Half Assed Effort - Half Assed Results

AllbuddhaBound

There is almost a contradiction in terms when you think about meditation and effort. On one hand, we are encouraged to be gentle and soft. That is the direction I took for quite some time and I discovered that the real meat in meditation lies in the real efforts we make. My concentration has been half assed and it is little wonder that my progress has stalled. Thanks to some direction from Thanissaro Bhikkhu this became clear to me. I have not been near as meticulous as I should've been with my meditation. When I am engrossed in making every moment count while I am meditating, I am finding that I am beginning to work my way through my ignorance.

I wonder how many others have experienced this problem. This seems to be a subject that is valuable to discuss and could be of help to us who are stalled in our growth.

sukhita

So many meditation guides tell us to R-E-L-A-X and just watch the in-breaths and out-breaths. Seems soooo easy. But I do think quite some effort is required (for example, in breath meditation) to stay focussed, single-mindedly, on the breaths. This means focussing continuously on the beginning-middle-end of each in-breath and each out-breath and also on the gaps in-between the breaths. So, yes, I find, in my own practice, that this level of focus on the breath requires EFFORT. Maybe, we can have a balance between "effort" and the "gentle and soft" approach. I have meditated for less than two years now, and think my progress is quite slow as well.

Mountains

"Effort" is not necessarily the opposite of "relaxed" or "gentle". I can gently push a pencil off my desk the same as I can swipe it away with strenuous effort. Both of them get the pencil onto the floor, but the way of going about it is entirely different. Applying gentle effort in meditation practice seems, to me, to be the way to go about it. It's not easy no matter how you do it, but you can be gently strenuous

[DeletedUser]

Precisely & congratulation :thumbup: With a clear direction from a teacher and your earnestness and "conceptualization" of inherent supremeness of emptiness, ignorant will be transformed into "meticulosity" of Buddha nature, as ignorance is a false nature, is delusion :cool:

Vangelis

Firstly, read about right effort. That might help with getting the effort right. But on retreats, I always found that it's not just what you do when you sit on the cushion. Being mindful throughout the day, while eating, showering, walking, etc helps with the sit-down meditation too.