A solid place

File:Standing Tall (8352310741) (2).jpg

I spent the weekend on retreat with Ajahn Sucitto in the West of Ireland, so the posts for the next day or two will focus on how we can ground ourselves in the face of changing moods or challenging circumstances, prompted by some of his words :

One of the fundamental ways of bringing the mind into the present moment is to focus on how we sense our own body. This bodily sense – that is awareness
of the sensations and energies that manifest in the body – is something immediate that we can contemplate. It gives us ground and balance. It gives us the sense of being where we are. Although this may seem basic and obvious, much of the time we are not grounded in where we really are. Instead we are ‘out there’ in a world of changing circumstance and reactions to that, without having a central reference.

Ajahn Sucitto, Meditation: A Way of Awakening

Do you believe there is some place that will make the soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body; There you have a solid place for your feet. Think about it carefully! Don’t go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
And stand firm in that which you are.

Kabir

photo chris phutully

Our thoughts about our difficulties

We suffer a lot through our thoughts, more commonly so in the West nowadays than through physical problems. And in meditation we start to recognize that any physical pains that we do have can be made much worse by the attitude with which we hold them. Much the same goes for pain from a mental, perceptual source. Thinking forms a significant part of the way physical pain is held; it is charged with emotional drives that give rise to that ‘trapped, desperate, this shouldn’t be happening’ mood. Then there are the pleasant sensations or mental states accompanied by ‘more of this, this is the way it should be’ and the neutral accompanied by ‘well, shouldn’t something be happening?’ Although these moods do the holding, they in turn are backed up and incited by the thinking process. ‘I was feeling OK until I started thinking about the rotten deal I got, or what someone else is getting, or the way it was, or the way things ought to be…’

Ajahn Sucitto