“The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.”
When I turned 75, I took up playing the guitar.
I have found it is not an effortless endeavor. I have to make great effort to remember the notes, find the right chords, keep the beat, strum the right strings, and remember the words. And things don’t come as easily when your fingers are not as nimble as they once were, when neurons don’t fire as quickly as they used to, and when doing three things at a time poses a much greater challenge to your brain than when you were younger. Just to be clear, I’m not aspiring to be able to play as effortlessly as Chris Thile or Sarah Jarosz whose mastery on many instruments is a wonder to behold. I’m just hoping to more effortlessly find a few more chords.
Sometimes, unfortunately, all the effort in the world doesn’t result in effortlessness. The point is that we always need to start again, wherever we are, with the first step.
In preparation for this post, I wrote my Qi Gong Master Luke Chan for his thoughts about making effort toward effortlessness. Several years ago, I spent a month with Luke in China making great effort to achieve some degree of effortlessness in practicing positive health behaviors. Luke has made great effort in his life to find harmony and wholeness. And I can say without reservation that he lives and moves as effortlessly as anyone I have ever known. Watching him walk is like seeing poetry in motion. I don’t know how he can be so loose and still stay together. Here is his response.
“A 1000 mile journey begins with the first step. Taking a step is making effort. However the effort is effortless because the step is so small. After each step we go back to zero and begin again. This is the same for qigong—we breathe in and out with rest in between. The whole journey is effortless because we take one step at a time ALL THE TIME.
As we practice conscious effort (wuwei) at each breath, we perfect the coordination of our body, mind and spirit to a point that wherever our mind goes our body follows. Life become effortless because our body, mind and spirit act as one, instead of three separate entities fighting among each other and wasting efforts.”
Luke has been my Qi Gong Master for over 20 years. He not only speaks beautiful words effortlessly, but every movement flows in harmony. It is inspiring to watch and listen with deep appreciation for the effort he has made on each step along the way.
The idea of making effort towards effortlessness can be applied to any dimension of life.
In sports, for example, professional athletes exert tremendous effort in making their craft seem effortless. Basketball players shoot 10,000 (or more) free throws to make their shot look easy. Golfers spend hours on the practice range perfecting their swing to the point that it flows naturally. This is true for all professions. Doctors, for example, train for years to be able to do complex procedures with ease.
In this post, I will discuss the effort that goes into making spirituality an integral part of our lives. I don’t pretend to be a master of any of these steps, but I have learned over many decades of effort to get a sense of what steps are required.
As Luke Chan says, the whole journey becomes effortless when we take one step at a time all the time.
So, in my humble view, here are 12 steps to spiritual health and why so much effort is required to make each step effortless.
1. Acknowledge that we are at One with each other.
Our mortality and impermanence puts us all in the same boat. Breath and death are two realities we all experience. What takes effort is dealing with the pulls of polarization that make us feel like we are separate. The truth is that there is no separation at death.
2. Come to peace with your life and death.
Accept what life brings you and when your end arrives. Acceptance brings peace. What takes effort is not getting caught up in wars within ourselves or wars with different tribeswhoever they may be.
3. Stay calm, still and centered.
All spiritual practices depend on staying calm and finding stillness. In her wonderful book, Calm Clarity, Due Quach shares all the trials and tribulations she endured in order to perceive her life and the world with calm clarity. But each day requires us to begin again with the first step. What makes this step difficult is the chaos that surrounds us. We are bombarded with bad news on a daily basis. It takes effort to remain calm in the midst of crisis and chaos.
4. Bring more of yourself to more moments.
Stay in the here and now. Be present. We need to be more fully present wherever we are and fully care for whomever we are with. This step takes effort because we are constantly distracted with demands, desires and changing conditions.
5. Lighten your being. Live with humility.
We need to take ourselves less seriously. One of the things I admire most about Luke is the fact that he doesn’t claim to be a guru. It’s worth noting that anyone who poses as a guru is probably not one. This step takes effort because life can be heavy and our egos are needy and greedy.
6. Find ways to be kind. Seek ways to be helpful.
Simple acts of kindness can improve the collective spirit. Just reaching out to people and greeting them enthusiastically can go a long way toward growing your spirit and warming other people’s lives. This step takes effort because we are often confronted with mean and selfish behavior. Our impulse is to return those behaviors in kind instead of being kind.
7. Extend love to as many people as you can as often as you can.
Empathy, forgiveness and compassion are the pillars of love. This step is particularly challenging because we live in a world in which we see many people fueling the fires of hatred, racism, and divisiveness. Be generous with your love.
8. Smile on the world. Plan on life not turning out how you planned it.
We can always count on life throwing us curve balls or worse. The question is how we react to the tragedies and traumas in our life. Do we see them as opportunities to learn and grow or do we use them as excuses to feel victimized? This step is difficult not only because life is often unfair, it can also be cruel. Some events are simply beyond our ability to cope. And we see a lot of frowning, scowling, and growling because of that fact. A smile helps us relax and puts us in a place where we may be able to take the first step.
9. Stay awake to possibility and freshness.
Nature provides us the gift of continual renewal. Leaves fall off the trees in the Fall and Winter, but new buds appear in the Springfresh and full of possibility. Start noticing anew. This step is difficult because we are more inclined to calculate the probability of things not working instead of looking for the possibilities of new ideas and experiences. It is all too easy to become stale, numb and stuck in routines that no longer make sense or serve us well. Being grateful for what we have and what is possible nourishes and ignites our spirits.
10. Unify your body, mind, and spirit. Again, as Luke suggests, “Life become effortless when our body, mind and spirit act as one, instead of three separate entities fighting among each other, wasting efforts.” Making effort is hard work. We can’t afford to waste any. One of my favorite mentors, Gurdjieff, has a lot to say about this issue. One of his foundational beliefs is that “we are three-brained beings reproducing on the planet earth while engaging in reciprocal destruction.” Sort of says it all. It’s difficult to be spiritually healthy when we are fragmented and working against ourselves physically, emotionally, or intellectually. Harmonious unity is at the core of spiritual health.
11. Open to being open.
Yes, we hear a lot about the importance of opening up not only to constructive feedback but also to genuine self-disclosure. But the first question to ask ourselves is “Are we open to being open?” We may be so set in our ways that we close down, shrivel up and protect ourselves. We become like turtles seeking safety in our shells. The problem is that when we close down we miss out on the joy of boundless grace. With so many things threatening our sense of safety and security, its understandable why opening up can be so difficult. But boundlessness cannot be experienced if we shut down. Opening takes effort and willingness to make ourselves vulnerable. By so doing, however, we give ourselves the chance to be more fully embraced than we ever could have imagined.
12. Heal yourself, others, and the environment.
This last step in the one that enables us to join with others in joyful harmony. In Daoism, the fundamental idea is to love yourself, love others, and love Nature. We are all alarmed by the harm we see occurring to all three. We harm ourselves with drugs and excessive demands. We harm others with meanness, guns, and other forms of violence. We harm Nature by our reckless and irresponsible behavior. We can take the first healing step by beginning to treat ourselves, our neighbors, and Nature with patience, gentleness, and sensitivity.
In a recent article (February 24, 2020) in the New York Times, Margaret Renkl commented:
“It makes more sense to seek out daily causes for praise than daily reminders of lack. So here is my resolution: to find as many ordinary miracles as a waterlogged winter can put forth, as many resurrections as an eerily early springtime will allow. Tiny beautiful things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world, and I am going to keep looking every single day until I find one.”
To me, that’s about as good a summary as I could imagine for capturing the thoughts in this post and for making the effort and taking the first step toward spiritual health.
I’m hoping that my efforts at learning to play the guitar will result in a few more harmonious chords to brighten my life. And I’m hoping that we can all begin anew each day to work on each of these 12 steps as best we can so that, over time, with much effort, we can effortlessly create a more harmonious, just, and spiritually healthy world. May it be so.
Love it Ricky! You know I love 12 step programs! Thank you!
Thank you for always sharing your self with others Rick. You are my effortless friend!