Noble Eightfold Path

Mental Development

Right Effort

(Samma Vayama)

The purification of conduct established
by the prior three factors serves as the basis for the next division of
the path, the division of concentration (samadhikkhandha). This present
phase of practice, which advances from moral restraint to direct mental
training, comprises the three factors of right effort, right
mindfulness, and right concentration. It gains its name from the goal to
which it aspires, the power of sustained concentration, itself required
as the support for insight-wisdom. Wisdom is the primary tool for
deliverance, but the penetrating vision it yields can only open up when
the mind has been composed and collected. Right concentration brings the
requisite stillness to the mind by unifying it with undistracted focus
on a suitable object. To do so, however, the factor of concentration
needs the aid of effort and mindfulness. Right effort provides the
energy demanded by the task, right mindfulness the steadying points for
awareness.

The commentators illustrate the
interdependence of the three factors within the concentration group with
a simple simile. Three boys go to a park to play. While walking along
they see a tree with flowering tops and decide they want to gather the
flowers. But the flowers are beyond the reach even of the tallest boy.
Then one friend bends down and offers his back. The tall boy climbs up,
but still hesitates to reach for the flowers from fear of falling. So
the third boy comes over and offers his shoulder for support. The first
boy, standing on the back of the second boy, then leans on the shoulder
of the third boy, reaches up, and gathers the flowers.36

In this simile the tall boy who picks
the flowers represents concentration with its function of unifying the
mind. But to unify the mind concentration needs support: the energy
provided by right effort, which is like the boy who offers his back. It
also requires the stabilizing awareness provided by mindfulness, which
is like the boy who offers his shoulder. When right concentration
receives this support, then empowered by right effort and balanced by
right mindfulness it can draw in the scattered strands of thought and
fix the mind firmly on its object.

Energy (viriya), the mental factor
behind right effort, can appear in either wholesome or unwholesome
forms. The same factor fuels desire, aggression, violence, and ambition
on the one hand, and generosity, self-discipline, kindness,
concentration, and understanding on the other. The exertion involved in
right effort is a wholesome form of energy, but it is something more
specific, namely, the energy in wholesome states of consciousness
directed to liberation from suffering. This last qualifying phrase is
especially important. For wholesome energy to become a contributor to
the path it has to be guided by right view and right intention, and to
work in association with the other path factors. Otherwise, as the
energy in ordinary wholesome states of mind, it merely engenders an
accumulation of merit that ripens within the round of birth and death;
it does not issue in liberation from the round.

Time and again the Buddha has stressed
the need for effort, for diligence, exertion, and unflagging
perseverance. The reason why effort is so crucial is that each person
has to work out his or her own deliverance. The Buddha does what he can
by pointing out the path to liberation; the rest involves putting the
path into practice, a task that demands energy. This energy is to be
applied to the cultivation of the mind, which forms the focus of the
entire path. The starting point is the defiled mind, afflicted and
deluded; the goal is the liberated mind, purified and illuminated by
wisdom. What comes in between is the unremitting effort to transform the
defiled mind into the liberated mind. The work of self-cultivation is
not easy — there is no one who can do it for us but ourselves — but it
is not impossible. The Buddha himself and his accomplished disciples
provide the living proof that the task is not beyond our reach. They
assure us, too, that anyone who follows the path can accomplish the same
goal. But what is needed is effort, the work of practice taken up with
the determination: “I shall not give up my efforts until I have attained
whatever is attainable by manly perseverance, energy, and endeavor.”37

The nature of the mental process effects a division of right effort into four “great endeavors”:

1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states;
   
2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen;
   
3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen;
   
4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.

The unwholesome states (akusala dhamma)
are the defilements, and the thoughts, emotions, and intentions derived
from them, whether breaking forth into action or remaining confined
within. The wholesome states (kusala dhamma) are states of mind
untainted by defilements, especially those conducing to deliverance.
Each of the two kinds of mental states imposes a double task. The
unwholesome side requires that the defilements lying dormant be
prevented from erupting and that the active defilements already present
be expelled. The wholesome side requires that the undeveloped liberating
factors first be brought into being, then persistently developed to the
point of full maturity. Now we will examine each of these four
divisions of right effort, giving special attention to their most
fertile field of application, the cultivation of the mind through
meditation.

(1) To prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states

The
first side of right effort aims at
overcoming unwholesome states, states of mind tainted by defilements.
Insofar as they impede concentration the defilements are usually
presented in a fivefold set called the “five hindrances”
(pañcanivarana): sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness,
restlessness and worry, and doubt.39
They receive the name “hindrances” because they block the path to
liberation; they grow up and over the mind preventing calm and insight,
the primary instruments for progress. The first two hindrances, sensual
desire and ill will, are the strongest of the set, the most formidable
barriers to meditative growth, representing, respectively, the
unwholesome roots of greed and aversion. The other three hindrances,
less toxic but still obstructive, are offshoots of delusion, usually in
association with other defilements.

Sensual
desire is interpreted in two
ways. Sometimes it is understood in a narrow sense as lust for the “five
strands of sense pleasure,” i.e., agreeable sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, and touches; sometimes a broader interpretation is given, by
which the term becomes inclusive of craving in all its modes, whether
for sense pleasures, wealth, power, position, fame, or anything else it
can settle upon. The second hindrance, ill will, is a synonym for
aversion. It comprises hatred, anger, resentment, repulsion of every
shade, whether directed towards other people, towards oneself, towards
objects, or towards situations. The third hindrance, dullness and
drowsiness, is a compound of two factors linked together by their common
feature of mental unwieldiness. One is dullness (thina), manifest as
mental inertia; the other is drowsiness (middha), seen in mental
sinking, heaviness of mind, or excessive inclination to sleep. At the
opposite extreme is the fourth hindrance, restlessness and worry. This
too is a compound with its two members linked by their common feature of
disquietude. Restlessness (uddhacca) is agitation or excitement, which
drives the mind from thought to thought with speed and frenzy; worry
(kukkucca) is remorse over past mistakes and anxiety about their
possible undesired consequences. The fifth hindrance, doubt,
signifies a chronic indecisiveness and lack of resolution: not the
probing of critical intelligence, an attitude encouraged by the Buddha,
but a persistent inability to commit oneself to the course of spiritual
training due to lingering doubts concerning the Buddha, his doctrine,
and his path.

The first effort to be made regarding
the hindrances is the effort to prevent the unarisen hindrances from
arising; this is also called the endeavor to restrain (samvarappadhana).
The effort to hold the hindrances in check is imperative both at the
start of meditative training and throughout the course of its
development. For when the hindrances arise, they disperse attention and
darken the quality of awareness, to the detriment of calm and clarity.
The hindrances do not come from outside the mind but from within. They
appear through the activation of certain tendencies constantly lying
dormant in the deep recesses of the mental continuum, awaiting the
opportunity to surface.

Generally what sparks the hindrances
into activity is the input afforded by sense experience. The physical
organism is equipped with five sense faculties each receptive to its own
specific kind of data — the eye to forms, the ear to sounds, the nose
to smells, the tongue to tastes, the body to tangibles. Sense objects
continuously impinge on the senses, which relay the information they
receive to the mind, where it is processed, evaluated, and accorded an
appropriate response. But the mind can deal with the impressions it
receives in different ways, governed in the first place by the manner in
which it attends to them. When the mind adverts to the incoming data
carelessly, with unwise consideration (ayoniso manasikara), the sense
objects tend to stir up unwholesome states. They do this either
directly, through their immediate impact, or else indirectly by
depositing memory traces which later may swell up as the objects of
defiled thoughts, images, and fantasies. As a general rule the
defilement that is activated corresponds to the object: attractive
objects provoke desire, disagreeable objects provoke ill will, and
indeterminate objects provoke the defilements connected with delusion.

Since an uncontrolled response to the
sensory input stimulates the latent defilements, what is evidently
needed to prevent them from arising is control over the senses. Thus the
Buddha teaches, as the discipline for keeping the hindrances in check,
an exercise called the restraint of the sense faculties (indriya-samvara):

Restraint
of the senses does not mean
denial of the senses, retreating into a total withdrawal from the
sensory world. This is impossible, and even if it could be achieved, the
real problem would still not be solved; for the defilements lie in the
mind, not in the sense organs or objects. The key to sense control is
indicated by the phrase “not apprehending the sign or the particulars.”
The “sign” (nimitta) is the object’s general appearance insofar as this
appearance is grasped as the basis for defiled thoughts; the
“particulars” (anubyanjana)
are its less conspicuous features. If sense control is lacking, the
mind roams recklessly over the sense fields. First it grasps the sign,
which sets the defilements into motion, then it explores the
particulars, which permits them to multiply and thrive.

To restrain the senses requires that
mindfulness and clear understanding be applied to the encounter with the
sense fields. Sense consciousness occurs in a series, as a sequence of
momentary cognitive acts each having its own special task. The initial
stages in the series occur as automatic functions: first the mind
adverts to the object, then apprehends it, then admits the percept,
examines it, and identifies it. Immediately following the identification
a space opens up in which there occurs a free evaluation of the object
leading to the choice of a response. When mindfulness is absent the
latent defilements, pushing for an opportunity to emerge, will motivate a
wrong consideration. One will grasp the sign of the object, explore its
details, and thereby give the defilements their opportunity: on account
of greed one will become fascinated by an agreeable object, on account
of aversion one will be repelled by a disagreeable object. But when one
applies mindfulness to the sensory encounter, one nips the cognitive
process in the bud before it can evolve into the stages that stimulate
the dormant taints. Mindfulness holds the hindrances in check by keeping
the mind at the level of what is sensed. It rivets awareness on the
given, preventing the mind from embellishing the datum with ideas born
of greed, aversion, and delusion. Then, with this lucent awareness as a
guide, the mind can proceed to comprehend the object as it is, without
being led astray.

(2) To abandon the arisen unwholesome states

Despite the effort at sense control the
defilements may still surface. They swell up from the depths of the
mental continuum, from the buried strata of past accumulations, to
congeal into unwholesome thoughts and emotions. When this happens a new
kind of effort becomes necessary, the effort to abandon arisen
unwholesome states, called for short the endeavor to abandon (pahanappadhana):

Just as a skilled physician has
different medicines for different ailments, so the Buddha has different
antidotes for the different hindrances, some equally applicable to all,
some geared to a particular hindrance. In an important discourse the
Buddha explains five techniques for expelling distracting thoughts.43
The first is to expel the defiled thought with a wholesome thought
which is its exact opposite, analogous to the way a carpenter might use a
new peg to drive out an old one. For each of the five hindrances there
is a specific remedy, a line of meditation designed expressly to deflate
it and destroy it. This remedy can be applied intermittently, when a
hindrance springs up and disrupts meditation on the primary subject; or
it can be taken as a primary subject itself, used to counter a
defilement repeatedly seen to be a persistent obstacle to one’s
practice. But for the antidote to become effective in the first role, as
a temporary expedient required by the upsurge of a hindrance, it is
best to gain some familiarity with it by making it a primary object, at
least for short periods.

For desire a remedy of general
application is the meditation on impermanence, which knocks away the
underlying prop of clinging, the implicit assumption that the objects
clung to are stable and durable. For desire in the specific form of
sensual lust the most potent antidote is the contemplation of the
unattractive nature of the body, to be dealt with at greater length in
the next chapter. Ill will meets its proper remedy in the meditation on
loving-kindness (metta), which banishes all traces of hatred and anger
through the methodical radiation of the altruistic wish that all beings
be well and happy. The dispelling of dullness and drowsiness calls for a
special effort to arouse energy, for which several methods are
suggested: the visualization of a brilliant ball of light, getting up
and doing a period of brisk walking meditation, reflection on death, or
simply making a firm determination to continue striving. Restlessness
and worry are most effectively countered by turning the mind to a simple
object that tends to calm it down; the method usually recommended is
mindfulness of breathing, attention to the in-and-out flow of the
breath. In the case of doubt the special remedy is investigation: to
make inquiries, ask questions, and study the teachings until the obscure
points become clear.44

Whereas this first of the five methods
for expelling the hindrances involves a one-to-one alignment between a
hindrance and its remedy, the other four utilize general approaches. The
second marshals the forces of shame (hiri) and moral dread (ottappa) to
abandon the unwanted thought: one reflects on the thought as vile and
ignoble or considers its undesirable consequences until an inner
revulsion sets in which drives the thought away. The third method
involves a deliberate diversion of attention. When an unwholesome
thought arises and clamours to be noticed, instead of indulging it one
simply shuts it out by redirecting one’s attention elsewhere, as if
closing one’s eyes or looking away to avoid an unpleasant sight. The
fourth method uses the opposite approach. Instead of turning away from
the unwanted thought, one confronts it directly as an object,
scrutinizes its features, and investigates its source. When this is done
the thought quiets down and eventually disappears. For an unwholesome
thought is like a thief: it only creates trouble when its operation is
concealed, but put under observation it becomes tame. The fifth method,
to be used only as a last resort, is suppression — vigorously
restraining the unwholesome thought with the power of the will in the
way a strong man might throw a weaker man to the ground and keep him
pinned there with his weight.

By applying these five methods with
skill and discretion, the Buddha says, one becomes a master of all the
pathways of thought. One is no longer the subject of the mind but its
master. Whatever thought one wants to think, that one will think.
Whatever thought one does not want to think, that one will not think.
Even if unwholesome thoughts occasionally arise, one can dispel them
immediately, just as quickly as a red-hot pan will turn to steam a few
chance drops of water.

(3) To arouse unarisen wholesome states

Simultaneously with the removal of
defilements, right effort also imposes the task of cultivating wholesome
states of mind. This involves two divisions: the arousing of wholesome
states not yet arisen and the maturation of wholesome states already
arisen.

The
first of the two divisions is also known as the endeavor to develop
(bhavanappadhana).
Though the wholesome states to be developed can be grouped in various
ways — serenity and insight, the four foundations of mindfulness, the
eight factors of the path, etc. — the Buddha lays special stress on a
set called the seven factors of enlightenment (satta bojjhanga):
mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquillity,
concentration, and equanimity.

Thus he develops the factors of
enlightenment, based on solitude, on detachment, on cessation, and
ending in deliverance, namely: the enlightenment factors of mindfulness,
investigation of phenomena, energy, rapture, tranquillity,
concentration, and equanimity.46

The seven states are grouped together as
“enlightenment factors” both because they lead to enlightenment and
because they constitute enlightenment. In the preliminary stages of the
path they prepare the way for the great realization; in the end they
remain as its components. The experience of enlightenment, perfect and
complete understanding, is just these seven components working in unison
to break all shackles and bring final release from sorrow.

The way to enlightenment starts with mindfulness.
Mindfulness clears the ground for insight into the nature of things by
bringing to light phenomena in the now, the present moment, stripped of
all subjective commentary, interpretations, and projections. Then, when
mindfulness has brought the bare phenomena into focus, the factor of investigation
steps in to search out their characteristics, conditions, and
consequences. Whereas mindfulness is basically receptive, investigation
is an active factor which unflinchingly probes, analyzes, and dissects
phenomena to uncover their fundamental structures.

The work of investigation requires energy,
the third factor of enlightenment, which mounts in three stages. The
first, inceptive energy, shakes off lethargy and arouses initial
enthusiasm. As the work of contemplation advances, energy gathers
momentum and enters the second stage, perseverance, wherein it propels
the practice without slackening. Finally, at the peak, energy reaches
the third stage, invincibility, where it drives contemplation forward
leaving the hindrances powerless to stop it.

As
energy increases, the fourth factor of enlightenment is quickened. This
is rapture,
a pleasurable interest in the object. Rapture gradually builds up,
ascending to ecstatic heights: waves of bliss run through the body, the
mind glows with joy, fervor and confidence intensify. But these
experiences, as encouraging as they are, still contain a flaw: they
create an excitation verging on restlessness. With further practice,
however, rapture subsides and a tone of quietness sets in signalling the
rise of the fifth factor, tranquillity. Rapture remains present, but it
is now subdued, and the work of contemplation proceeds with
self-possessed serenity.

Tranquillity brings to ripeness concentration,
the sixth factor, one-pointed unification of mind. Then, with the
deepening of concentration, the last enlightenment factor comes into
dominance. This is equanimity, inward poise and balance free from the
two defects of excitement and inertia. When inertia prevails, energy
must be aroused; when excitement prevails, it is necessary to exercise
restraint. But when both defects have been vanquished the practice can
unfold evenly without need for concern. The mind of equanimity is
compared to the driver of a chariot when the horses are moving at a
steady pace: he neither has to urge them forward nor to hold them back,
but can just sit comfortably and watch the scenery go by. Equanimity has
the same “on-looking” quality. When the other factors are balanced the
mind remains poised watching the play of phenomena.

(4) To maintain arisen wholesome states

This
last of the four right efforts aims
at maintaining the arisen wholesome factors and bringing them to
maturity. Called the “endeavor to maintain” (anurakkhanappadhana), it is
explained as the effort to “keep firmly in the mind a favorable object
of concentration that has arisen.”48
The work of guarding the object causes the seven enlightenment factors
to gain stability and gradually increase in strength until they issue in
the liberating realization. This marks the culmination of right effort,
the goal in which the countless individual acts of exertion finally
reach fulfillment.