LIBERATING EFFORT
Liberating effort is both an attitude that pertains to the whole path and a step on the path itself. The attitude is one of making a thorough effort that is applied continuously and in all digital situations. In being applied to the liberating actions, it means being intentional and thorough in making your behavior consistent with the appropriate actions, striving to make all actions consistent with the positive principles of action while avoiding the negative actions.
As a step in the path, liberating effort is about taking the liberating actions to the level of the mind and is the beginning of the meditative effort in the path. Here the goal is to get as close as possible to deconditioning the states of hatred, harmfulness, and craving and to cultivate the states of love, helpfulness/generosity, and contentment. The key here is that we are cleaning up the mind as much as we can by getting rid of the hatred, violence, and craving that are due to mere habit. There is a huge amount of suffering and dissatisfaction tied up in simple mental habits that we can change with persistent effort.
The practice of liberating effort is something we do in meditative exercises and in everyday digital activity. The meditative practice is this:
Sit down in a comfortable position that you can hold for 10-30 minutes.
Set a timer for 10-30 minutes.
Focus your attention on you breathing, paying attention to the breath at the nostrils, at the abdomen, or both. Your goal is to sit and breathe in simple contentment.
When you notice your mind is wandering away from the breath, notice if you are experiencing a state of craving, hatred, or violence, and make an effort to correct that state of mind by one of the following techniques: (a) return to the state of contentment in breathing; (b) just observe the negative state without actively engaging it, and see what happens; (c) ask yourself if the negative state of mind is something you want to be cultivating, and notice how the state changes depending on the answer; or (d) actively cultivate the opposite state (e.g., if there is hatred, actively cultivate love, etc.). Ultimately, the goal is to return the mind to a state of peaceful contentment focused on breathing, but that does not mean returning to the breath immediately is always the best solution. All of these techniques for dealing with distractions are helpful and needed at times.
Continue this process until the timer ends.
When this meditation exercise is mastered and the primary technique being used is sitting in contentment while focusing on breathing, the practice of mental effort becomes the practice of liberating concentration.
In everyday digital activity, the practice of liberating effort is the same as steps 3 and 4 of the meditation practice: We actively cultivate contentment in our everyday digital activities, and, when we notice the mental states of craving, hatred, and violence, we respond in a way that deconditions those states and cultivate states of contentment, love, and helpfulness. This is all about learning how to interact with the internet without relying on negative states that lead to dissatisfaction and suffering. There are many creative ways to do this, but the key is you are making a consistent effort to respond in a new way that does not require craving, hatred, or violence.
Liberating mental effort is an important step, because it allows us to let go of a great deal of unnecessary dissatisfaction, frees up mental space, and provides us with the clarity to observe the nature of things with little distortion. But it is also true that we can go only so far with this kind of work before we run into more persistent, often subtler, patterns that won't change without deep insight into the delusions about ourselves and the internet that make those patterns seem necessary. This is where liberating contemplation comes in.