Cattāri Brahmavihārā

This straight and Noble Way has now been clearly shown:
Don’t hesitate, keep walking forward, and do not turn around.
Urge yourself to advance further by your own energy!
Only thus will you obviously approach, and attain Nibbāna!

Theragatha 637

Today is an uposatha day and I have spent the last two days practicing as much formal, seated meditation as I felt able. It is not often I have the opportunity to do so and I felt the need to ratchet up my effort. The only problem is that my legs have started to give me some pain. As a result, I decided that a good alternative would be to do some serious walking meditation.

For whatever reason, I have never been a great fan of walking meditation, perhaps because it’s always been harder to get into a state of concentration while doing it. At this point, however, I felt I had no choice. I decided to just do “bud-dho” with each step and after about a half-an-hour was no closer to saadhi. However, a voice in my head reminded me that viriya (energy, persistent effort) is not only a parami but also is a factor in the following:

• the five spiritual faculties (indriya)
• the five powers (bala)
• the ten or six “perfections” (pāramitās)
• the seven factors of enlightenment (bojjhaṅga).^[6]

So, whereas I may have previously thrown in the towel since I wasn’t “getting” what I wanted out of the practice I instead decided that I would finish the 50 minute session as a practice of viriya parami.

I’m grateful for today because the practice served as a great reminder that even though my samadhi is often non-existent it doesn’t mean I  can’t work on other factors of the path.