Samma Vayama - Right Effort
Cultivating wholesome states and abandoning unwholesome ones.
Right Effort involves four aspects: preventing unarisen unwholesome states, abandoning arisen unwholesome states, cultivating unarisen wholesome states, and maintaining arisen wholesome states.
Just as a skilled farmer tends his fields, so should one tend the mind.
Balanced effort is essential - neither too lax nor too strained.
Samyutta Nikaya
Written about in
- What Tibetan Buddhism says about habit and discipline
Right Effort is defined as four specific jobs: prevent unwholesome states not yet arisen, abandon those that have arisen, cultivate wholesome states not yet arisen, and maintain those already present. Discipline is specified as maintenance work, including that unglamorous fourth part — keeping what already works.