Effort with Noah Levine

Effort with Noah Levine

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? For many in this gathering, the answer is Buddhist practice, effort, and a lot of honest self-assessment. In this talk from **Against The Stream**, meditation teacher Noah Levine speaks to a room full of practitioners—many of them recovering addicts—about why freedom from suffering, including addiction, doesn’t come from wishes or divine rescue, but from steady, sometimes gritty work.

Noah frames the night around the sixth factor of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path: **effort**.

With his trademark humour (including a story about a “creepy” guru and a smiling cult leader), he keeps things relaxed while making a clear point: “If you want to be free, it’s going to take effort—not once, but over and over again.” You’ll hear him break down the Buddha’s five spiritual faculties—faith, effort, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom—and invite everyone to rate their own faith and effort on a scale of one to ten.

He’s candid about his own practice too, admitting his faith is at a nine or ten while his day-to-day effort often sits closer to a five or six. The talk moves between teaching, small-group sharing, and a guided meditation that trains the “monkey mind” with mindfulness of breath, body, feelings and thoughts. Noah links this inner training directly to recovery, asking how much people really believe in transformation, forgiveness and non-attachment to pleasure.

He also uses vivid images—the wild monkey, the buried ancient city, the calloused backside of a long-time meditator—to show that change can be slow, awkward and sometimes uncomfortable, yet deeply worthwhile. For anyone balancing Buddhist practice with recovery or just trying to suffer less, this session offers a straight-talking reminder: knowledge isn’t enough, you’ve got to put your bum on the cushion.

So where would you place your own faith and effort right now—and what small step could nudge both a little higher this week?