Welcome to another insightful edition of Mindful Leadership with Mark Lesser. This week, we delve into the complementary practices of effort and effortlessness, exploring how they intersect to enhance our capacity as leaders, teachers, and individuals, especially in these challenging times. Drawing inspiration from various teachings, including Zen Buddhism and popular culture, we’ll seek to understand how balance and awareness can transform our approach to leadership and life.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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[00:00:00] Marc: Welcome to Mindful Leadership with Marc Lesser, a biweekly podcast featuring conversations with leaders and teachers exploring the intersection of keeping our hearts open and effective action in these most uncertain and challenging times. Please support our work by making a donation at Mark lesser slash donate.

Welcome to today’s practice session in which the topic is the practice of effort and effortlessness. And we’ll start with a short sitting, uh, do a little practice together. I’ll say a few words about the topic and then maybe we’ll, we’ll end with a few minutes of sitting together.[00:01:00]

And I am gonna begin with, uh, ringing my, my trustee bell, which I, I think of this bell as kinda a priming, priming us to stop and pause.

So inviting us to create this simple and yet, uh, sacred space,

uh, allowing our attention to. Rest [00:02:00] on our body, on the breath,

on being here,

and especially for today. And a letting go of any extra effort, unnecessary effort.

As much as possible, uh, dropping the, uh, busyness or activities of the day, the to-do lists,

a sense of, uh, deep rest, nothing to uh, accomplish,

nothing to change.

Uh, allowing, you know, allowing the [00:03:00] breath to be full and fluid. And so no, there’s no effort, no effort required in breathing, no effort required really in, uh, being here alive.

Interesting how, you know, effortlessness is a lot like kind of, uh, generosity, being generous with our awareness, our listening,

opening, opening to uh, what’s possible.

And, you know, and keeping it simple, [00:04:00] uh, breathing in and breathing out. And, and one way to, uh, to practice is with each, with each exhale a, uh, kind of letting, letting go. A little bit more relaxed, a little bit more alert. Yeah. So this, um, this quality of effortlessness contains I think, both relaxed and alert, right?

Because we’re not not distracted. We can be here ready for anything.[00:05:00]

You know, just noticing, you know, kinda checking in, checking in with the body, with the breath, you know, letting, letting thinking mind do its thing. And gently, uh, coming back

and noticing any feelings. Like what, where, where are you right now? Just tuning in.

I think of this, this practice is, we are, we are like, uh, we’re like scientists. In which our, our laboratory is

the awareness that we bring to our body. Breath, thoughts and feelings,[00:06:00]

and knowing, knowing ourselves, and going beyond, knowing and letting go.

And, uh, let’s just sit quietly and, um, in, I’ll shortly ring the bell. You can, uh, feel free to, uh, continue sitting or, or join me in this, uh, next, next part of this, uh, time together.

So I wanna talk a little bit about the practice of effort [00:07:00] and effortlessness or. Sometimes, you know, in, um, in Buddhism it’s called Right, right. Effort. Uh, and I think of the, the Star Wars film in which Yoda famously tells Luke Skywalker Do not do or do not. There’s no try. Right. And this, and this is, you know, when Luke doubts.

His ability to access the force. And, you know, and, and I love, uh, I love the film, uh, star Wars and in a way, this concept of the force is like in zen practice or Buddhist practice, it’s like your intuition or your true nature. And I like the story. Uh, a, a great story about effort and effortlessness is a.

Martial arts student who asks his teacher, you know, how long will it take me [00:08:00] to become a black belt? And the teacher responds, oh, about about 10 years. And the student looks puzzled and impatient and says, you know what, if I work harder and I push myself to excel, what if I’m the best student, then how long will it take me in that case?

And the teacher pauses to consider this, uh, additional information. Smiles and looks at the student and says, in that case, it will take 20 years. And, um, you know, uh, Aldos Huxley referred to this as, you know, the Law of Reversed effort, expressing that when we, you know, overtly exert or over exert ourselves or try too hard to achieve something, we may, uh, actually, uh, impede our progress.

And Zen Teacher Suzuki addresses this issue by saying the most important [00:09:00] point in our practice is to have right or perfect effort. And he goes on to say, if your effort is headed in the wrong direction, especially if you’re not aware of this, it is diluted effort. Our practice, our effort and our practice should be directed from achievement to non achievement.

You know, usually when we do something, we want to achieve something, but from achievement to non achievement means to get rid of unnecessary effort. When we make some special effort, you know, to achieve something, there’s some, there’s some excessive quality, something, uh, something that we can, uh, let go of.

And people ask, you know, what does it mean to practice meditation with no gaining idea or what kind of effort is necessary? And here it’s the [00:10:00] effort to let go, the effort to let go of doing, uh, anything extra much like we just did in this short, uh, meditation practice. And I love in, um, in talking about, you know, effort and effortlessness.

Uh, Sri Suzuki and Zenin beginner’s mind says, you are living in this world as one individual, but before you take the form of a human being, you are already here. Always here. We are always here. So he’s talking about, you know, from a very kind of deep and non-dual way of. The, the underlying, the deep practice of effortlessness is to return to our essential oneness, you know, the oneness with everything.

And he goes on to say, [00:11:00] you know, in describing, you know, that how we are always here and a, a different way of looking at, uh, birth and life and death. He says, this is the magic. We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.

So let’s maybe just do, uh, a few minutes of, uh, sitting quietly, uh, together, practicing this again, coming back to letting go of doing anything extra.

So I like you don’t, you know, we don’t need to call this meditation. You don’t need to even, uh, even stop just right now letting go of doing [00:12:00] anything extra. I invite you to be here just, uh, simply. Appreciating being alive. And no matter what, you know, whether you are feeling happy or sad or grieving or excited, you just noticing, just bringing awareness to whatever’s happening right now

effortlessly, uh, wholeheartedly. Something about. Wholehearted practice and nothing to change. Nothing to get

is to hear breathing alive[00:13:00]

and with a sense of a sense of wonder.

Uh, I also sometimes, uh, call this, uh, warm-hearted curiosity. Warm-hearted curiosity is a great path of discovery and, uh, effortlessness and, and also I think the path of being more. Uh, grounded, clear, and effective in, in the world. So, you know, this is the, uh, suggested homework for today or the week. Uh, experiment.

Experiment with noticing any extra effort and see if you can, [00:14:00] uh, let it go. End. And notice if that supports you to be a bit more clear and connected. Connected with yourself and, uh, connected with anyone who you are, uh, interacting with from your family members to people at work, to the checkout. A person at the checkout counter, at the grocery store to, um, this deep sense of, uh, connectedness and respect for everything.

Yeah. The practice of, uh, effort and effortlessness. And I think I’ll as a way of, uh, closing, just, uh, ring my bell.[00:15:00]

I hope you’ve appreciated today’s episode. To learn more about my work, you can visit Marc lesser.net, and if you’re interested in enrolling in a self-directed course, called Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader, please visit www.Marclesser.courses.thinkific.com. This podcast is offered freely and relies on the financial support from listeners like you.

You can donate@marclesser.net slash donate. Thank you very much.

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