This post is about the philosophical practice and topic of Skillful Effort. There are at least two major dimensions to Skillful Effort, one dealing with the manner in which we exert effort, the other with the immediate ends toward which we direct our exertions. Today I’ll approach this second dimension, using a canonical rubric known as the Four Great Efforts. These are four interrelated, immediate ends toward which to direct one’s effort, and since it’s a huge topic, this post will limit itself to the first great effort.
The First Great Effort
The first Great Effort is: to prevent unskillful states of mind from arising. All four of these great efforts use the language of skillful and unskillful. Skillful, basically, means tending to lead toward freedom, goodness, and in the big picture, happiness. Unskillful means just the opposite.
The first great effort, then, directs you to prevent from arising mental states that will tend to lead you (and others) away from freedom, goodness, and in the big picture, happiness.
This sounds eminently reasonable to me. It also sounds like something well worth prioritizing. Some classic and very general examples of unskillful states, by the way, are greed or craving, and aversion or hate.
Considering Some Unskillful States
Aversion or hate of course feel immediately unpleasant. They can also lead us toward actions that cause us further pain.
Greed or craving inherently involve a sense of want or dissatisfaction, a sense of being unsatisfied with respect to the object of greed. The suffering in greedful states may not be as obvious as the suffering in aversive states, but it is there. Moreover the satisfaction of a greedful desire often either does not come or is fleeting, and, as with aversion/hate, greed/craving can lead to actions causing us and others further pain.
Moreover, there is an “opportunity cost.” Many mental states are more pleasant, or more beneficial, than unskillful states such as craving or aversion. Even simply a feeling of alert and clear peace is highly preferable, as would be any of the four divine dwellings, however imperfectly realized.
Dwelling in unskillful mental states deprives you of the benefit and (in some cases) the pleasure of more skillful states. Thus it is a skillful directing of effort, to direct effort toward preventing unskillful states from arising in the first place.
This Prevention Is Not Dissociative
I want to add that preventing unskillful states from arising is emphatically not the same as dissociative psychological repression of such states. Repression pushes out of awareness something that has arisen, and is therefore unable to skillfully handle or understand the unskillful state.
“It’s certainly easier to bury our negative qualities deep in the unconscious mind than to let them go. Greed, anger, hatred, sloppiness, arrogance, snobbishness, spitefulness, vindictiveness, and fear may have become our familiar, everyday habits. We’d rather not make the effort to give them up. Yet, at the same time, we want to be happy and to move toward our spiritual goals.” (Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.)
The point I want to make with this quoted passage is that overcoming unskillful states is directly opposed to pushing them out of awareness or not noticing them.
Considering the Actual Practice
The most basic and general practical method for preventing unskillful states is the continuous application of Skillful Mindfulness. (I will try to write more about this in subsequent posts. There are also some very helpful resources in the form of book and audio programs that provide detailed guidance.)
Although our effort to prevent unskillful states from arising will yield positive results, it will not be one hundred percent effective. Sometimes, unskillful states will arise. Maybe sometimes this results from a failure on our part to enact the first great effort. However, although we have some agency, there are very definitely limits to how much we can control, at any given moment, which mental state arises.
Part of Skillful Understanding, after all, is understanding that just about everything is “not-self,” which includes not being in control of it. Without diminishing the first great effort, we can recognize that our present mental states arise in large part from past mental states, from latent tendencies or patterns in the mind, and from whatever thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and impulses are impacting and present in the mind right now. Most of this isn’t particularly “up to us.” We didn’t choose for this particular configuration to arise and function as it does, nor can we simply will it away.
Hence the second great effort: directing one’s effort toward overcoming unskillful states which have arisen and are present. I’ll take up this second great effort in the next post.
SeekerFive creates expressive photographic artwork:
Instagram @intentional_camera_magic.
Etsy at elementalexpressive.etsy.com.
SeekerFive is collecting and developing resources to help people with philosophical practice and study at philosophicadvising.com.
What if you don’t think about any of this because you never learned not to trust your instinct and it does a good job discerning all the “things” that might be understood by your brain effort?
If I understand the question correctly, then you’re wondering about a case where someone has no need of an explicit, verbal-conceptual framework in order to discern and embody skillful effort. When I consider the question, it seems to me that if something truly is not needed, then it is not needed. Possibly what might still be needed however is a steadiness of mindful awareness and a curiosity about the mind’s reactions and so forth.