I was thinking about “right effort” last night at the end of our I Liq Chuan class here in Tempe.
Right Effort is something they talk about in Zen as one of the factors of the eightfold path, along with right speech, right action, right livelihood, right intent, right concentration, and right mindfulness. Typically they are categorized as “discipline, concentration, and wisdom.” If you’ve ever gotten an email from me, you may have noticed these three words as part of my signature.
Despite what we want to do with our time, life often gets in the way, throwing a variety of hurdles in our path. As it happens, I’m in the middle of some stuff right now, which is all adding to my “stress bucket”; vehicle troubles, my dad’s health, etc., and my sleep this week hasn’t been ideal, so by the end of class, when we practice our 21 form, I just wasn’t feeling it.