2026-05-31 | Dharma Talk | Stop Trying (But Don't Stop) | Nate Smalley

Last week we sat with the cost of comfort. Today, we turn to comfort's restless cousin: striving. Most of us have a complicated relationship with achievement — driven by it, exhausted by it, quietly convinced that enough effort will finally get us somewhere. Dogen had thoughts. He opens the fascicle Bendowa with a puzzle: "This Dharma is abundantly present in each human being, but if we do not practice it, it does not manifest itself, and if we do not experience it, it cannot be realized." Not a permission slip for striving, nor a dismissal of it either, Dogen points to something stranger: the Dharma is already fully here — and yet it requires us. What kind of effort is that? And what does it mean for those of us who arrive on the cushion with an internal scoreboard already running? We explore together today.