From: Greg Sanders <sanders@iitmax.iit.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Effort vs clinging on the spiritual path
Date: 21 Nov 1992 16:24:09 -0800
Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandman.caltech.edu

Silently trimming down the quotes here...

In article <1egkbqINNabr@sandman.caltech.edu> tagi@cup.portal.com writes:
>Roger Adams writes:
>> The spiritual path requires effort with very few exceptions. There was a
>> man who wrote a book some years ago called (I think) _The lazy man's way
>> to enlightenment_".
>
>
>Response:
>
>That man was Thaddeus Golas.  His small book is a very important text
>and it illustrates just how far we have strayed from our own naturality
>in search of 'spiritual perfection'.

It would seem to me that we find ourselves suffering due to our attachments
and that while the enlightened life (being fully present in each moment) has
the simplest imaginable description, we find it takes sustained strong effort
to put into practice.  We have a lifetime of misusing our minds and we find
ourselves regarding the present moment as unsatisfactory (wanting "something"
and "more") and finding ourselves constantly withdrawing from the present
into random thoughts.  Attachment.

>I like to argue against this 'work-hard ethic' and refer the interested
>reader to Taoism, wherein one does not seize on either effort or laziness
>and just relaxes, letting Tao flow upon Hir course.

Of course this is obviously easy...but just try to do it  :-)
 
>Any truly 'lazy' path does not quote because it is too burdensome to quote.

Burdensome ???

>One can say what one means without using the words of another and the
>energy to regurgitate.

One may also respect the authorship of phrases and ideas.  Oh well, this
is a tangent.

>Clinging is clinging.  We don't like it.  Let's abolish it!  Let's make
>sure that nobody clings to anything.  Let so focus on clinging that we
>begin to cling to clingingness and its cessation!  Argh!  :/  Perhaps we
>ought just sit at home and watch football instead.  Spiritual practice!

This is real confusion about effort on the spiritual path.  The clinging
is natural, but is delusion.  It takes effort to "stay with" the present
moment, to be really fully present in it.  If you are doing a formal
practice like following the breath, for there to be just the breath. 
If walking down the street for there to be just walking down the street.
It is just throwing your heart and your very life into your own life.
The effort is really just being so totally involved in the moment, the
task, the activity, that there is no room to cling or not cling and no
room for conceptual dust to arise or accumulate.  Ultimately, the mind
becomes quiet, you become one with whatever is happening (samadhi) and
effort vs. non-effort disappears.  (As an aside, awakening if it comes,
comes in this state of oneness.)   Quoting from a Zen Master truly
renowned for intensity,

     When hungry, I eat.
     When tired, I sleep.
     Fools may laugh, but
     the wise will understand.

                -- Rinzai


This is my understanding of practice and effort .  Thank you.

                             -- Greg