In Buddhism, there is an Eight-Fold Path to enlightenment, recommended to break the chain of suffering (called “Dukkha”).  The Eight-Fold Path as explained by most texts takes awhile to digest, and its components overlap in many ways.  It is a product of Eastern thought, which for lack of a better term, requires some absorption.  The path is a powerful concept to understand and put into practice in your pursuit of virtue.  Today, I will reflect on two of the eight because they have a lot to do with our Fourth Anchor, Persistence:  Right Effort and Right Concentration.  Together these two Eastern concepts will help me convey the value of persistence.

If we were to have perfect patience and nothing else we would wait for things to happen…and nothing would happen.  To complement patience, I would say we need to take actions to make ourselves and our surroundings better and to do so with persistence.   Persistence implies hard work…persistence is hard work.  We try and try over and over again, we fail, we get up.  To maintain our sanity, we must have patience; but to keep going, we must persist!

Champion Powerlifters Must Have Persistence – Lots of Right Effort!
(www.liftingpictures.com)

But at what should we persist?  Hitler was persistent, and so was Osama Bin Laden.  How do I guide myself to persistent good?  I have found the concept of Right Effort and Right Concentration to be very helpful guide to how we should persist.

It is at this point that I will explain Right Effort.  Right Effort requires that we persistently make effort to become more virtuous.  According to Zen this effort, to be right, should be focused on 4 endeavors:

1. Prevent arising unwholesome views and feelings
2. Abandon unwholesome views and feelings you already have
3. Create new wholesome views and feelings
4. Maintain the wholesome views and feelings that you have

This kind of effort requires persistence and lots of concentration.  Which brings us to Right Concentration.  To be persistent in our pursuit of the good, we must maintain our focus on it.  The best way, I think, to do this is to concentrate on what is important.  And the best way to concentrate on what is important is to reflect or meditate on what is important.   Concentrating on what will make us more virtuous is what makes it “right.”  With the Right Effort and Right Concentration, I can eventually get beyond “thinking about virtue” for 5 – 30 minutes a day, and create the motivation to live and act virtuously.

But of course, to be virtuous takes great persistence.  The world around you won’t change very much at all, despite your efforts; however, with time your view and your impact on your immediate world will change for the better.

…as long as you are persistent.