RIGHT EFFORT
Developing Unarisen Healthy States
Whatever a person frequently
thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their
mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders healthy states, one has
abandoned unhealthy states to cultivate healthy states, and then one’s
mind inclines to healthy states. (MN 19)
Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts
the mind, and strives to develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental
states. One develops the unarisen joy-awakening factor. (MN 141)
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Happiness is a
skill that can be learned, and it can be practiced again and again as a
living presence. We are all capable of experiencing happy and healthy
states of mind, but sometimes we need to remember to experience them as a
conscious and deliberate act. At any point, we can in principle draw
out of a pool of latent tendencies the active manifestation of a
positive state such as joy, thus waking it up and bringing it to life.
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Try the
exercise of deliberately cultivating joy as an active and present state
of mind. This does not mean pretending to be joyful as a kind of false
overlay to feelings that are not joyful. It means consciously developing
actual joy and allowing it to replace whatever other feeling might be
in the mind at the moment. Joy is accessible; it is just a matter of
remembering to get in touch with it as a living emotion.
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Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
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