Right effort
The skillful, balanced energy that steers the mind away from harm and toward what is wholesome.
Right effort (Pali sammāvāyāma) is one of the eight parts of the Noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha's practical program for ending suffering. It is the quality of skillful, sustained energy applied to the mind — the deliberate work of cultivating helpful states and weeding out harmful ones. The Buddha (the "awakened one" who founded the tradition) likened the untended mind to a field that must be tended, since habits left to themselves tend to grow in unwholesome directions.
Right effort is classically described as four tasks, sometimes called the "four right exertions." They are: (1) to prevent unwholesome states — like greed, hatred, or distraction — that have not yet arisen; (2) to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen; (3) to arouse wholesome states — like kindness, calm, or clarity — that have not yet arisen; and (4) to maintain and strengthen wholesome states already present. In short: guard, release, cultivate, and sustain.
This effort is meant to be balanced, not strained. A traditional simile is tuning a stringed instrument: too tight and the string snaps, too loose and it will not sound. Right effort is the steady, patient energy that keeps practice moving without forcing it — the inner gardener's quiet diligence that makes all the other parts of the path possible.