Waking Up By Yourself
Posted: Thursday, October 29, 2009
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
We know when it's not working; it's like a slap in the face. We thought that it was working but then something happens to remind us that nothing has fundamentally changed at all, and we find ourselves back at square one after all these years.
We were smug for awhile, even bragging to friends about what we found and how wonderful it was, but now we see that it was only an act and we were actually better off before we became so smug and self assured. This is difficult to face for anyone, and it's understandable if we continue to playact and not be true to our feelings or reveal them regardless of how strong those feeling become. We know in our heart of hearts that it's over, and that a fundamental longing in the deepest part of our being just never became satisfied.
These shifts in consciousness don't happen by reading words in a self-help book or by following someone's well-intentioned advice; these shifts take place when logic and cunning can't quite keep up with the stark reality of a desperate situation. In that brief interval where everything falls apart and powerful events override our every thought, opinion, and emotion, something ineffable floods our momentarily empty being as our destiny changes forever.
We can't shift our basic being by reading about how to shift it, or studying about how or what we should or shouldn't be. Our own, personal, powerful experiences are what creates permanent shifts in our perception, and not cramming our heads with words and ideas of what should be.
When these shifts authentically take place, we know it. We suddenly see our situation clearly, and what we had previously thought to be truth now becomes just so many words because now we know for sure in our hearts.
So, should we wait for a bus to hit us before we improve our lives, or should we become proactive and embark upon a pursuit of the deepest of human experiences; that mysterious state of mind coveted by prophets and seers throughout the ages? But how do we do it? How will it change us? Are we capable of doing it at all? How will it help us throughout our lifetime? And most importantly, where can we find someone we can trust to teach us?
Unfortunately, teachers ruin the student as well as themselves, because teachers become caught up in imparting second or third-hand knowledge thereby wasting both their time and their student's time. This is fine if you're taking college courses, but to emotionally and intelligently make your way in the world, and if you truly seek that which you have not yet found, (that which is rare for anybody to find), then the teacher can only be you . . . and the path can only be your own.
Direct experience is all that will satisfy you; you must know for yourself. You personally must experience those liberating shifts in consciousness that free you from all conflict. Look for nothing less than the real deal this time, and the real deal is . . . Freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from authority outside of yourself, and freedom from your destructive self.
The teacher must ultimately be no one other than you. You are the one who must make it happen. Someone who has been there before can offer a road map of the hills and valleys that they have climbed and tumbled down, indicating scenic spots as well as dangers, but you are now the traveler who must make his or her own way through the forest.
You must create that shift of consciousness within yourself. If you simply read books as you have in the past, you will gain nothing but facts, and facts are nothing but road maps. The profound answers you seek are not in books and lectures but within yourself, where they have been waiting for you since the beginning of time.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)The teacher must ultimately be no one other than you. You are the one who must make it happen. Someone who has been there before can offer a road map of the hills and valleys that they have climbed and tumbled down, indicating scenic spots as well as dangers, but you are now the traveler who must make his or her own way through the forest.Yeah e, if one wants to improve his/her life it is entirely up to the individual. I have tried meditation before but I find it difficult to perform. Perhaps if I can get my head straight I'll find it easier.Hi David, Thank you for your comment and great rating. I value very much your opinions of my articles.
Not sure what you tried RE meditation, the first important step is just being here and now, that means not the past or future. Simply sit quietly and follow Ajahn Brahm's advice:
" In the way that I teach meditation, I like to begin at the very simple stage of giving up the baggage of past and future. Sometimes you may think that this is such an easy thing to do, that it is too basic. However, if you give it your full effort, not running ahead to the higher stages of meditation until you have properly reached the first goal of sustained attention on the present moment, then you will find later on that you have established a very strong foundation on which to build the higher stages.
Abandoning the past means not even thinking about your work, your family, your commitments, your responsibilities, your history, the good or bad times you had as a child..., you abandon all past experiences by showing no interest in them at all. You become someone who has no history during the time that you meditate. You do not even think about where you are from, where you were born, who your parents were or what your upbringing was like. All of that history is renounced in meditation. In this way, everyone here on the retreat becomes equal, just a meditator. It becomes unimportant how many years you have been meditating, whether you are an old hand or a beginner. If you abandon all that history then we are all equal and free. We are freeing ourselves of some of these concerns, perceptions and thoughts that limit us and which stop us from developing the peace born of letting go. So every 'part' of your history you finally let go of, even the history of what has happened to you so far in this retreat, even the memory of what happened to you just a moment ago! In this way, you carry no burden from the past into the present. Whatever has just happened, you are no longer interested in it and you let it go. You do not allow the past to reverberate in your mind.
I describe this as developing your mind like a padded cell! When any experience, perception or thought hits the wall of the 'padded cell', it does not bounce back again. It just sinks into the padding and stops right there. Thus we do not allow the past to echo in our consciousness, certainly not the past of yesterday and all that time before, because we are developing the mind inclined to letting go, giving away and unburdening.
Some people have the view that if they take up the past for contemplation they can somehow learn from it and solve the problems of the past. However, you should understand that when you gaze at the past, you invariably look through distorted lenses. Whatever you think it was like, in truth it was not quite like that! This is why people have arguments about what actually happened, even a few moments ago. It is well known to police who investigate traffic accidents that even though the accident may have happened only half an hour ago, two different eyewitnesses, both completely honest, will give different accounts. Our memory is untrustworthy. If you consider just how unreliable memory is, then you do not put value on thinking about the past. Then you can let it go. You can bury it, just as you bury a person who has died. You place them in a coffin then bury it, or cremate it, and it is done with, finished. Do not linger on the past. Do not continue to carry the coffins of dead moments on your head! If you do, then you are weighing yourself down with heavy burdens which do not really belong to you. Let all of the past go and you have the ability to be free in the present moment.
As for the future, the anticipations, fears, plans, and expectations
let all of that go too. The Lord Buddha once said about the future, "Whatever you think it will be, it will always be something different"! This future is known to the wise as uncertain, unknown and so unpredictable. It is often complete stupidity to anticipate the future, and always a great waste of your time to think of the future in meditation.
When you work with your mind, you find that the mind is so strange. It can do some wonderful and unexpected things. It is very common for meditators who are having a difficult time, who are not getting very peaceful, to sit there thinking, "Here we go again, another hour of frustration". Even though they begin thinking like that, anticipating failure, something strange happens and they get into a very peaceful meditation.
Recently I heard of one man on his first ten-day retreat. After the first day his body was hurting so much he asked to go home. The teacher said, "Stay one more day and the pain will disappear, I promise". So he stayed another day, the pain got worse so he wanted to go home again. The teacher repeated, "Just one more day, the pain will go". He stayed for a third day and the pain was even worse. For each of nine days, in the evening he would go to the teacher and, in great pain, ask to go home and the teacher would say, "Just one more day and the pain will disappear". It was completely beyond his expectations, that on the final day when he started the first sit of the morning, the pain did disappear! It did not come back. He could sit for long periods with no pain at all! He was amazed at how wonderful is this mind and how it can produce such unexpected results. So, you don't know about the future. It can be so strange, even weird, completely beyond whatever you expect. Experiences like this give you the wisdom and courage to abandon all thoughts about the future and all expectation as well.
When you're meditating and thinking, "How many more minutes are there to go? How much longer have I to endure all of this?", then that is just wandering off into the future again. The pain could just disappear in a moment. The next moment might be the free one. You just cannot anticipate what is going to happen.
When on retreat, after you have been meditating for many sessions, you may sometimes think that none of those meditations have been any good. In the next meditation session you sit down and everything becomes so peaceful and easy. You think "Wow! Now I can meditate!", but the next meditation is again awful. What's going on here?
The first meditation teacher I had told me something that then sounded quite strange. He said that there is no such thing as a bad meditation! He was right. All those meditations which you call bad, frustrating and not meeting your expectations, all those meditations are where you do the hard work for your `pay cheque'...
It is like a person who goes to work all day Monday and gets no money at the end of the day. "What am I doing this for?", he thinks. He works all day Tuesday and still gets nothing. Another bad day. All day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and still nothing to show for all the hard work. That's four bad days in a row. Then along comes Friday, he does exactly the same work as before and at the end of the day the boss gives him a pay cheque. "Wow! Why can't every day be a pay day?!"
Why can't every meditation be `pay day'? Now, do you understand the simile? It is in the difficult meditations that you build up your credit, where you build up the causes for success. While working for peace in the hard meditations, you build up your strength, the momentum for peace. Then when there's enough credit of good qualities, the mind goes into a good meditation and it feels like `pay-day'. It is in the bad meditations that you do most of the work.
At a recent retreat that I gave in Sydney, during interview time, a lady told me that she had been angry with me all day, but for two different reasons. In her early meditations she was having a difficult time and was angry with me for not ringing the bell to end the meditation early enough. In the later meditations she got into a beautiful peaceful state and was angry with me for ringing the bell too soon. The sessions were all the same length, exactly one hour. You just can't win as a teacher, ringing the bell!
This is what happens when you go anticipating the future, thinking, "How many more minutes until the bell goes?" That is where you torture yourself, where you pick up a heavy burden that is none of your business. So be very careful not to pick up the heavy suitcase of "How many more minutes are there to go?" or "What should I do next?" If that is what you are thinking, then you are not paying attention to what is happening now. You are not doing the meditation. You have lost the plot and are asking for trouble.
In this stage of the meditation keep your attention right in the present moment, to the point where you don't even know what day it is or what time it is -- morning? afternoon? -- don't know! All you know is what moment it is -- right now! In this way you arrive at this beautiful monastic time scale where you are just meditating in the moment, not aware of how many minutes have gone or how many remain, not even remembering what day it is.
Once, as a young monk in Thailand, I had actually forgotten what year it was! It is marvellous living in that realm that is timeless, a realm so much more free than the time driven world we usually have to live in. In the timeless realm, you experience this moment, just as all wise beings have been experiencing this same moment for thousands of years. It has always been just like this, no different. You have come into the reality of now.
The reality of now is magnificent and awesome. When you have abandoned all past and all future, it is as if you have come alive. You are here, you are mindful. This is the first stage of the meditation, just this mindfulness sustained only in the present. Reaching here, you have done a great deal. You have let go of the first burden, which stops deep meditation. So put forth a lot of effort to reach this first stage until it is strong, firm and well established. Next we will refine the present moment awareness into the second stage of meditation -- silent awareness of the present moment.
I so enjoyed your Article. As a child raised with the Metaphsyical teachings 50 years ago,how refreshing to find their our still 'forward-thinking' souls on this planet with a beautiful philosophy to share.... Thank You for the breathe of fresh air!Thank you so much! Actually there are quite a few of us FTSs around but we are usually quiet, silently practicing meditation for the most part. (except for rebels like me who blurt it all out. Aways hoping to run across people like you, or people who are searching for a deeper meaning in their lives). The article of course can be read at two levels; a broken relationship with another person, and disenchantment with one's spiritual progress.
Metta............e
Well said. Left me speechlessThank you.
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