Patience, mindfulness and effort

I wrote this a while back, but didn't post it. It's quite long and philosophical, though it has some practical application and is something I've learned (am still learning) through a lot of failure

Patience, mindfulness and effort
I tend to think a lot. Throughout my life every day I have sought to find some kind of formula, method or answer to problems, which generally would consist of getting results in the exterior world at something or other. At some point I began to see that over-thinking things itself was part of the problem. When I made attempts to lessen thought, it proved wholy beyond my ability. I think a big lesson in life for me has been to acknowledge how little control one has over one's own behavior. As a kid you think you can simply DO anything you want. You think can choose to not care about things, you can choose to be happy and that you can just summon up motivation to do things at will. One of the biggest examples of this was the fact that the harder I tried (namely at volleyball) the worse I seemed to perform. Other people who cared a lot less seemed to fair a lot better. This paradox has always stayed with me.

It is this paradox that drove me to self help books, Western philosophy, Eckhart Tolle, David Bohm, Krishnamurti and finally Eastern philosophy (namely Buddhism). This however still did not lessen the thinking, nor solve the paradox in any real way (even though it brought a lot of apparent 'undertanding'). The only progress I could detect seemed to becoming at an extremely slow pace and seemed to be coming from simple 'life experience'. Even when I started practising meditation, the thoughts and with it, obsession was not kept at bay.. though perhaps lessened a little.

I remember at one time, years back I thought I had solved the problem, the solution being patience. I soon forgot about it however, coming up with some new different answer. It wasn't till I met a specific individual during a trip to London that I started to see just how important patience really was. He told me that people like me (with an obsessive tendency) try too hard, which leads to self destruction through perfectionism and too high standards, which leads to frustration, harsh self critizisem and under estimatiom of what one does achieve. The way to combat this was to be ever watchful of this tendency and to frequently take two steps back when the tendency reared it's ugly head. This seemed to make sense but was also very counter-intuitive, since it is saying, if you want to achieve something, you should NOT try, you should let it slide and hang back. This individual also left me with the mysterious phrase "with humans, slow is fast".

After slipping into another few bouts of obsessiveness which lead to a lot of frustration, I decided to give this taking two steps back method my complete attention. I stopped the activities I was trying to achieve at almost completely and simply focused on being happy with what I had. It worked wonderfully, I became relaxed and everything seemed to flow. However in the background there was always that voice saying that though I did feel happy and relaxed, I was not actually doing what I should be doing. Every time I'd start to try to achieve again, the obsession would come rushing back and it would not take long before frustration, arrogance, perfectionism and anger would set in again. This would lead me to take my foot off the gas again and simply relax. This has been going on like this for the last two years almost. There would be progress, but at very slow rate, due to lack of effort I was able to put in.

This is when I went to stay at the monastry at the monk for a month project. I do not remember the exact moment when I realized it, but at some point in meditation, I saw that patience (taking two steps back) was indeed the most important thing. If, in meditation, you attempt to see truth, all you will see is your own desire to see, hense you will be chasing your own tail. As you can read in an earlier post I asked the Abbot of my monastry what he thought of my findings pertaining to patience. He whole heartedly agreed, but after his explanation as to why patience was important he added: "but the Buddha taught, patience, not enough, also: effort!". This was the beginning of insight into the subtle balance between patience and effort. I knew the answer to my problem had to lie somewhere in this, but (unsuprisingly) I didn't seem to be able to figure it out intellectually (by thinking).

During my meditation retreat I think I difinitively 'solved' the problem as far as it can be solved. I remember one day being so tired, that during meditation I decided to simply put my thoughts to rest, which is the equivalent of patience. This leads to a state of acceptance in the present moment. If one accepts the present moment, there is no need for thought (thought after all is created by desire (for more favorable future situations)). This will cause thought to slow down. Once it is slowed down it is possible to observe the separate thoughts, which in Buddhism is called mindfulness. Mindfulness, through noting of thoughts and phenomena in the exterior world, makes apparent the unreality of thoughts and phenomena, which makes them lose their controle over 'you'. Only in this state of relaxation and seeing through mindfulness does it make sense to put in effort. If these two former conditions are not met, effort will be directed into thought, as opposed to positive action in the actual world.

If for instance, patience / relaxation is not met and one starts at the stage of mindfulness, one will become obsessive about mindfulness, leading one to desparately attempt to see, or to perfectionistically attempt to note everything in a way that conforms to one's own 'expectations'.

If relaxation and or mindfulness is not met and there is only effort, effort will lead to over-thinking, perfectionism, frustration and anger. For here effort means forming an image in your mind of what you're directing effort at, which leads your awareness away from the present moment. The mental image is always synonymous to a kind of expectation, because you have a specific image in your mind (which you always make favorable of course). Striving to make reality conform to this image in your head, creates performance anxiety / stress (i.e. being nervous before your presentation, etc), because you're unsure whether you'll be able to live up to your own expectations. If you somehow manage to fulfill your expectations, this will lead to yet higher expectations for the subsequent opportunity for performance, till one is unable to meet the expectations. If one is not able to meet the expectations, this leads to further thought in trying to solve the problem. The problem being, the failure to conform to the expectations. One fails to see that having the expectations in the first place is the real problem. Adequate mindfulness will recognize the mental image as it arizes and through noting it, it will simply vanish, leaving no room for expectations.

If mindfulness is not met and only relaxation / patience and effort are, then relaxation / patience will soon be turned into its opposite by effort. It is only mindfulness that can see to it that effort is direct at the actual world and not at thought.