When we are met on a daily basis with adversity even when we are working hard to overcome our challenges, we will not always get the results we want. This kind of impatience can lead to a sense of despair or hopelessness. It can be demoralizing to think that our actions do not matter and cannot help us to find happiness.
This problem will arise if we become too focused on a misguided conception of a result that we’re seeking rather than deriving satisfaction from the process. Worldly phenomena are constantly changing as they arise, prevail and cease and so grasping onto any one of them and expecting a certain result is guaranteed to lead to disappointment. If we embrace the change instead of fighting with it, we can see that when we apply effort in the correct way with mindfulness, things change in general for the better.
Meditation master and our teacher, Ajahn Tong Sirimangalo, points out that the Buddha encouraged us not to lose heart and to keep working towards satisfaction. The Buddha said this: “Enlightenment exits. The Path to Enlightenment exists. The One who points out the Path exists. If you do not walk along this Path, how will you ever reach Enlightenment?”
Walking along the Path as described by the Buddha is simple but may require some effort. We need only to select and join an insight meditation retreat that emphasizes present moment awareness using the four foundations of mindfulness as taught by the Buddha: mindfulness of body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of mind and mindfulness of mind objects. When we apply the Buddha’s teaching in this way, we shift our attention away from an arbitrary result towards the process. When the mind is truly present, this process is always satisfactory.