Inner Strength - Access to Insight

88ConsciousnessesIn all our activities, persistence and endurance are things we have to fosterwithin ourselves at all times. There have been cases, both in the past and in thepresent, where people with little education—who couldn’t even read or write—have thrown themselves into the effort of the practice and discover that they canread and even memorize whole passages. Some of them have even earned theright to sit for the government exams—this sort of thing has happened. So weshould keep reminding ourselves that everything in the world comes from effortand persistence. No matter what kind of person you are—very smart or verystupid, with a poor education and poor social skills—as long as you have thesequalities of persistence and endurance in your heart, there’s hope for you. As forpeople who are very smart, sophisticated, and well-educated: If they lack effortand persistence, they won’t be able to succeed in their aims, in terms either of theworld or of the Dhamma. Especially for those of us who aim at the highesthappiness, or nibb›na: Effort and persistence are the magnets that will pull ustoward our goal.Now, when effort and persistence are present within us, then endurance willhave to be present as well. Why? When you put effort and persistence intosomething, there are bound to be obstacles that get in your way. If you’re reallypersistent, those obstacles will have to disappear, which means that you’ve beenusing endurance as well. If you have effort but no endurance, you won’t getanywhere. If you have persistence, that means that your effort has endurance,too.So we should regard effort as coming first, and endurance second. Once thesequalities are constantly working together within you, then no matter how deepor faraway your aims may be, the Buddha has forecast that you’ll attain them inline with your hopes. This is why he said, as a way of ensuring that we’ll makethe proper effort, that Viriyena dukkhamacceti: It’s through effort and persistencethat people gain release from the world and reach nibb›na. Effort andpersistence are our roots, or the magnets that will pull us to nibb›na.That’s what the Buddha said. But our own wrong views, which come from thepower of defilement, take issue with his teaching. In other words, they don’tbelieve it. They believe themselves, by and large, and aren’t willing to believe theteachings of the wise. This is why we have to keep stumbling and crawling alongin this world. We simply believe in ourselves, in our own views, but “ourself” ismade up of defilement. This defilement is the obstacle that keeps us frombelieving the Buddha when he tells us that it’s through effort and persistence thatpeople will gain release from suffering and stress. We simply hear the words butdon’t understand them. What we hear goes only as far as our ears and doesn’tenter into our hearts. And this means that we’re working at cross purposes.