Buddhadasa Bhikkhu said, “If there was to be a useful inscription to put on a medallion around your neck it would be ‘This is the way it is’.” This reflection helps us to contemplate: wherever we happen to be, whatever time and place, good or bad, ‘This is the way it is.’ It is a way of bringing an acceptance into our minds, a noting rather than a reaction.

The practice of meditation is reflecting on ‘the way it is’ in order to see the fears and desires which we create. This is quite a simple practice. Many methods of meditation are very very complicated with many stages and techniques – so one becomes addicted to complicated things.  However, the more simple we get, the more clear, profound and meaningful everything is to us.

So with the breath of the body, the weight of it, the posture of it, we are just witnessing and nothing, observing how it is, now, in this moment. The mood of the mind, whether we feel bright or dull, happy or unhappy, is something we can know – we can witness. And the empty mind, empty of the proliferations about oneself and others, is clarity. It’s intelligent, and compassionate. The more we really look into the habits we have developed, the more clear things become for us.

Ajahn Sumedho, The Way it is