Effort in Practice

Part II

by Josho Pat Phelan

I would like to continue talking about how to make effort in practice by looking at what makes effort “Right Effort.” After Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, he first taught the Four Noble Truths which end with the Eight-Fold Path. Right Effort is one aspect of this path. The traditional meaning of Right Effort is one’s endeavor or energetic will to abandon unwholesome states and develop wholesome states. Wholesome states are those whose roots are non-greed or generosity, open-heartedness; non-hate or loving-kindness; and non-delusion or clarity. But I think of wholesome activity simply as that which supports disentangling from our karmic knots.

When I think of disentangling and waking up, I’m reminded of a passage in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Island, which I read more than 55 years ago and can’t remember except for this one passage. In it, Huxley referred to the dualistic Manchean religion or thought which divides everything into either good or evil. Huxley wrote:

Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there.

If I only knew who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am.

What in fact I am, if only the Manichee I think I am would allow me to know it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of not-two.

Knowing who in fact we are results in Good Being...

But he said,

good doing does not of itself result in Good Being.

...Good Being is knowing who in fact we are; and in order to know who in fact we are, we must first of all know, moment by moment, who we think we are and what the bad habit of thought compels us to feel and do.

A moment of clear and complete knowledge of what we think we are, but in fact are not, puts a stop, for the moment to the Manichean charade.

If we renew, until they become a continuity, these moments of knowledge of what we are not, we may find ourselves all of a sudden, knowing who in fact we are.

...Good Being is in the knowledge of who in fact one is in relation to all experiences.

So be aware—aware in every context, at all times.... This is the only genuine yoga, the only spiritual exercise worth practicing.

One of the things I like about this passage is that Huxley does not define Good Being in terms of behavior, actions, or feelings, but only in terms of moment-by-moment non-judgmental, non-rejecting awareness of what is. (Awareness itself is a wholesome state, and it is necessary in order to turn around our ingrained habits and conditioned responses.) This reminds me of Katagiri Roshi saying, “There is nowhere to go. This is liberation. It’s very simple. Too simple. If you touch it, it’s gone. Freedom is very intimate. It’s like a secret in your heart.”

If we take the traditional definition of Right Effort, one’s endeavor or energetic will to abandon unwholesome states and to develop wholesome states, and look at it from the perspective of Soto Zen, we might say that it means to abandon activity which is unwhole or incomplete, haphazard activity, and to develop wholeness, to develop activity which reflects that we are already Buddha.

Suzuki Roshi spoke of pure effort. Pure effort doesn’t mean right effort as opposed to wrong effort or unwholesome effort. Pure effort means nothing but effort, nothing in addition to effort, just 100% effort the way Ivory Soap is supposed to be 99.44% pure soap. In pure effort, there’s no room for anything else like ambivalence, or comparison, or regret. We make our best effort moment after moment, breath after breath, again and again. And when we blow it, there is no time out for regret, we just continue with our whole-hearted effort.

In one of my favorite passages of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, I think Suzuki Roshi captures the essence of Soto Zen practice, both in zazen and in our every day activity, when he talks about the metaphor of a bonfire. He said,

...when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, with nothing remaining but ashes. This is the goal of our practice.... So our practice is not a matter of one hour or two hours, or one day or one year. If you practice zazen with your whole body and mind, even for a moment, that is zazen.

Master Dogen used the phrase “practice/realization” as one term to mean practice and realization occur simultaneously rather than practice being a cause and realization its effect. Dogen taught that we practice in order to realize the non-dual Way that is always right here, wherever we are. For Dogen, realization is the practice of non-dual effort, not the result or accumulation of earlier practice.

He used an exchange between Master Hui Neng, the sixth Chinese ancestor whose name we chant as Daikan Eno Daiosho, and his disciple Nangaku or Huai-jang, as an example of this. When Nangaku met Master Hui Neng, he had already been practicing for some time and his practice was fairly mature.

During their first meeting, Hui Neng asked, “Where are you from?”

Nangaku, taking him at his word, replied, “From Mt. Song.”

Hui Neng asked, “Who is it that thus comes?” (I’ve read that in Chinese, this is literally, “What is it you really are?”) In the version of this story that Dogen referred to, Nangaku couldn’t answer, so he left Hui Neng’s room and continued practicing at Hui Neng’s monastery for eight years, when one day he had a realization.

So, after eight years, he returned to Master Hui Neng’s room, and continued where he left off, presenting his response to the question, “Who is it that thus comes,” by saying, “Speaking about it doesn’t hit the mark.”

Hui Neng then asked, “Does it rest on practice and realization?” (The “it” refers to Original Mind, the open, boundless quality of consciousness before thinking is engaged. So the question could be stated, “Is Original Mind contingent upon practice and realization?)

The implied response is “no,” based on Nangaku’s reply which was, “It is not that there is no practice and realization, it’s just that they cannot be defiled.” (In Zen, “defiled” often means colored or stained by dualistic separation.)

Master Hui Neng then responded, “This nondefilement (or non-duality of practice and enlightenment) has been maintained by all Buddhas.” And the dialogue ends with Hui Neng saying, “You are like this and I am like this” confirming their mutual understanding.

Master Dogen used this story to illustrate his view that Original Mind or the open, boundless quality of mind before thinking and judgment arise, does not increase or improve due to practice, nor is Original Mind diminished by our ignorance of it. Dogen commented on this in his text Bendowa when he wrote,

You should know that in order not to defile realization, which is inseparable from practice, Buddha ancestors always caution not to be slack in your practice. If you release the inconceivable practice, original realization fills your hands; if you become free from the original realization, the inconceivable practice is upheld with your whole body.

To me, the way that Dogen referred to practice as “inconceivable” is another example of his emphasis on practice rather than enlightenment as the destination of our practice.

We might think that if we could just engage in Right Effort, that things would turn out better. But our effort in this moment is its own reward; and unfortunately, Right Effort, does not imply right result. What allows our effort to be whole-hearted is to let go of any expectations or hopes of what the outcome of our effort will be. When we try to attain something or set up a goal to accomplish, we create a duality between who we are right now, and who we want to be. As long as we conceptualize an ideal or a goal, our comparative thinking will create separation the way reaching out for an inner tube in the water automatically propels it away. Likewise, reaching out mentally for something outside this moment divides us, creating a gap between our mental world and our immediate experience.

So, we place our attention with our effort—our effort is our effort, and the outcome is the outcome; they are connected but at the same time, each one is complete in itself. Similarly, each moment of time is unique and non-repeatable with its own past and future. In Zen, this is referred to as absolute time. But, although each moment is absolute in itself, it also communicates with adjoining moments, and there is no gap between moments. In practice, stay in this moment, with your whole-hearted effort—without looking ahead or outside the present moment for the outcome of your effort.

In How to Cook Your Life, Uchiyama Roshi suggested we practice by putting our whole attention into each task, throwing our whole life into each encounter, as a way to meet each situation with whole-hearted effort and whole-hearted acceptance. In this way, everything we encounter, everything that arises for us, we recognize as our life, as not being other than what we are. He said, “If we fall into hell, then we need to resolve to see that hell is our home. When we are being boiled in the demon’s cauldron, that is where we have to do zazen....” So, don’t try to run away if you find yourself in hell, don’t rejoice if you find yourself in heaven. Wherever you find yourself, just let yourself be there fully.

When we no longer try to escape from delusion or pursue enlightenment, we can accept whatever we meet as our lives. This means, for example, if you get stuck in a traffic jam, the activity of sitting in traffic is your life, not an obstacle to remove so you can get on to your real life. In the realm of practice, there is nothing to get away from and nothing to rush to. Practice is always right here if only we accept this moment—the fullness of our life right now. According to Suzuki Roshi, in this way of practice, Right Effort means, “when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind.” Our effort is to engage completely in the activity of this moment.

I like to think of Right Effort as the energetic will to enter each moment whole-heartedly, with no reservation. One way to develop Right Effort is to try letting go of reservations. Without holding back some part of yourself, without trying to protect yourself, simply try to enter each moment, completely, with no reservation or hesitation. I think of it like walking on a stone path in the dark, where there is a single stone for each footstep. In darkness our feet are our eyes. So, just step forward, trusting your foot to find the next stone. And it is like bowing, the practice of prostrations. The bowing of throwing ourselves completely into the bow, of throwing away duality, throwing away our ideas, throwing away anything that separates us, so when we join the floor, we join everything.

Sometimes people get confused by the figure of Buddha on the altar. But this is just a piece of metal or wood or stone or whatever, a configuration that reminds us that we are Buddha, we can never really be separate—our delusions and thinking make us feel that we are separate. But we are always Buddha. When we do floor bows, we physically drop—so our body leads our mind in letting go of who we think we are and what we think the world is. Without hesitation, just drop and join everything. Zazen gives us a form and a safe environment in which to practice not holding back, so we are available to breathe each breath without reservation.

What Right Effort is, will be different for each of us. No one can say how much effort will be the right amount for you. Each of us has to find out for ourselves, over and over again. And even when we find it, what Right Effort is will change as we change, and it will change with each set of circumstances. For example, the effort it takes to walk quietly on a wooden floor will change as the weather changes and, of course, it will be different with each floor.

In zazen, often it is useful to be strict about following the forms, about sitting upright and trying to be awake while not moving. And other times it works better to accept and observe our minds and bodies which may be resisting these forms. Wherever you find yourself, let your effort be undivided. Allow yourself to just follow the forms, follow the instructions wholly, undividedly. But, on the other hand, if you find yourself ambivalent, don’t resist it. Don’t fight your own ambivalence, don’t fight your resistance. Try to enter your resistance with wholehearted acceptance. Don’t move away from it. Use whole-hearted effort to stay right here in this moment with whatever arises, whether you find ambivalence, resistance, anger, comparative thinking, or joy, clarity, transparency of being. Just be present without trying to hold on to pleasant states and without trying to get rid of unpleasant ones.

Suzuki Roshi emphasized daily practice, practicing evenly rather than making a big burst of effort now and then. He emphasized making regular, steady effort, that we can maintain day after day for the rest of our lives. He said,

Whether it is difficult or easy to practice, difficult or easy to understand, you can only practice it...the point is to resume your actual being through practice, to resume the you which is always with everything...which is fully supported by everything. Right now! You may say, it is impossible. But it is possible! Even in one moment you can do it! It is possible this moment! It is this moment! That you can do it in this moment means you can always do it.