the 6R for Right Effort?

The cultivation of calm or tranquility and the development of concentration
Post Reply
Patrice
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2018 8:16 pm

the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by Patrice »

Hello.
I’m reading a book about Anapasati Sutta by Bhante Vimalaramsi called called Life is Meditation – Meditation is life.
To explain Right Action, the author talks about a tool called the 6R. I googled it and also found quite a few references about it. Is anyone here familiar with this 6R thing and if so, I’d love some help answering a few questions I have about it. The way I understand the 6R is as followed:

Recognize: I become aware that my attention is moving moving away from my breath because of a mental distraction. No judgment here. Just a “hey, here’s a distraction!”

Release: I let that distraction be there but I don’t give any more attention to it. Without attention, it will pass away.
Question: My attention has to be on something so If it’s not on that distraction, does that mean it’s back on my breathing? If so, where is the “allowing it to be there” in all that.

Relax: there’s still some tensions because of that distraction but I relax/accept/welcome it and live that sensation while it last. To better observe the experience of it and it’s cessation. A little like “I’m all stressed out but that’s ok, let be at peace with that stress and let’s just watch it while it last.”

Re-smile: Learning to smile with mind and to lighten up helps to be observant, alert, and agile. Getting serious and tensing up cause mind to become heavy and make it difficult to just observe.
Question: I see relax and re-smile as the same step. I can’t see how I can have the relax without the re-smile. I feel like they are making things more complicated to understand by trying to put too much details in the instruction. Or maybe I am missing something?

Return or Re-direct: Gently re-direct mind’s attention back to the breath.
Question: I guess that means that no, my attention isn’t returning back to my breath at the Release step. So that brings up my first question again: “At the release step, where do I put my attention if not on my breath?”

Repeat: repeat the cycle whenever a distraction arises.
EmptyShadow
Posts: 107
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:34 pm

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by EmptyShadow »

So that brings up my first question again: “At the release step, where do I put my attention if not on my breath?”
As I understand it you have to put your attention on the next steps untill you reach the last one and than you can put it back on the breath.
Otherwise you would be doing the steps without much mindfulness.

Btw Bhante Vimalaramsi have a Yahoo group that I think is active. You can ask questions there as well from ppl more experienced in his technique.
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19941
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by mikenz66 »

There is also a website with a lot of resources, if you are interested in this particular approach:
https://www.dhammasukha.org/
There are some videos there that might be helpful. I find it's often easier to understand instructions by listening than reading.


:heart:
Mike
2600htz
Posts: 825
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2010 11:37 pm

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by 2600htz »

Hello Patrice:

Question 1: While releasing a distraction your attention is on the very same act of releasing, for that brief moment that is your "sign".

Question 2: In buddhism right effort is made of 2 things. Letting go of an unwholesome state, and bringing up a wholesome state. Relax is part of letting go, re-smile is part of bringing up a wholesome state.

Regards.
User avatar
Dhammarakkhito
Posts: 1115
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:31 am
Contact:

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

i think it best to compare the instructions to the buddha's in MN 20:

"The Blessed One said: "When a monk is intent on the heightened mind, there are five themes he should attend to at the appropriate times. Which five?

"There is the case where evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — arise in a monk while he is referring to and attending to a particular theme. He should attend to another theme, apart from that one, connected with what is skillful.
[...]
""If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is attending to this other theme, connected with what is skillful, he should scrutinize the drawbacks of those thoughts: 'Truly, these thoughts of mine are unskillful, these thoughts of mine are blameworthy, these thoughts of mine result in stress.'
[...]
""If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is scrutinizing the drawbacks of those thoughts, he should pay no mind and pay no attention to those thoughts.
[...]
""If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is paying no mind and paying no attention to those thoughts, he should attend to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts.
[...]
""If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

the 'release' step is divergent from the first step prescribed by the buddha, no? non-attention is the third step, that is, if the first two aren't sufficient.
and then the 'relax' step would be the fourth in the buddha's instruction.
smiling is fine, but it's a bit specific and for some it might not be effective

here is buddha teaching ānāpānasati, mindfulness of in and out breathing https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/tip ... .than.html
"Just as the ocean has a single taste — that of salt — in the same way, this Dhamma-Vinaya has a single taste: that of release."
— Ud 5.5

https://www.facebook.com/noblebuddhadha ... 34/?type=3

http://seeingthroughthenet.net/
https://sites.google.com/site/santipada ... allytaught
LuisR
Posts: 132
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2018 6:22 pm

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by LuisR »

I started watching Vimalaramsi videos about a week ago. One thing I noticed about his videos he spends a lot of time explaining the same thing over and over. He seems very critical of other meditation methods specially Mahasi. In one of his videos he claims he rediscovered the true teaching of buddha. No disrespect he seems a bit weird. What is the American forest tradition?
User avatar
_anicca_
Posts: 345
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by _anicca_ »

Bhante Vimalaramsi is not the best resource out there.

His approach is very gimmicky and not tailored to the individual.

Of course, if all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail.
"A virtuous monk, Kotthita my friend, should attend in an appropriate way to the five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self."

:buddha1:

http://vipassanameditation.asia
User avatar
Crazy cloud
Posts: 930
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 8:55 am

Re: the 6R for Right Effort?

Post by Crazy cloud »

Nice and easy little tool one can practice until it becomes automated.
My experienced.
If you didn't care
What happened to me
And I didn't care for you

We would zig-zag our way
Through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain

Wondering which of the
Buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing
- Roger Waters
Post Reply