Ch.34 - A Final Pith
To Contemplate is Not the Same as Meditation, There is no Resolution in the Mind
[This teaching was given at the end of a week long retreat and reminds us that the purpose of meditation is not to form views.]
To Contemplate is Not the Same as Meditation, There is no Resolution in the Mind
Some of you are still trying to complete your view with your meditation. That is not the purpose. It is the experience within a moment to moment consciousness, that informs us in stages, not the view that we assemble as ideas within our mind. For that is to sit and ponder or to contemplate and it is not the same as meditation.
Be with the experience, not the view. Feeling, Perception,Volitional Formation, the Body; rest within the whole thing as it is. Experience the ‘suchness’ of what is arising moment to moment. Seeing that informs us that it is the path of insight that sets us free.
Rest effortlessly within yourself. Witness the process ever more clearly, ever more lucidly and mindfully. Slowly, in stages, it reveals itself to you as it is. There are no ideas associated in the moment of seeing. That is the paññā, the insight, the ‘seeing into’ that sets us free.
There is no resolution to be reached in the mind. Whatever conclusions you come to, they are only your conclusions. You do not know yet if they are right or wrong, even if you share them with the most revered teacher on the planet. So do not grip them, do not attach to them, do not define the process or yourself or others by your views.
It is as the Buddha says, “It is on account of coming to views, that beings fail to find peace, fail to find agreement, bring themselves and others to suffering.” The views to which you cling, you do not know whether they are right or wrong. They are only the effort the mind makes to uphold its idea of self.
Free yourself of views. Connect deeply to your moment to moment experience. The more you can be with it, the more it becomes your teacher – there is no greater teacher than this.
“All conditioned things are impermanent, arising and passing away into emptiness, dependent upon conditions.” Those conditions, the way of arising and passing and what they arise and pass into, reveals itself to us, in stages, as our mind becomes clear and bright. It is seeing into that is insight, not thinking, not ideas, not pondering, not contemplation.
If you can see impermanence, be with it. It will become your teacher. If you can see no-self, be with it. It will become your teacher. If you can see the causes of suffering, be with them. They will become your teacher. If you can see Nibbāna, be with it. It will become your teacher.
Do not rely on the word of others, even your teacher, or the books that you might respect or feel are respected by others. Your only teacher is that which you have absolutely seen to be true. Impermanence, Suffering, No-Self: the causes for the arising of things, Dependent Origination and Nibbāna; these are our teachers.
All conditioned things are impermanent. Just let go.
Make your peace with yourself, the world, and all things in it.
Feel from your heart with gentleness. Gladden your heart with a reflection on gratitude. And just say to yourself inside, quietly, three times, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
May I be peaceful and happy, and in a timely way may I free myself from all suffering.
May all beings be peaceful and happy, and in a timely way may all beings come out of suffering and find real peace.
May all beings be happy.
Just see yourself inside your heart, as happy as you could hope to be, free of all your cares and worries, free of all sickness, free of all suffering, happy and peaceful, and send loving kindness to yourself, not out of vanity, but out of a deep regard for this life that you have.
May I be happy and peaceful.
If there is any feeling in you that you are not worthy of love for yourself then understand wherever that sense of unworthiness is coming from, whatever blame we might carry, all of it is rooted only in confusion. Our greed, our aversion, they are not innate within us, they are not innate within any being. It is all through not understanding, through confusion.
Forgive yourself completely and without reservation. Love yourself, the world and all things in it equally and as one. May you be truly, deeply happy and may you come to know that peace that passeth all understanding.
