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Right effort is tensionless. The difficulty is that in the suttas the Buddha doesn't define it specifically, so much as to explain it by other statements. Let me give you a very simple example. The classic statement about Right Effort, taken from Saccavibhanga Sutta, (MN 141:29.) - And what friends, is right effort? Here a bhikkhu awakens zeal for the non-arising of unarisen evil unwholesome states, and he makes effort, arouses energy, exerts his mind and strives. He awakens zeal for the abandoning of arisen evil unwholesome states and he makes effort, arouses energy, exerts his mind and strives. He awakens zeal for the arising of unarisen wholesome states and he makes effort, arouses energy, exerts his mind and strives. He awakens zeal for the continuance, non-disappearance, strengthening, increase and fulfillment of arisen wholesome states, and he makes effort, arouses energy, exerts his mind and strives. This is called right effort.

We note that he doesn't say here HOW to nurture or abandon. For that we need to go elsewhere. For example, Dhammapada, 1 Choices. The choice between wholesome and unwholesome..."In this world hatred never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate."

So here (and in innumerable places in the scriptures) we find a clue about how we are to do this abandoning. With love... In the Metta Sutta, "let none deceive another, nor despise any being in any state..." That includes ourselves, our own negativity. These are very simple examples. We need to tune in to his intention, which was to teach this balance of the Eightfold Path as path to awakening.

The difficulty is in how that path is understood. There will always be people who are fearful; and seek control above anything else, for themselves and others. To let go of this voice of control, to return to tensionless effort, means we need to trust our own Buddha nature, our innate goodness. We're not like a potter shaping a bowl out of raw material which resists our administrations and fights to remain raw earth, so much as like someone who holds a very perfect bowl, encrusted with mud and debris. We gently wash it off, inviting it to bring forth its already present true being.

So I like to think of this effort of "inviting" rather than "forcing". There's patience there, and trust.

We can find the answer within our practice. it's a simple question of what works. If I'm filled with anger and make a decision, "I'll abandon anger; I won't experience anger," of course that doesn't work. Where does the anger go? It's still there; I've just buried it. It leaks out everywhere. To truly abandon anger, one must get to know anger; this is both with the wisdom mind which sees the nature of anger as of all conditioned experience as holding the three characteristics, and with the heart, the compassionate heart which watches fear and pain nonjudgmentally; then we really know how anger develops, know that whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me or mine. Yet we still laugh and weep, and see that unwholesome mind states still do arise,. We stop the identification with them. Anger is just anger. When the conditions cease, it will cease. We wrongly put attention on the result, trying to fix it, rather than employing mindfulness, growing wisdom and compassion to attend to the conditions, no longer caught in the result.

I'm including below a talk from an old newsletter about this.

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Dear friends,

On this mid-April ten days I'm visiting at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the English countryside near London. I've just spent the afternoon with some monks, nuns, and other lay people, working on the grounds and in the carpentry shop where I made frames for climbing vines. At home I don't give myself enough permission to "play" in yard and shop in this joyful way. I've forgotten how much I love to build things! Now I'm sitting at the table in Bodhi Guest House, Outside a white cherry tree is dense with blossoms whose scent fills the air and the ground is carpeted with dropped petals. Two sister pink trees are ready to burst into bloom. A weekend retreat has ended and the practitioners are slowly walking down the road to their cars. Soon several monks, including my friend and host for this visit will come and join me for evening tea. Amaravati is an inspiring contemplative community of about 50 people, including about 30 monks and nuns. The day starts with the 4 AM rising bell for morning practice, and ends again in the Temple for evening practice. In between is time for work and reflection,, silence and conversation. I feel very blessed to have been invited to travel here and to share in the life of the community.

The atmosphere of caring and generosity, and support for practice, is pervasive. It opens my heart. At Sunday dinner there were many lay people who came to join the community meal (in Buddhist monastic style, there's just one meal a day, served at 11 AM, plus an early morning bowl of cereal) and brought wonderful gifts of food. I found much happiness watching their faces as they offered this food to the monastic community. Giving, free of fear, is true joy, as is work offered from the heart. I've never reflected before on what it would be like to live in a place where one knows one's needs will be met. In our usual daily life there's often fear, which breeds clinging and selfishness. Our usual theme is "will I be okay? Will my needs be met?" I'm sure these monks and nuns feel that on occasion too, but the atmosphere of giving, of caring for each other, really does nurture the seeds of faith and trust.

Here, an ocean away from home, I also do deeply experience the depth of clarity, and the strength of community in Deep Spring Center, as I reflect here on those qualities. We are blessed with a strong, loving community who enact both wisdom and compassion. I see how far we've come together in ten years, and value it. Sometimes one has to go away and look back to fully appreciate what one has.

Recurrent in my meetings with people here has been the same question I've been asking in my own life and practice in recent months (no surprise!). It's something I've written about before and I'm coming to a deeper understanding. This is the question of the habitual tendencies which seem to follow us around like shadows. How do we relate to our greed, anger and confusion? How do we move beyond the arising of such fear based states of mind, or limit their expression when they do arise?

There's a favorite scriptural quotation which brings in the word "abandoned." There's often confusion with this teaching. What does it mean "to abandon?" What is abandoned and who abandons? The confusion isn't just in Buddhism. Christian teachings ask us to turn away from sin; the Ten Commandments instruct us not to kill/ steal/ covet/ and so forth. Yet inevitably we do kill, even just vegetables for food or the small insects we step on when we walk. We do take more than our share. There may be no intention to harm. but mind states such as coveting, and aversion do arise, and serve as ground for carelessness.. Then, habitually, we condemn ourselves, condemn our greed, fear and anger..

Abandon" involves a conscious choice, not to get over involved.. If something I enjoy falls from my pocket to the ground, if I realize it's missing I may search for it. If rain begins to fall and the day grows very cold, I may abandon my search. I want that which was lost, but the skillful response it "let it go." I don't turn away in anger, I just release the intention to find this object, let it be. Note that I let go of the object, and I let be the desire to find the object. They are different movements.

If I'm still very involved, if mind is tossing back and forth saying, "I should let go," or "I'll come back tomorrow," or "I shouldn't care so much," I may temporarily abandon the search for the object but not truly let go. The energy contractions around the object continue. I keep giving more energy to the entire process of losing, wanting, and the relationship with wanting mind . This isn't what "abandon" means. I've neither let go nor let be.

For example, a thought such as "unworthy" arises; We think, "I'll abandon this thought," so we attempt to show ourselves the ways in which we're worthy. But this isn't the abandonment of "unworthy. We've not let go, but just turned it in a different direction..

Anger arises and one decides, instead of expressing that anger, to try to act with real kindness toward the object of the anger. On one level that may sound very skillful. It certainly is a major step beyond acting out the anger with negativity. But it's not enough; sanger, not kindness may still be driving the resolve. One hasn't abandoned the anger at all but simply tried to disguise it with kindness. I'm reminded of a cat covering its feces in the litter box The odor is still there! True kindness will arise naturally when one has changed one's relationship to the anger, and greeted it with compassion.

We become confused; Desire arises, desire for comfort or pleasure, for a material object or for love, or to be free of a thought or sensation, and we push it away and try to act as if it was not present. We may even let go of the object of desire. But the desire-energy hasn't gone. We can't disinvite desire, only not get caught in an identity with it. Here we "let it be." So we let go of the object or thought, and if there is still energy movement around our relationship to that object or thought ­ for example, judgment of our greed or aversion, or discomfort with the reverberations of anger that remain in the body after we

stop telling ourselves the story of how we've been wronged ­ then we let these be.

To further complicate the issue, there are arisings of mind and body which are clearly seen to be rooted in delusion, such as a sense of separation or self-cherishing, and there are arisings which seem to be rootless. Here I can see that nothing is causing this state to arise but habit itself. For example, if someone verbally attacks me and blames me, and anger arises in me, that anger may be rooted in the desire to be loved by others, which desire I may not clearly recognize. As I work with such a mind state, I may come to see the desire, and the entire confusion which grasps at praise and fears to be blamed. Finally I understand it, and then someone blames me (but I'm innocent!!!) and anger arises. It's just an habitual reply to blame. There's no delusion feeding it any more. Awareness of the entire process arises almost instantaneously with the anger, but the reverberations of the anger in the body still linger for awhile. If I try to get rid of them, I enhance them. Here is the place for "let it be."

An even more simple example. One brushes off insects because they may bite. Then, looking closely, one sees that the only insects present are ladybugs. They're not only harmless, but lovely. Nevertheless, at the touch, mindlessness brushes it off. Habit!

I've begun to see how many of my responses are merely habit. These are not only the brushing away of ladybugs but the arising of opinions and my relationship to them, I see something pleasant or unpleasant, and wham..., there's an opinion about it! The opinion is no longer fed by the desire to be safe or in control. It's just habitual response.

So I began to watch the enormous range of rising thoughts and body sensations and, this spring, to watch the nature of such arising even more precisely in a long retreat. I focused especially on those that seemed rootless, such as the arising of opinion or the brushing off of ladybugs (the cabin was filled with these, a great opportunity to practice!) I began to see these mind and body states the way I experience a burr that's attached itself while walking through a meadow. I was there, the burr was there and they came in contact so the burr attached. "Why not just pull it off and release it?" I thought. "Wouldn't that be the most skillful choice?"

I shared this thought with a friend and he said, "if you pull it off it will just stick to your glove; let it be!" Yes! I could see immediately, as he said that, the grasping to be free of it.. Let it be.

Is this the real meaning of abandon? I'm learning that for me most off the time, it is! Think about the burr on your pants. If you let it be, refuse to give it any more energy, it will disintegrate slowly, until it's gone. But if you pull it off, it keeps sticking, to the glove, to the sleeve or other glove ­ everywhere!

This has been my practice the past month, looking at this motley collection of old habits and letting them be, by which I mean not enacting them, not taking them personally, but nodding to them and leaving them alone. I know when I completely stop giving them energy, they'll shrivel up and fall away, like the burr, one small sticky hook at a time. At times it's been very hard, for I see how I long to get involved with it, to fix or control it. It's like the scab that's almost falling off and which one keeps touching, or the loose tooth we wiggled as children. That wanting to fix is just a different burr. Let it be!

When I do this, I literally stop giving energy to the whole situation. I do have to acknowledge its presence and refuse to enact it. This isn't the practice for when we're still in denial about arising states of mind and body. But knowing it's there, I let it be. I

can just allow it to stay until it's ready to go. I don't have to feed it and offer it a bed for the night!

I do see the possibility of very carefully picking it off, with no aversion, not grabbing in such a way that it will stick to the glove, but with great attentiveness just lifting it and letting it fall away. For instance, when a judgment arises and wants to stick there, I can notice it and, knowing it's only old habit, and with no aversion to it, very carefully release it. Noting "judging, judging," I can find that which is non-judgmental in the mind and invite it in. But I realize that any aversion will make the motions too harsh so it sticks, and I'm not yet free of aversion. For now, this feels like too much doing, too much giving of energy. It feels more useful to just let it be. Perhaps such attentive lifting-off will be the next step. I'll let you know what I find. Meanwhile, in just letting it be I find much space, and also wisdom.

I love the dzogchen teaching about this, from the teaching song, "Flight of the Garuda." "Without abandoning anger, it is mirror-like wisdom." The song goes on to speak of all the heavy mind states in this way. Thus, instead of getting rid of anything, instead of creating the duality of good/ not good, we see things just as they are and allow the wisdom to develop about how things are. Then we abandon, not the mind or body state itself, but the whole dual notion about it and the giving energy to it in creation of further duality.

If you look for me this summer, I'll be the woman covered with burrs in various states of decay, wandering through the woods by the cabin, just watching any desire to pull them off. The meadow is filled with an abundance of sticky objects. Feel free to join me! I wish you a summer of wildflowers and sunshine, and the occasional burr to encourage your practice. I look forward to seeing some of you at summer retreats.