157: Retreat Dhamma Talk 52: Harmonizing Concentration and Effort

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Sumble summer summary number symbol summa symbols.

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Retreat series dhamato number fifty-two. Number fifty-two means that you are in retreat on the fifty-seventh fifty-second day of retreat. You have been meditating for more than seven weeks. During this period, some of the yogis just excel quite a bit in finding and experiencing Dharma. Some are trotting along, practicing every day, but getting nowhere. And some practice put great effort. But still they didn't experience any true nature of mind and matter. And some practice quite well, get great concentration, but at the same time they are not experiencing any Dharma. So these seven, eight weeks, the group of yogis has split into about four groups based on the experience or non-experience of the Dharma. So in here, one of the ways to explain is for those people who are believe that they are working hard, the effort that they are applying and the concentration that they have developed are not in harmony. Or they are not in a state of balance. So if you are in a retreat every day, you are reporting, and then based on your report, without saying anything, the teacher knows and guided you through how to balance it by giving specific instruction to what to do, what not to do, and then the yogi can balance or harmonize this effort and concentration. But in here, in general, especially for the yogis out across the world who are not in retreat practicing on their own through this YouTube channel, they might need some sort of a guidance so that they can guide themselves through. Here, when you have a insufficient effort and excess of concentration. That means though you are not in a balanced state. Or it could be you might be facing a situation you cannot have any concentration that will be due to your elated or excited mind. So those are the two main trends that one will come to experience. So in here, let's say let's call it the casual mind. Some people do everything very casually as they do the living type of a mode, casual mind. If you practice this meditation with a casual state of mind, first of all, boredom will set in. And that boredom will give rise to laziness, state of laziness. So that is how one can say, but in practice, what is exactly happening is you simply cannot note properly that's what's happening. You cannot observe actively. So that's what it means by casual mind boredom and laziness. In practice, that is what is actually happening. And some people they practice, they put effort, or at least they think they put effort, but the effort is good enough just to observe superficially, not deeply, penetratively. You are observing the object superficially. And in your mind you think, you're doing quite well, I'm observing, I know, I know, I know, I note, I note. But as it is observing superficially, what is really happening in the practice is between your noting, there are a lot of gaps left. There are many gaps left between your series of noting. That is what actually happening. The casual mind, superficial mind. That's how they manifested into it. So let's say you want to uplift your casual mind. You think you are doing quite good, relaxed, casual, observing, no stress. You know where it's going, boredom and laziness. And if you want to uplift that casual mind, what you do was you give more objects for the mind to know. What it means is in practical term, let's say you're observing rising movement, falling movement, and touch, sense, three points. Rise, fall, touch. And then suddenly what you do was you say rise, fall, touch, touch. Two touch points you observe. Or you might say rise, fall, touch, touch, sit. Rising, falling, touching, touching, sitting. Instead of three, you make it four. You make it five. When you make that, whatever gaps you are leaving before, they will be filled in. And at the same time, do observe five objects. You have to put a lot more effort than observing three objects and one circuit. So that's how one can uplift the mind. And at the same time, as you put more effort, there are more objects, your observation becomes more and more precise. To be able to handle five objects, you have to be precise. Otherwise, it will be all scattered, and you will know that you are not precise, you are scattered. So the noting becomes more precise. So that's how one can uplift your casual mind to a stronger, more serious mind. And here, let's say, you're meditating if you do not have a good noting for quite some time. You can lose interest in your meditation. Ah, I can't note, I can't concentrate. Always the word is concentrate. I can't concentrate. You lose interest in it. Or you are practicing, you are practicing, you're noting, but you have experienced nothing, you don't have any insight. I've been practicing for a few weeks, for a few months, I don't even have in any kind of insight. And then you can lose interest in your meditation. That's what can happen. And then even come to the point of you can call it, you'll be experiencing a defeated mind, defeated mindness. I'm no good, I don't think I can do it, I don't think I will succeed. Or people with some Dharma information, oh, I don't have much parami. So I won't get it. Well, what can I do? I don't have parami. That kind of thinking, that line of thinking is a defeated mind. You are already defeated, you are already lost. The battle has begun, hasn't become yet, begin yet, but you already lost. That's a defeated mind. And when the defeated mind comes in, your desire to practice will reduce. You will pack your gap back and you leave. That kind of step can happen. So when you can't note or when you can't observe actively, what you do is we have one phrase or one word in Pali. You have heard that many times. You only saw manasikara. In English, wise attention or wise intention. You have you must put up wise intention. And wise intention is in the scripture, it is put there. One must keep the object. Object means whatever you are observing, whether it is physical or mental. One must have the object and the noting mind face to face. I must keep the object and the noting mind face to face. That kind of intention has to be brought in. By doing so, you will have a very precise aim. To put the object and the mind face to face, you must have a precise aim at the object that is arising at the moment. If you keep the full attention precisely on the object at the moment it is arising, that means you are having face-to-face engagement with the object. By doing so, all these casual minds will be uplift, superficiality will be gone, laziness, boredom will be gone. That is the one way of doing it. Another way of doing is a little more difficult, but can be done. There's a boredom comes in, you just note. Borrow, borrow, borrow, laziness comes in, you just note lazy, lazy, lazy. But when you're both boredom and lazy, you cannot note with the same intensity as others. You must note it forcefully. If you don't note forcefully, that laziness and that boredom will run over you like a truck. So keep in mind when the mind becomes cold, it will become viscous and stiff. The mind will become slow. If the mind becomes cold, it will become viscous, stiff, slow, and then sleepiness, which means the mind is totally inactive. All start with a little cold mind. So we need to heat up our mind. We need to warm our mind, heat up our mind so that the mind becomes fluid. And then the mind becomes swift and quick and awake. We need to warm and heat up our mind so that it becomes fluid, swift, quick, and awake. Only then the mind can work properly. So in here, how can we heat our mind up? And the scripture that's giving eleven ways to heat up our mind. And some of the yogis here might have already heard it. But I will repeat these 11 points or 11 ways of how to heat the mind up. But to keep your interests alive, I will approach this from a slightly different angle. I won't be repeating exactly like from the scripture. First of all, know that if you don't have any cultivation, mental cultivation or bhavana, mental development, if you don't have that automatically akusala, unwholesomeness, in other words, all the mental defilements will pour in that place. And when these akusala, unwholesomeness actions come into your mind, the misery will follow. One must know that, one must reflect on it. It will follow. If I don't cultivate, unwholesomeness or akusala will arise and that will be surely followed by misery of life. And that means you have lost sila, samadhi and pinya. Morality, concentration, and wisdom, insight into life. In other words, in two words, you are you have a low life. In our daily world, we say, ah, what a low life. In other words, useless. Put for nothing. Okay. Think that way and reflect quite seriously. Misery will follow. I'll be a low life person. And for some people that will be quite effective. They don't want to be a low life, they don't want to have miseries. And it might jump start your energy. Oh, another thing is reflect upon the what are the benefits, and here is the immediate benefits of practicing this meditation properly, correctly, as instructed. The immediate benefits are we all know that we have mental defilement, kilesa attacking us at all times. Every moment, if we are not mindful, kilesa is on the attack at all times. But if you practice this, if you develop your mind, what happened was this system, this process of meditation will push back those mental defilements. They will guard you from these attacks of these mental defilements. And they will replace or they will expel all these mental defilements. That is the immediate effect. If you practice, that is automatically, immediately it happens. If you practice correctly, which means the path to the kusala, wholesome, wholesome path, wholesome road is wide open in front of you. That's the if you reflect that way, for some people it'll be quite effective. It's just a matter of what your soft spot or soft button is. And the third way to reflect is this mindfulness inside meditation. This is a special part, this is a unique part. What you need special about it? You need a special part to abandon Kilesa, mental defilement. This is a very special and unique part to abandon Kilesa. Why is it special? It is special because all the past Buddhas and noble person, Arahats, has walked through this path already. As the Buddhas and the Arahats have walked this path on walk on this road, I am embarking and walking on this path. By reflecting that your energy will rise and you can practice. That's number three. Number four is think about that. You owe gratitudes. You practitioners, yogis, owe gratitudes. Do the people who make this meditation happen, this retreat happen. There are people who come and donate food. There are people who donate this building shelter for you to be able to practice properly, without worrying. There are volunteers walking around the club, waking up before you do and start cooking, feeding on time, you know, so that you don't have to worry anything. And the teachers watching and guiding you at all times so that you can be on a straight line towards the goal. These are the people who are putting all sorts of effort so that you can practice and experience Dharma. You owe gratitude to them. And how can you express your gratitude? The best way to express your gratitude is you work very hard, properly and correctly, because they are doing all these things so that you can practice properly and correctly and you can excel in Dharma. That is their motive, that is their objective, that is their wish. They are doing these things with that wish so that you can do this practice properly. So by working hard and excelling on the path of Dharma, you have totally shown your gratitude towards these people. And if you think that way, it may arouse your energy. And number five, number five is simply called you have inherited from the Buddha. Inheritance. When the parents passed away, they leave some inheritance for you. The same thing. The truth is basically full noble truth. The full noble truth is what has left us so that we can inherit it. And also you can call it the other seven will. If you remember, seven will of a noble person. What's a seven will of a noble person? If you remember correctly, sadda, faith and confidence, sila, morality, hiri, shame to do all that is unwholesome, dread or repulsiveness towards the consequences of the unwholesome action and then sutta learning, understanding, living as it is, being taught by the Buddha. Saga. It is the habit that you develop to abandon kilisa, Saga, and finally pinya, wisdom. Those are the seven in Pali Sadasila, Hili Udapa, Sutta, Saga, Binya, Faith, Morality, Shame, Dread towards unwholesome, learned, practice to the point of habit and wisdom. These are the wealth the Buddha has left out, and we must be deserving of it. How can we become deserving of this? All these words that we just talk about, spell about, don't be it is in the book, don't be it's for conversation purpose. Let it become in your heart. Let it be a part of you. Then you deserve the inheritance that the Buddha has left us. By thinking so, by reflecting so, your energy will arise. And also another way is you reflect on the Buddha's qualities and Dhamma qualities. What are the qualities? The Buddha has the right view. The right view about what? Simply put, knows exactly what this body and this mind is. What is this body and mind? This is Nichad Dukatnata. Impermanence, suffering, and non-self. He practiced, he knows about this by himself, and he turned around and taught us so that we can experientially understand about those things. This is his quality. He knows and he's the great master teacher. And all these things, whatever he teaches, so that we can safeguard ourselves from all mental defilements, grief, anger, and delusion. Not only giving us the seven kinds of wealth for the noble person, he gives us the precise instruction how to acquire these seven wealth by ourselves with our own effort. Those are the qualities of Buddha. He doesn't say, here are the seven wealth, go find it, but he gives us exactly how to find it, how to acquire it, how to maintain it. And also we should reflect upon the Buddha's great compassion, great love and kindness, and his great wisdom. And if you reflect upon those things, your energy will rise for your practice. Another way to reflect is I belong to the Buddha race. Okay. In a daily life we know we are belong to the black race, white race, brown race. Okay, this race, that race. In the same manner too, there's a Buddha has a Buddha race. What is Buddha race? Simply it's bhikkhu. Become a monk, specifically to become a monk. And even if you don't become a monk, if you are a layperson, if you live like a monk, if you practice like a monk, or if your majority portion of your lives is trying to emulate a monk's life, then you can belong in that direction. You belong to that race. But to put it in a very practical term, what's the monk? What's a bhikkhu? It's someone who is not lazy, who is not slack, not lazy, not slack, and always industrious to do for the benefit of others as well as for himself or herself. That's a practical term. One who is not lazy, slack, but industrious, to do what? For the benefits of others as well as to uplift and upgrade oneself. That can be termed as bheku. And if you have that quality, you belong to the Buddha's race. But in general, bhikkhu belongs to the Buddha race. If you have taken the road, then you belong to it, and if you belong to it, you must practice according To the expectation of that race that will make your energy rise. And number eight, number eight is Satama Sari or the practitioner of the Sublime Tama or Klayana Mehita, we call it a good friend. But in here it's very specifically referred to the full noble person. Ariya. Satapana Sakata Gami Anagami Arhat. Okay, noble person one, two, three, four. Refer to that. So what you're doing was you reflect about this full noble person or Kaliana Mekta, we call it good friends. Say, I am following the footstep of this noble persons. I'm following the footstep of this noble person. I'm walking the path that they are walking on. Just to understand it clearly, let's say some great occasion in our life, whether it's a Grammy Award or Oscar Award or Presidential Arrival or things like that. What do you do? You put a red carpet and only a certain person walk on that red carpet. Some people they have to stand behind the railing and watch them. Some people they have to go around the back door and watch them. They can't walk on it. People who walk on that red carpet are special, significant, important people. Just like that. This noble part is like a great red carpet. I am walking on this carpet, red carpet. And if you reflect that, if you are practicing exactly that as you are walking on the red carpet, you must be very proper, appropriate, and correct. By reflecting so your energy or effort will arise. Avoid lazy indolent person. And lazy indolent. Okay, we can try to put lazy indolent is something always a couch potato or never get out of bed or do nothing. Suddenly our mind goes to that point, lazy. But in here you are talking about a meditator, a yogi. Somebody who is relaxing in his meditation, somebody who is putting a knees up, stretch your leg, put the feet on the table. Stretch here, stretch there, move here, move there. Moving around, jittering here, jittering there. And that is the sign of laziness. That is lazy for a yogi. You don't have to crawl in bed and do nothing. So understand laziness in that aspect. You don't slack yourself from the practice. When you slack from the practice, as I say, stretching legs, putting your feet up, putting the knees up, and so on. That's a lazy yogi. And if you see yogis like that, don't associate it with them. Don't associate mean you are not talking. Don't it's not that you're not talking, you're in silence mode. Simply you put yourself in such a situation you don't see them at all. Or associate mean sometimes you have to share the cooti, a sleeping place. Okay, if it really becoming you. Ask the manager, explain the reason you can be moved out to more appropriate place. That is avoiding lazy people, not associating with lazy people. And the tenth one is associating with the zealous, industrious people or yogi. And what are those yogis who are putting effort? You know, they are not slacking. Meditation starts at 4 30. They are already there at 4 o'clock. Meditation stops at 10 o'clock according to the schedule. But keep on practicing till 11 o'clock. Those are the people, those are the yogis who are industrious, who put forth effort, who put forth effort to acquire in general one word, wholesome karma. Or the practice. Associate it with them, live with them, be with them. They are at 4 o'clock, be there at 4 o'clock. There is practice still 11 o'clock, be there at 11 o'clock, or even 11 30. This 9 and 10 of white lazy associate with the industrious person. The Buddha sees what kind of influence the environmental conditions has on people. The environment is always conditioning us. He sees it very clearly. And if we are in a certain environment, slowly and slowly we turn and molded by that environment. Whether good or bad, if it is good, you are molded into the better shape. If it is a bad environment, you are molded into the worst shape. Environment is always controlling and conditioning you. Keep that in mind. But you have a choice. The choice is choose the right environment. That's a message Buddha's passing, not only giving you these two points to arouse energy only. If you look deeper, there are so many things we can learn from Buddha's teaching. That's number 10. Number nine, number 11. Number 11 is simply put is incline your mind towards. Incline your mind is you direct yourself to do to be mindful in all four postures. I'm going to be mindful while I'm sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. In every posture I will be mindful. You just incline. I will do so. And I will do so till I reach the goal. Incline your mind of reaching the goal, attaining, completing it. That's the eleven. And if you have these eleven, one or the other or a group of them will suddenly arouse your energy and your effort will be swimmingly going. By doing so, your mind, your cold mind will become worn and then hot. Once it becomes hot, the minds become fluid, swift, and awake, and be able to observe the objects with full efficiency. These are the ones it's written in the scripture, but the take is a little different the way I talk, because if we talk formally, it will be a long one. So in here we talk about laziness with regard to a certain situation, and also laziness can arise from the basic in you. The seed. The basic in you is even before you start it, you're coming to the meditation. Of course, you are here, but still your sadda, one is sadha, your confidence, your confidence and faith in the practices, maybe I'll go give a try. Maybe it's good, maybe not. In other words, your confidence is not that strong. And also chanda, desire to reach the goal, desire to have the benefits, is not strong. So if your confidence and desire is not strong, also laziness will arise a lot sooner than you expect it. So if the sata and chandar are weak, confidence and desires are weak, laziness will come in. And also lack in the progress of insight. You're meditating one month, two months, into the three months. No progress, no insight, suddenly it will go back. The laziness will come back. Just keep that in mind in here one thing is we do physically in our daily life exercise. When you do exercise, your muscle becomes strong and firm and healthy. When you don't do your muscle becomes weak and flabby. That is natural. The same thing. If you don't do mental cultivation, mental development, your mind will be weak. If you have no cultivation, your mind will be weak. If you do mental cultivation, your mind will become stronger. So, weak mind, strong mind, weak mind will go into that non-energetic sleepy mode, and strong mind will go into the energetic and awake mode. These are simple cause and effect, nothing special. Simply just to know and understand and apply as it is necessary. And we are always talking about the lack of energy, lack of effort, because most of the yogis fall into that category. That's why we emphasize on that. But at the same time, for some there's an excessive effort. They put effort and we call it excessive. Because when you put excessive effort, what happens is automatically you become restless. As you become restless, you can't concentrate. You're still putting effort, you become restless. You can't concentrate. Why? You put so much effort, you cannot hit the object. You overshop the object. Overshop the object means the object is not arising yet. Okay, your mind is right there. In other words, you are there before the object. You are in the future. That's what's happening. And why is that? Because the basic reason for that is your mind has a very tight grasping on the attainment. I want to I want it. I want to have insight. I want to experience it, I want to have attainment, and I want to have enlightenment. Your mind is grasping on the result ahead of time so tightly, you are putting so much excessive effort and you are overshooting the object of observation. In other words, the mind goes to the future and you will be restless. And when you are restless, there's no concentration. That's what happened. And if something like that happened, a few people think about it, reflect about it. Me putting so much effort and then getting restless, and that that is something it won't benefit me in any way. First of all, you must know there's no benefit and keep on putting that level of effort, excessive effort. There's no benefit. What do you do? And at that moment, we already explained the reason because of your grasping for the inside. Simply practice without any expectation. If you put no expectation, come what may, I'm practicing. If you put no expectation, it will become balanced. Concentration and effort. The effort will reduce, reduce, reduce. To the certain point, it will harmonize with the concentration. Be relaxed. In other words. Okay? So be relaxed is where do you draw the line? Relax. If you relax, then it becomes casual and it becomes lazy. Now you are saying, be relaxed, what do I do? How do I do? Okay, let's look at it this way. We give you instruction, sitting posture. Okay, for sitting meditation. Cross-legged, back straight, neck straight. Keep it erect. Okay. Cross leg, you make sure your back is straight, your tack is straight, your shoulder, your neck, your face. When you do like that, under the instruction, what happened? Automatically try it. Right now, automatically you become tense and tight. Proper sitting, back strength, neck string, shoulder, neck, face. And then the last word after the instruction is but also be relaxed. And then at that moment you simply relax it. Even though you relax it, your posture doesn't change. Your posture is perfect. Relax doesn't mean that it collapsed what you are supposed to do. You are still doing everything, but without tightening it, without the tension. You don't reduce anything that you are supposed to do, but with the relaxed attitude. That's what it is. If you have put excess effort to relax, relax means you are still doing everything that you are supposed to do, everything that the instruction said, but with the relaxed attitude. And if you do that automatically, the effort that you are applying will automatically come into harmony with the concentration that is developing. That is how you can harmonize your effort if you have an excessive effort. So once you know about this one, okay, let's use an example and talk about it. The key thing to balance the effort and concentration is to know exactly how to practice correctly. That's the key part. Exactly how to practice correctly. Without going through the whole nine yards. What is it? First and foremost you do. You must be at the present moment and be with the object that is arising at the moment. So basically, you know there are many objects. And even the rising and falling, it's not only one rising and falling. It rise, disappear, fall, disappear, rise, disappear, fall, disappear, rise, fall, touch, touch, sitting. They appear and they disappear, they appear and just disappear. Appear means they are rising. The first thing to do in this meditation is to direct the mind, to aim the mind to the object that is arising at the moment. That's all. Aim directly to the object that is arising, not after it arose, not when it disappeared, arising. That's aiming. Precise aim. That is the key in the practice. Precise aim. If you aim it precisely, you are being mindful. You know exactly when it is coming. But what happened was if you're aiming, if you're aiming is it comes up, only after it comes up, you aim it. And if you aim it, what happened? You already lost it. You are observing the past, not the present. And the other one is we already said it, if you aim it before it arrives, then you are in the future. So future and the past. You are never at the present. Do you understand what I explained in a very simple way? We have a game and a fairness and stuff like that. Those are about five or six holes, and out of that five or six hole, the little ground hop, a doll of a ground hop pops up, and your job is to beat up with the stick whenever it comes up. And you don't know from which hole it is going to come up. And sometime, but your expectation is so much before it pops, you go and bang the hole. Then you're ahead of the time. And sometimes it pops up and you're too late. When you bang it, it's already gone. You missed it. So what you have to do? You must be totally alert and attentive. Luck and attentive. Must know the moment it comes up and you just strike it. So, in other words, you have to aim the moment that's arising. And that's what this mindfulness meditation is. Always alert and attentive. To be aware when the object is arising. Once that is done, everything follows fluidly. So this precise observation is very important. This precise observation that aiming, in other words to put it, one must be fully aware from the moment that an object arises until it passed away, from the beginning to the end. If you are aware of it, what happened? At that moment you are mindful. In other words, at that moment you have concentration. And that concentration is in perfect harmony, perfect balance with the effort. That's how one applies. So keep in mind, always stay face to face with the object, never blink. May all of you be able to understand and practice and master how to balance effort and concentration, how to harmonize effort and concentration, and attain insight into the true nature of mind and matter as soon as possible.