Sometimes We Try Too Hard

Episode 85 of the Secular Buddhism Podcast

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast. This is episode number 85. I'm your host, Noah Rasheta.

Today I'm talking about trying too hard, not trying hard enough, and the beauty of finding the middle way.

Before I jump into that, keep in mind the Dalai Lama's advice: "Do not use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. Use it to be a better whatever you already are."

The Middle Way and My Journey

One of the most important impacts Buddhism has had on my life is introducing me to the concept of the middle way. I want to start by sharing a story about a monk named Sona, a monk who was trying to be good at meditating—trying to live a more mindful life, just like many of us are trying to be better whatever we already are.

The Parable of the Lute

In the Parable of the Lute, we learn about Sona becoming discouraged with his meditation practice. So he goes to visit the Buddha for advice.

Despite all the effort and energy he was putting into his practice, Sona grows discouraged and disappointed. His meditation practice, which was supposed to be the very source of great peace, happiness, and contentment in his life, ends up being the very source of discontent for him.

Sona had been taught to be mindful even when walking, and he took this to heart. He practiced so intensely that his feet developed blisters and he bled. And he was getting discouraged. He didn't think this was all it was cracked up to be.

So when the Buddha heard about this, he went to see Sona and said, "I have heard that you are not getting the results you were hoping for from your meditation practice."

Supposedly, Sona was considering just quitting the practice and going back to how life was before he had ever become a monk.

The Buddha reminded him that before becoming a monk, he was known for being a skilled lute player. He played the lute—a small, guitar-like stringed instrument. Sona replied, "Yes, I was able to produce good music."

So the Buddha asks him, "Well, what happened when the strings were too tightly wound up?"

Sona replied, "Well, I couldn't produce good music if the strings were too tight. The strings could break."

The Buddha said, "And what happened when the strings were too loose?"

Again, Sona replied, "I couldn't produce good music when they were too loose either."

In this simple exchange, this simple teaching, the Buddha helped Sona to understand that he had essentially been trying too hard—trying too hard to be mindful, trying too hard to do it the right way when there really isn't a right way. The skillful way to play the lute is with strings that are not too tight and not too loose.

Sona understood this teaching. He decided to continue practicing, found his middle way, and went on to become enlightened, as often happens in these stories.

I love this story particularly because it seems so profound and yet so simple. We are like the lute, and we have that middle way where the strings are not too tight and they're not too loose. We're not trying too hard. It's somewhere in between—not trying too hard and not trying hard enough.

The Middle Way in All Things

You can apply this concept to anything in your life, not just mindfulness practice. Think of this in relation to a partner, a spouse, a parent. I'm sure all of you know a parent who seems to be trying too hard, and other parents who just don't seem to be trying hard enough. The same goes for coworkers, your boss, or almost anyone in any aspect of life. You can identify someone who seems to be trying too hard or not trying hard enough.

And I'm sure with some self-reflection and introspection, you could identify this about yourself as well.

But here's the catch. It's not about identifying this in others. The Buddha didn't come and say, "Oh, you know, tweak those strings a little bit—three centimeters to the left." The whole teaching was to understand that you are the lute. You are the lute, and you are also the lute player. Only you can discover that middle way—your middle way.

Only you can ask yourself honestly: "Am I trying too hard? Or am I not trying hard enough?" That's part of this quest. That's what this mindfulness practice is about.

In Sona's case, it wasn't working for him because he was trying too hard.

For me, my entire journey with Buddhism and mindfulness practice has been about finding my middle way—that place where I am at peace and the music seems to be playing just right, at least for me.

But it can be difficult at times because we have an inner critic. That voice thinks it knows all about music, about how music should be played and how it should sound. And that critic is heavily influenced by societal norms, religious and political views, and everything else that falls under the collective label of the conditioned mind.

The Driving Analogy

I want to share another analogy, really exploring this whole topic of trying too hard and this teaching of the middle way.

Imagine for a moment that you're driving a car. I'm sure most of us listening have the experience of knowing what it is to drive. When we're driving, all of our inputs have to do with the present moment. Even though you're looking toward the future—let's call that looking through the windshield—you don't actually start to turn the steering wheel until you are in the turn, right?

If you get that timing wrong, you're in big trouble. You don't just say, "Oh, here comes a turn," and then boom, start turning. That would be highly unskillful. You wait. You see it coming. And then when you enter the turn, you do the inputs in the present moment.

When you anticipate a big turn ahead, you can start slowing down now. That's something you're doing in the present moment in anticipation of something that's happening in the future. But again, if you get the timing wrong, you're in big trouble.

To me, this is the essential lesson of the middle way that is so often spoken of in Buddhist teachings. It's the timing of everything we do in the present moment. I like to call this the eternal now.

Many of us live our lives driving this car by looking through the rearview mirror. And as you can imagine, this is highly unskillful. It can cause incredible, unnecessary suffering for ourselves and for others on the road when we drive this way.

The Backseat Driver Within

There's another aspect of this analogy I want to explore. I'm sure you've experienced what it's like to drive with a backseat driver. This is when you're driving and someone is telling you where to turn, when to turn, to slow down, speed up. Or it could come in the form of them just chatting—telling you a long, drawn-out story when you're trying to focus on driving, distracting you from the road.

I'm sure we've all experienced this to some degree, or we've been that backseat driver ourselves.

But what I want to get at with this analogy is this: What if we understood that we are the backseat driver? That inner narrator, those thoughts so prevalent in our mind, that voice in our head—that's the backseat driver.

I'm not saying that the backseat driver is wrong or that we need to eliminate it. The backseat driver is sometimes right. It's not about saying, "Okay, inner narrator, you are wrong." That's not the point.

I think we evolved to have this inner critic, this inner narrator, as a survival mechanism. It's trying to keep us safe. But that doesn't mean it's always right, and that's the important thing here.

I've been driving at times where I'm grateful that someone yelled, "Hey, watch out, there's a deer!" because I didn't notice it. Thanks to that other voice, I was able to act skillfully and not hit the deer.

But I've also had experiences where someone's like, "Oh no, watch out for that hole!" And I slow down all freaked out and realize, "What hole? There is no hole." They just saw shadows in the dark, or they were half asleep and woke up and blurted something out.

That's kind of like what happens in our mind. It's not about deciding whether the voice is always right or always wrong. I think it's more about understanding that it's somewhere in between. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. And it takes a little bit of skill to discern the difference.

Most of us go through our lives assuming that everything in our head is right—our thoughts, our beliefs, our memories. They're all correct.

A Quick Note on Memory

Quick side note: In the last podcast episode, I told you about an experience with my wife and a message about trying to go to Antarctica. Well, I was sharing that with her, and it turns out she has an entirely different memory of how that all played out. It wasn't Antarctica; it was Africa. The details were all different, and it was really funny. We started laughing as we compared our notes, and then we laughed saying, "Well, the memory is probably somewhere in between the two—between my memory and hers."

But that brings about a whole other lesson: don't trust your own memories. They're not always right. I've experienced this multiple times with my twin brother when we recall past stories where we know we were both there, but we both recall the experience slightly differently.

But again, that could be a whole other podcast episode. The lesson is: don't believe your own thoughts all the time. They may be wrong.

And I think that's exactly what this teaching is trying to get us to understand. That voice in our mind may be wrong. It may be right. What if we could live with that uncertainty—sometimes we just don't know?

The Eternal Now and Inner Certainty

So the middle way is about understanding the parable of the lute and the strings—whether they're too tight or too loose. But I think it's also about timing and understanding that we live in the eternal now.

The middle way is the intersection between the past and the future. We live in the middle way, the eternal now. It's what we're living in now. And when you apply this to the teaching with the strings—are we trying too hard or are we not trying hard enough?—it's the timing of it all.

Going back to this inner narrator for a moment: we tend to think of the voice as omniscient. It's always right. It knows what others are thinking about us. It generates fears about things that haven't happened yet. It judges. It certainly has a lot of opinions. And perhaps most importantly, it never stops talking.

But what if we acknowledged that the voice is sometimes wrong? How does it feel to recognize that it may be wrong? It may be right, but we don't know for certain. And we don't need to silence the inner narrator. We just need to change the relationship we have with it.

We need to understand that yes, it may be wrong. We need to become more comfortable with the uncertainty of what that voice often claims to know as truth. "This is the truth about what you're thinking about me. This is the truth about why you're doing what you're doing."

What would it be like to have a little more uncertainty and to be comfortable with that uncertainty? To me, that's one of the important aspects of this teaching.

Your Personal Discovery

Now, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of understanding that the answer to the question "Am I trying too hard or am I not trying hard enough?" has no solid answer. It can be helpful to have somebody give us another perspective—often a teacher, a family member, or somebody who can see us from another angle. That can be helpful, but that doesn't mean they're right.

The whole point of introspective practice, what we're trying to accomplish with mindfulness as a practice, with Buddhism as a tool of becoming a better whatever we already are—it's helping you to answer that question about yourself.

In what aspects of your life are you trying too hard? What would happen if you toned it down and tried a little less hard?

Or flip side: what if you discover that maybe you're not trying hard enough? Maybe that's why this relationship is failing. Maybe I can try a little harder and see what happens.

But keep in mind it could be the opposite, right? It could be that this isn't working out because you are trying too hard. But you get to discover that. That's the beauty of this process. This is you discovering.

In my personal life, this has been incredibly powerful for me—whether it's in my career as an entrepreneur, as a husband, as a father, as a brother, as a child, in any of my relationships. I'm trying to always find that middle way. When am I trying too hard? When am I not trying hard enough to be a good friend? Am I trying too hard? Am I not trying hard enough?

You have to find that yourself. That's part of this process.

Your Challenge This Week

So that's the challenge I want to leave with you for this week. Try to notice throughout the week what that inner critic is saying. What is that voice saying? And then ask yourself: "Am I trying too hard? Am I not trying hard enough in terms of timing?"

Ask yourself: "Am I jumping the gun? Should I have waited longer? Did I wait too long?"

Analyze a little bit of what's happening in your life and try to switch from that form of reactive living to more skillful action. See what you notice. You may notice yourself becoming less reactive. Try it this week. See how it feels.

That's the topic I wanted to share with you today.

Before You Go

Again, as always, if you want to learn more about Buddhism and mindfulness, you can check out my books: Secular Buddhism, No Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners, and my most recent one, the Five Minute Mindfulness Journal. You can learn about all of these on my website, noahrasheta.com. That's n-o-a-h r-a-s-h-e-t-a dot com.

As always, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, please share it with others. Write a review, give it a rating on iTunes.

If you would like to join our online community, visit secularbuddhism.com/community.

A quick side note: I have some big news about changes that I'm going to be making in the next week or two by the end of the year. I have an entirely new approach that I want to take to this concept of community and sangha and being able to take advantage of working with each other as we all embark on this path of trying to be a better whatever we already are. So stay tuned for that news.

If you'd like to make a donation to support the work I'm doing with the podcast, you can visit secularbuddhism.com and click on the donate button in the top right.

That's all I have for now, but I look forward to recording another podcast episode soon.

Until next time.

For more about the Secular Buddhism podcast and Noah Rasheta's work, visit SecularBuddhism.com