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In my last post I told you that effort, itself, is the block in your spiritual practice.
But if effort isn’t the solution, what is?
I encouraged you to stop trying to develop positive qualities and, instead, make your practice about recognizing your True Nature—from which positive qualities shine spontaneously, once obscurations are seen through.
But why is my recommendation sound? How can you trust that giving up effort is the correct path from here? You’ve relied on it all your life. Thus, my asking you to abandon it should be scary. In this post, I’ll tell you why giving up effort isn’t only wise, but necessary for you.
Let’s reaffirm that, here, we’re interested in a particular definition of Truth: Truth that would be true even on an alien planet, among an alien culture that speaks an alien language. Truth that transcends interpretation, speculation, conceptualization, philosophy, opinion and debate.
The problem with effort is that it is applied in a direction, and that direction can be wrong. If you’re trying to achieve some worldly result, you have no choice but to rely on effort. You pick a direction—for example, you select a certain diet, then hope that it will lead to weight loss. If it doesn’t work for you, you try a different diet and, hopefully, you eventually land on one that works.
Now, typical beginner-level spiritual practices are often about achieving a worldly result—for example, breaking a habit of addiction by establishing a habit of meditation. The goal here is simply to be meditating instead of overeating. In this picture, in a sense, it doesn’t matter what’s occurring during your meditation. Sure, we’d like it to be fruitful, but that may well only come after a period of establishing consistency, which is often done by simply “swimming against the current” of the desire to overeat. Effort, here, is appropriate.
But that is not where you are. You’re not yet free of all attachments, but you’ve relinquished enough of them to establish a solid practice. The problem, for you, is that effortful practice has stopped producing fruit.
And here’s why: in relative terms, you are an individual entity with attachments, flaws and faults. But in absolute terms—which is what we’re concerned with in our inquiry into “capital T Truth”—this is not who you really are. And, since there is only one Truth—and since it must, by definition, transcend the thinking, conceptualizing, speculating mind—the application of effort, in which you pick a direction for your practice, is a bad strategy. There are literally infinite ways you can conceive of Truth, but there is only one Truth. Thus, the only way to perceive it is through recognition of what is already and always so. And of course, you must make that recognition for yourself. But my job, as teacher, is to point it out to you. So here it is.
In absolute terms, you are not—and nor were you ever—broken and in need of fixing. This is an assumption. Your True Nature, your “default mode”, is inherently peaceful, clear, content, kind, loving, compassionate, wise, effective—and this has been confirmed by the most dedicated spiritual practitioners throughout history and across global culture.
In the beginning of your practice, you used effort to establish consistency, and you stopped or replaced some of the mental/emotional processes that were obscuring your True Nature. But now, your efforting, itself, is perpetuating the sense of a separate “someone”, which is, fundamentally, what you must see through if you wish to be free from Suffering.
In effortful spiritual practice, there is a “self” who is efforting, and this efforting is built on an assumption that this “self” exists in some absolute, permanent sense—with qualities and characteristics that must be purified, eradicated or improved.
But what’s really going on—in your direct experience—is just a bunch of “stuff”, coming and going ceaselessly. You interpret meaning into this “stuff”—because you were conditioned to do so, just as your parents were, along with their parents before them. And it’s this meaning that creates attachment which, in turn, creates suffering. You can confirm this for yourself if you look honestly enough. Perhaps you’ve already had glimpses.
You experience all “stuff”—sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, feelings, memories—by means of awareness. If you weren’t aware, you would have no experience. This tells us that awareness is fundamental.
Awareness is not a thing but is, rather, like space. It is timelessly and spontaneously present in and in-between all experiences. Thus, if you are anything, you are this fundamental basic space of awareness that is the essence of all experience: not separate from any of it, yet permeating; containing; subsuming all of it. Indeed, everything you take to be “yourself” is, in fact, just more “stuff”. It comes and goes just like everything else. It is only your attachment to it, a bunch of stories assumptions about it, and the simple fact that it shows up more often than other “stuff” that makes you identify with it. This depends upon past and future.
Spirituality 101: in your direct experience, there is no past or future. These are only metal processes, playing out right now.
In the ultimate, uncontrived, natural view, the notion that there is a “self” who must apply effort to purify itself is absurd. There’s not even one of you, so how could there be two? How could there be one self who wants to overeat and another who cracks the whip and says “NO”? In reality, these are just distinct “mind moments”. In one, you dream up a desirous identity; in another, you dream up a disciplined identity.
But awareness itself is never attached; never lacking; never conflicted. Awareness is never affected, influenced, nor harmed by that which comes and goes within it. And the appearance of any “self” is, ultimately, no different to the appearance of a rainbow, a jazz trumpet solo, or a dog relieving itself on a lamppost!
Awareness does not discriminate; it draws no boundaries between anything. Boundaries are created by the thinking mind—the mind that created all the apparent problems you’re seeking to dissolve. And for that thinking mind that insists that its perspective is the only perspective, effortful practices are given as provisional tools: they helped you cut through your most gross attachments and establish a spiritual practice. But now it’s time to relinquish the notion of there being any permanent entity who can be purified, developed or improved. If there truly is only one moment—now—then how can an individual with a story truly exist?
Good news: the practice I’m suggesting does not turn you into some kind of apathetic spiritual zombie. Many people—myself included—hearing all of this for the first time suspect that if they give up effort they’ll never do anything. This is because the only way most people have ever done anything is by bullying themselves into it. There is, sometimes, a period of deep rest following realization. The small, personal will cannot survive this realization, and people often must learn how to operate, instead, on naturally arising compassion. But I assure you, it is a far more potent fuel than shame, guilt and anxiety. More good news: I’ve become very effective at guiding people through this stage quickly.
I know this teaching can seem abstract, confusing, even destabilizing. Destabilization is actually a strong indicator of comprehension, but it must be handled carefully. For this reason, if you’re feeling destabilized, I strongly recommend taking my 1-minute quiz. Afterward, I’ll send some guidance specific to your position in this whole picture.
In my next post, I’ll tell you exactly how to establish an effortless practice. If you want to catch that post, subscribe to my newsletter.
With love from my sofa,
Dan 💙
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