Right Effort: Following Your Heart

So we had a class this week on Right Effort and it brought a lot of things up for me.

These questions like how long should I meditate for, how do I evaluate the effort I'm putting into practice, how do I know when to push and when to let go more.

These issues are ones that many spiritual practitioners especially those who meditate look at on a regular basis.

Whether you are a lay practitioner or live in a residential training setting or are ordained these questions can become a focus of wisdom or suffering. So I thought I would dedicate a few posts to talking about the issues I have found concerning right effort and some I have heard others talk about.

This first post is about following your heart.

This the common response I've gotten from people when I ask them about right effort. It sounds something like this, " Well no one can tell you how much you should sit you just have to listen to your heart..." On the one hand I agree quite strongly with this notion of intuitive wisdom, but on the other it seems to imply a simplicity that I have found is not always present.

Discerning what the heart is truly telling me can be quite difficult. Before I found practice I listened to my heart quite a bit and it lead me all over the place. On retrospect I believe that in reality I was following a mixture of my mind and my heart, but the fact that one can seem so much like the other is what makes this advice problematic. How do I know when it's my heart or my mind acting like my heart?

There have certainly been times where my heart was very clear about needing to sit a lot of zazen and bring practice into every aspect of my life. It seemed to call me so clearly to the cushion and nothing else seemed to help. I describe this often as sitting out of desperation. It was for me a distinct longing that was only quelled by quieting my mind and throwing myself wholeheartedly into practice. During these time this advice was all I needed.

There have also been times where a haze of confusion has descended over me. Times when I was unsure even why I was practicing. If I looked closely I could still hear that calling, but it seemed like another part of my heart was not buying into the program. When your heart says two things which one do you listen to?

I have found that often faith and even vows to practice have kept me going during these times. There have been nights where my heart ached and I just wanted to go to bed, but I stayed up and sat because I had made a practice vow. I find that often these challenges yield fruit for me. I was able to see through my aversions and confusion just by committing to sit no matter what my heart or mind said to me.

I have also slipped into spiritual athleticism which I know is not right effort. As soon as thought arises that says, I'm going to stay until he/she leaves, I know that some part of pride has slipped into my motivation. Peer pressure can be valuable in one sense but sitting as competition is not the essence of the dharma. Having said that when this does arise I greet it as an opportunity to examine it's roots and I have been able to see beneath by continuing to practice even if my motivations aren't entirely pure at that moment.

I am inspired by the Great Teachers who sat so wholeheartedly committed to practice no matter what arose, but I have a hard time believing they only sat when their hearts told them to. I have a sense they sat for different reasons, but that at some point they sat on faith alone. In most cases doing what my heart calls me to do can stop me from slipping in to critical mind states, but I can also see times where I used this as an excuse for not putting my all into practice.

It seems like this could become such a slipperly slope for any practitioner. Caught up in the evaluation of what the heart is truly saying. For myself I know that I check in with my heart when it comes to practice, but even if I find it empty my faith in my teachers and the Dharma keep me going. I don't know if this is right effort or not, but it continues to be a deep investigation I engage in on a regular basis.

I know that deep within me there is a part of my heart that calls me to see the truth. My heart calls me to seek a way of being compassionate and trying my best to be of service. But often even when I can't hear that call, I keep the faith that it's still there. I have faith that underneath whatever story or thought is clouding my wisdom my heart is calling me to my true home.