Greetings,

This month we'll be exploring energy. In a way, you could see the Paramis as divided in half. The first half involves cultivating a mind that can act in a non harming way. The second half is what non harming action looks like. So, generosity, ethics, renunciation, and wisdom are preparatory in nature. Energy is the bridge that moves us into conduct. Like all Dhamma, energy is not physically moving us. We are learning to move by intention. This is an important distinction. By practicing with the Paramis, we are not cultivating better selves, we are opening the heart and learning to trust it. I have a quote on my bookshelf that says, "Follow the heart, it knows the way." This is something we have to learn to do. Our typical upbringing teaches us to trust the mind and follow it. Dhamma teaches us to trust the heart and follow it. We need energy to do this.

I believe the nature of energy or viriya has three basic qualities - movement, nowness, and sustainability. I almost want to only say viriya because viriya, like most Dhamma concepts, is different from the ordinary use of the word. Energy, in its ordinary use, implies a physical force, a pushing or exertion. Although viriya involves effort, it is of a different nature. Think of the difference between an old fashioned pushing lawnmower and a gas or electric mower. The pushing lawnmower requires your physical force for it to move. On the other hand, the gas or electric mower moves from its own internal sustained energy. When we cultivate viriya, we are cultivating the inner energy necessary to sustain our actions/conduct in a non harming way. This is a natural sustaining quality, not something you have to think about or remember to do in every situation. You cultivate the attitude of open heartedness and viriya enables that open heartedness to sustain itself in any and every situation. This is we're cultivating - the ability to act out of kindness and non harm without having to force ourselves to do it.

The second quality of nowness is a term I borrowed from Pema Chodron. She is the first person I ever heard say "nowness." It means a persistence reconnecting with the present moment. It requires that we stop trying to make our practice be a certain way or make our actions be a certain way. We actually get out of the way. In doing so we generate a lot of viriya to see how we are actually being. We're using the viriya for both restraint and to see the truth of the moment. We see the wholesomeness of our conduct and the unwholesomeness of our conduct. We see the results that come from wholesome conduct and the results that come from unwholesome conduct. Viriya is what gives us the capacity to choose wholesome actions. If we stop fighting and struggling to make the present moment be a certain way, that energy that we use fighting and struggling becomes available for choice. It is what gas and electricity does for an old pushing mower. It becomes the energy rather than the physical exertion. When we get out of the way in the present moment, our intention towards open heartedness, kindness, and non harm has the ability to move us towards such results. If we're fighting to get something, our own greed, hatred and delusion taints the moment and constricts the free flow of our energy.

The last quality of sustainability is by far the most important aspect to get about viriya. In the ordinary sense of energy, we think we have to make something happen and we have to keep it going. So you have to make something good happen to you and you have to keep it from falling away. It is the underlying struggle of the eight worldly concerns - gain/loss, pleasure/pain, praise/blame, and fame/ill-repute. We spend an insane amount of time trying to stay on the upside of these concerns. It is so ridiculous because if you have one, you will absolutely have the others. I hope you can see how wasted our energy is trying to stay on the positive side. Viriya keeps us connected to our open heartedness, our sense of kindness, and our sense of non harm. It sustains the felt sense of these qualities, regardless of which side of the concern we are on. When we cultivate viriya, we are learning to sustain our attention on what is not conditional. These heart qualities of the Paramis are every bit as real as the building we live in, the bed you sleep in, the food you eat. The difference is that they are not subject to the rise and fall of the worldly winds and can thereby provide a stronger foundation for you to put your trust in.

As with all the Paramis, viriya is not something you can make yourself know. This is something you have to learn to feel. It comes from your willingness to feel the movement (the three characteristics) in the present moment. Over time you learn to be aware of the presence of unskillful or harmful behavior because you know the felt sense of it. You learn to abandon that behavior and prevent it from arising in the future, not out of physical or psychic force, but out of the wisdom of the harm it causes. Simultaneously, you learn to cultivate the arising of skillful or helpful behavior because you know the felt sense of it and you learn how to sustain this presence. It's a gradual training; it's a lifetime training and it is well worth the effort. This month we'll share different stories around viriya. Each practitioner will share their experience from their own perspective. The more we listen to voice of another, the more we will understand the nature of viriya.

With a deep bow,

Tuere Sala