The heart of our practice

colourful-spring-flowersYou have to trust this simple ability that we all have to be fully present and fully awake, and begin to recognize the grasping, and the ideas we have taken on about ourselves, about the world around us, about our thoughts and perceptions and feelings. The way of mindfulness is the way of recognizing conditions just as they are. We simply recognize and acknowledge their presence, without blaming them or judging them, without criticizing them or praising them. We allow them to be, both the positive and the negative.

When I started practicing meditation I felt I was somebody who was very confused, and I wanted to get out of this confusion and get rid of my problems and become someone who was a clear thinker and might one day become enlightened. But then, reflecting on this position that “I am somebody who needs to do something,” I began to see it as a created condition — it was an assumption that I had created:  “I am somebody who needs to do something in order to become enlightened in the future.” Just by recognizing this as an assumption I created, that which is aware knows it is something created out of ignorance, or not understanding. When we see and recognize this fully, then we stop creating the assumptions. Awareness is not about making value judgments about our thoughts or emotions or actions or speech. Awareness is about knowing these things fully — that they are what they are, at this moment.

Ajahn Sumedho

The present and the story about the present

During a long retreat, I had what seemed to me the earthshaking revelation that we cannot be in the present and run our story lines at the same time! It sounds pretty obvious, I know, but when you discover something like this for yourself, it changes you.

Pema Chodron, When Things fall Apart

You will only grab hold of concepts if you follow the storyline.  

Sayadaw U Tejaniya

 

Whatever you think you are, that’s not what you are

2881368710_small_1When we emphasise our personality we create problems, because the personal qualities are different for each one of us. We have our common human problems: old age, sickness and death; but there are attitudes, cultural expectations and assumptions wherein we differ, and these are conditioned into the mind after we are born. Because of this, I often say to people, ‘Whatever you think you are, that’s not what you are.’ The personality, the self-consciousness, the fears and the desires of the mind are what they are. In practice, we are not trying to dismiss them or add to them, or make any problems or difficulties around them. We are willing to let them be what they are. They feel this way, they have this quality; they arise and cease. And in that cessation, there’s the realisation of the peace, the bliss and the serenity of just being — and there’s no self in it.

Ajahn Sumedho, True but not right, right but not true

Healing by our presence

Since the condition that has caused our dis-ease is a fixed, partial view of our experience, we cannot promote healing just by adopting a different view. It might be a better view, it might be a wonderful view, it might be the greatest view of reality in the world, but it will not be healing if it’s just another set of beliefs and attitudes. Instead of building bigger or fancier boxes, we need to develop the antidote to all our partial views of reality: being present with our experience as it is. We could call it beginner’s mind. This is unconditional presence. As Suzuki Roshi says “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few” We have all become experts at being ourselves, and in so doing we have lost our ability to be present with our experience in a fresh, open-minded way.

John Welwood, Toward a Psychology of Awakening

Not getting in the way

awake2Just like the question “Can you see your own eyes?” Nobody can see their own eyes. I can see your eyes but I can’t see my eyes. I’m sitting right here, I’ve got two eyes and I can’t see them. But you can see my eyes. But there’s no need for me to see my eyes because I can see! It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? If I started saying “Why can’t I see my own eyes?” you’d think “Ajahn Sumedho’s really weird, isn’t he!” Looking in a mirror you can see a reflection, but that’s not your eyes, it’s a reflection of your eyes. There’s no way that I’ve been able to look and see my own eyes, but then it’s not necessary to see your own eyes. It’s not necessary to know who it is that knows — because there’s knowing.

Ajahn Sumedho

Sometimes waiting is good

 

Many people believe that emptiness is a lifeless void of nothingness that leads to emotional or mental paralysis.

However, emptiness, when timed correctly in the healing process, leads to freedom…

It serves as the space of transition…

Donald Epstein, The 12 Stages of Healing