RIGHT EFFORT: Effort is energy deliberately directed in a certain direction. It can be physical; the effort to push a broken down car: or mental: the effort to learn multiplication tables. If the effort is successful, the aim of the action is achieved (the car is moved, the tables are learned). A successful action is not necessarily a right action: “when the bomb exploded it killed everyone in the shop”. Nor is an effort necessarily a right effort; “an effort was made to beak the Jewellers’ shop window”.
Right Effort is an effort that has a wholesome action as its goal.
A wholesome action is an action that does not cause suffering to other living beings. Experimentation on animals is unwholesome action irrespective of the motivation. Wholesome actions arise from wholesome thoughts.
Efforts to empty the mind of unwholesome thoughts and feelings constitute Right Effort. Negative thoughts and feelings include cruelty, jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, ill will and even laziness. Positive thoughts and feelings are those that are directed towards the happiness and well-being of others and oneself and also energy, determination and courage.
Mettā shines;
the cancerous growths
which cling to the living cells
of the Children of Light
shrivel into powdery dust.
New Project: MINDFULNESS
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