillfully negotiate the obstacles as quickly as they appear and run to the end of the game without crashing
suggests reaching a skill level that involves adroitly staying on course. Step back and watch yourself play. If you are truly
involved in the game, it can seem very real, at least for a few minutes, as though you are really driving a real car on a
real road.
The video screen is the mind introducing challenges of various types, whether they are expressed as worry, doubt, desire,
hatred, ignorance, dullness, etc. These emotions and concepts appear to be solid and real, yet they are only fabrications,
illusions that flit across the mind’s video screen. When we recognize a challenge point or obstacle, we seek to overcome
it skillfully, as we employ whatever we need to do to move through or around the challenge. We adjust enough, but not too
much, because if we over- or under- compensate, we will crash. And sometimes, in spite of our best efforts, we appear to crash
anyway. Stepping outside the screen (gaining perspective), we recognize the illusion and how we have been caught in our concepts.
Find a metaphor that works for you to describe what you are doing when you apply skillful effort in your practice, a.k.a.
your life. If you sail, you know that sometimes small corrections and at other times major adjustments are necessary to keep
a boat on course. You may struggle with adverse currents, gale force winds, or no wind at all. What strategies have you used
to stay on course? If you got careless, what happened? And so on ….
Over the life of your practice, how has working with the five hindrances evolved and changed? What strategies have been particularly
helpful in your effort to prevent or overcome negative states of mind and cultivate and maintain positive states?
Offered with best wishes,
Deb
“The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.”
--Euripides
“As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless.”
--Rodney Yee
