The seventeeth lojong slogan says, “Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.” These strengths, or forces, as Jamgon Kongtrul calls them, give us everything we need to grow on this path of service and enlightenment. And they’re called heart instructions because that’s where they come from. These five strengths aren’t outside of us or alien to us; they already reside in our hearts. We simply call them up.

The first of the five strengths is determination. This one’s tricky, because it feels very American Olympian athlete on the surface. But it’s not about just putting our will behind it. We don’t want to force something to fit, or use the kind of effort that morphs into an exhaustive kind of striving. Determination means being intentional. It means being aware. Mostly, it means keeping at it.

I love how Norman Fischer says strong determination “is a practice to teach us how to take ourselves seriously as dignified spiritual practitioners.” Really, determination means getting clear about what matters to us, and showing up so that what matters to us becomes evident in our lives.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche describes determination as a kind of longing, where what we long for in our heart simply becomes what we reach for. We long to be compassionate, so we reach for that. We long to live in service to the world, so we awaken each day with that as our priority. So you see, determination isn’t maniacally making something happen with gritted teeth. It’s letting what you love guide your intentions every day. You determine to let your heart lead, and when it does, you will never give up.

You’ll just keep walking.