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• We began with Skillful Understanding - a conceptual understanding of The Law of Cause and Effect and The Four Noble Truths.

 
• Then we explored Skillful Thinking:

 
• Importance of Intention
• Each action (i.e., speech and deed) is preceded by a thought
• Each unskillful thought is rooted in greed, hatred and delusion
• Each skillful thought is rooted in non-greed (generosity), non-hatred (loving-friendliness and compassion) and wisdom
• We have experienced through Skillful Understanding and the Law of Cause and Effect,
• thoughts rooted in greed, hatred and delusion lead to disharmony and suffering
• thoughts rooted in generosity, loving-friendliness, compassion and wisdom lead to harmony and peace
• As the mind begins to understand suffering and its cause (craving), it begins to lose interest in its attachment to sensual stimuli, rests in each moment with equanimity, and responds appropriately to each moment as wisdom naturally arises.

 
• Skillful Thinking is Intentions of:
• Generosity - Letting Go (Renunciation): Material, People, Experiences and Beliefs
• Loving-Friendliness or Metta (Goodwill): wishing for the happiness and welfare of others
• Compassion (Harmlessness) - understanding the suffering of others and wishing them to be free from suffering

 
• Then we explored Virtue: Skillful Speech, Skillful Action and Skillful Livelihood and saw the application of Skillful Understanding and Skillful Thinking in our daily lives: seeing the causal connection between --
• skillful intentions and actions and resulting harmony and peacefulness in our minds and in our lives
• unskillful intentions and actions and resulting disharmony and disruption in our minds and in our lives

 
• We will conclude Skillful Action and Skillful Livelihood today and begin to examine the third section of the Path, Concentration, as we experience Skillful Effort, Skillful Mindfulness & Skillful Concentration.

 

• Fetters overcome at the first stage of enlightenment --
• belief in the existence of a permanent self or soul
• doubt in the message of the Buddha
• belief that one can end suffering merely by following rules and rituals

 
• Fetters overcome to reach the second and third stages --
• greed for sensual pleasures (gross greed)
• hatred

 
• Fetters overcome to reach the final stage --
• subtle desire to exist in a fine material form
• subtle desire to exist in immaterial form
• conceit, or the underlying perception of self-identity
• restlessness and worry
• ignorance

 

• Greed - the desire to obtain pleasurable things
• Ill Will - hatred, anger, resentment, irritation
• Dullness and Drowsiness
• Restlessness and Worry
• Doubt

 

• We recognize an unwholesome thought by the feeling that precedes it -- if one notes a sense of obscurity, heaviness, sadness, unhappiness, or discontent, an unwholesome thought will follow, with a whole series of negative effects in its wake.
• Recall the intention that preceded that thought stream -- was it rooted in greed, hatred or delusion? (unwholesome) Or was it rooted in generosity, loving-friendliness, or compassion? (wholesome)

 

• When unwholesome thoughts have not yet arisen, do not let them arise.
• When unwholesome thoughts have already arisen, do not let them go any further and abandon them.
• Let wholesome thoughts that have not yet arisen arise.
• Take wholesome thoughts that have already arisen and cultivate them so that they will be carried further.

 

"Abandon what is unskillful. One can abandon the unskillful. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it. If this abandoning of the unskillful would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to abandon it. But as it brings benefit and happiness, therefore I say, abandon what is unskillful."

"Cultivate the good. One can cultivate the good. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it. If this cultivation were to bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to do it. But as this cultivation brings joy and happiness, I say cultivate the good."(i.e., skillful)

See also, Samanamandika Sutta (MN 78) and sutta notes by Mike Potter
 

• Get rid of the unwholesome mind states?
• Grab hold of and cling to the wholesome mind states?
• We're back to dukkha again

 

• But how do we let go of the unskillful?

 
• We must trust in our own Buddha nature - our innate goodness.

 
• We're not like a potter shaping a bowl out of raw material which resists our shaping 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.
• But we stop the identification with them. Anger is just anger. When the conditions which support it 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.

 
• The same can be said of greed: don't shut it out, but don't indulge in it either. -- it will just sweep your attention away in a current of "wanting" -- more, and more, and more -- its insatiable.

 
• To truly abandon greed, one must get to know it.
• Then, when it arises, one attends to it with mindfulness, wisdom and compassion, no longer caught in the result.

 

• When a contraction arises -- be it mental or physical -- invite it in, get to know it directly, with kindness and gratitude.
• If fear arises, just note it. See that it arises due to causes and conditions. Always from a sense of self.
• When fear can be observed as a conditioned phenomenon, it loses its power -- for it is not being fed with aversion.
• When its not fed, it dies a natural death.

 

• Put the rock in the palm of your hand.
• Grasp it as tightly as you can. (This is the effort that people often bring to their practice.)
• Explore the physical sensations in your body - pain, discomfort, tension.
• Then open your hand.
• Notice the rock - its not crushed; it hasn't gone away.
• Notice that it is gently resting in your palm; just being held gently. Notice the touch sensation: the hardness, the lightness or heaviness; the differences in the touch sensation at various touch points -- sharp or smooth edges. Notice its temperature.
• These are it's true characteristics. It is only the earth element (hardness); the water element (cohesion); and the fire element (temperature) and air (motion and pressure due to gravity)-- nothing more.
• This is what it brings to you. You need not add anything to it.
• Open, spacious, tensionless effort . . .
• A non-doing effort . . . this is Skillful Effort

 

• Homework Schedule (Review Exercises)
• Review Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness - Step 6: Skillful Effort
• Read Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness - Step 7: Skillful Mindfulness