The Joy of Effortless Living

What is effort? When you make an effort, you are putting energy in to achieve something. For example, if you want to finish a piece of work, and you're not enjoying the work, you need to energy in to complete the job.

If you think of yourself as the body-mind organism only, you certainly do need to make efforts. The body exerts itself to achieve outcomes, right from the moment you get out of bed, to the time to crawl back into bed. And then, some people even try to put effort into falling asleep, although this, of course, can never work.

However, if you consider yourself as awareness, beingness, or that which you cannot observe, the witness, you never make any effort to do anything. Effort arises and passing in awareness, in the mind, but you don't do the effort.

Walking in nature can be a wonderful way of observing your bodymind do its effortless wondering around. The process can be very nourishing. I spend half an hour yesterday, pottering around in a local park, and was fascinated by how my bodymind moved around and reacted to the deers, the pond, dogs and other people.

Watching yourself is just as fun as watching other people when you're sitting in a cafe. Once you stop thinking of the bodymind as an object to be judged, you can relax and watch the bodymind operate naturally from moment to moment.