Mind Your Effort

 Student: you mentioned that effort will create more struggles?

Suzhen:  Of course we need to work hard for our job, but we shouldn’t work hard in order to gain recognition. This is because the drive for recognition is because of an inner lack and fear. We want to achieve some goal, but achieving this goal won’t make us feel comfortable. This equates to illusion and it’s not what we really need.

Take the example of practicing Qigong, others are practicing it and I don’t know how to do it so I have to work hard. Actually, this is out of an effort, maybe I am not as good as other, or I feel frustrated or scared, or want to be as good as others. So there must be lots of thoughts beneath our desire to be better so we need to pay attention to them.  Maybe on the surface it is like that, but there is something else beneath it. When you try to dig deep, you will discover more; maybe you will be surprised by the reason and then you can loosen up from the grip.

Effort is an escape because our mind directly thinks that “I cannot be like this, I need to be better”, so it will try to be better.  But the problem is, it is not that you make more effort to achieve, but because you think “you are not good enough”. Your effort is toward the external world. You think you have to make more effort to be better.  This is a wrong direction.  When the direction is wrong, your effort will be endless.  In the end, you will feel powerless and frustrated.  You have to work from your internal world.

If you find Suzhen Liu’s writings helpful, please check out her book, ‘Letting Go—Release Your Suffering’ on Amazon. 

https://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-Release-Your-Suffering/dp/1982258004