Hi, my name is Andy and welcome to Radiohead Space and a Thursday morning.
So I'd like you to take a moment to try and think if you're somebody who applies more
effort in life or less effort in life. If you're not sure what that means,
then you use a meditation idea. So in meditation typically we have a personality or a character
trying harder or trying a little bit less. If we are applying too much effort, we might sit
there very sort of tense, very tight, trying to control the meditation in some way.
If we're applying too little effort, then we might be sort of losing concentration a lot,
we might be falling asleep. There's a sweet spot in the middle. If you're not sure whether you're
more of an over effort or under effort kind of person, you could start to notice in everyday
actions as you're driving the car. Are you squeezing the steering wheel to death or you know,
your hands place sort of very lightly on the wheel when you, I don't know, when you cut a slice
of bread, are you tearing it apart? Or is it, you know, a little bit sort of lighter than that?
There's actually lots of clues throughout our day where we start to see not just what's going on in
the mind, but the level of effort that's going into things. There's a great, it's a zen story
where a student goes to his teacher and says, master, you know, it's a martial arts teacher and
this is master, you know, I've long admired your system of martial arts. I'd really like to learn
and master it myself. You know, how long is it going to take? A teacher looks at him and says,
about 10 years and the student really impatient says, but no, no, no, you don't understand.
I'm going to devote all of my time to this, all of my energy, I'll never stop, I keep going,
how long will it take me? And the teacher looks at him and says, hmm, maybe 20 years.
And I think for all of us, we assume that the more effort we apply, the more we're going to get
out of something or the quicker it's going to be. But sometimes, in fact, more often than not,
life is just not like that. Life isn't asking us to apply as much effort as possible. I think, at
least my understanding of it, life, if anything is asking us more to sort of let go of that idea
of trying to control the process. Let go of the idea of needing to force our will and instead
be present, allowing nature to unfold in its own time. There is something beautiful about learning
anything new, a skill, whether it's like martial arts or something else, but it's not something
that we can hurry, it's not something that we can rush. And even if technically, we learn those
things perhaps a little more quickly, then we might have done it another time or then another
person might do. That doesn't mean that we master it. Mastery happens over time. You can't fake that,
you can't force it, can't make it happen in any other way. So whatever you have going on in life,
not trying to squeeze it so tightly, not trying to control it, not trying to force it to make it
happen, but embracing the fact that there is just a course to nature. It unfolds in its own time.
Our job is not to try and control that thing. It's to show up, to be present and allow that to happen.
So as you go through the day today, not only keeping that idea in mind as a broader idea,
because I think it's really helpful throughout so many different areas of our life,
but also noticing the detail, coming back to the idea of how much effort are you putting in,
and when you're walking down the street, how much effort is going into that? When you're, I don't
know, washing the dishes when you're making the bed. There are so many different opportunities in
the day, even brushing your teeth. I've seen people who look like they might actually break the
toothbrush in half as they're brushing their teeth. We don't need to apply so much effort in life.
And it may sound irrelevant. What does it matter how hard we press the toothbrush against our teeth?
It matters because we're training in effort. I hope you found that helpful. We have a great day
today. I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow.
