Being Afraid

0:00 Welcome everybody to this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:09 Sunday is a busy day because this is the observance day, the new moon day, plus Sunday. People coming to look at the new temple. If you haven't been inside, please feel free today to go inside the temple. Report an error in the passage at 0:09 Highlight the passage at 0:09

0:32 So Report an error in the passage at 0:32 Highlight the passage at 0:32

0:42 this afternoon we have this. This is an opportunity to contemplate, to reflect and look at ourselves in terms of the present moment and what you're feeling and experiencing through such a situation as this. The subject, the title that somebody comes up with is on being afraid and fear is a common human emotion that we all... Report an error in the passage at 0:42 Highlight the passage at 0:42

1:21 We all experience, part of our humanity is the experience of fear. And so it's an experience that we tend to want to try to get rid of. We genuinely are frightened of the universe that we're living in, all its mysteries, all the kind of power. Report an error in the passage at 1:21 Highlight the passage at 1:21

1:54 The magnificence, the grandeur, the immensity of this universe that we see around us, that we experience. And one reaction to that is this sense of fear, being afraid of it, because it boggles the mind. It's too vast, too wonderful in a way, too terrifying in terms of... Our identities as this separate creature, this physical being that we identify with. Report an error in the passage at 1:54 Highlight the passage at 1:54

2:36 And this is why when the Buddha is teaching was to awaken the human mind to break out of the habits that we have of identifying with this human body as being the kind of our permanent self or with the conditioning of our mind. Report an error in the passage at 2:36 Highlight the passage at 2:36

3:00 what we really are, because the kind of magic and marvel of our humanity lies in the fact that can kind of open unconditionally to the whole universal system joy rather than with fear once we Report an error in the passage at 3:00 Highlight the passage at 3:00

3:22 conditions that we're actually living in and the way things really are, not not through through Any kind of cultural conditioning, or not even through any religious conditioning, but through this openness, this awareness, this intuitive ability we have when we are shutting ourselves off with our fears and our desires and our habits. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:47 So Report an error in the passage at 3:47 Highlight the passage at 3:47

3:51 fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, fear of all the things of the future, of death. All these kinds of perceptions convey that which is possible, some kind of pain, some kind of humiliation, loss, the worst possible conditions that you can think of are possible for us in terms of experience in the future. Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

4:26 And inevitably, we know we're going to die, so death is a certainty. And yet that's frightening. People are frightened by the subject of death. Report an error in the passage at 4:26 Highlight the passage at 4:26

4:41 So what I've done over the many years is to really investigate this experience of uncertainty and not knowing. Because I realized, and in the Buddhist teaching, the emphasis was to know the unknown is the unknown, to be able to open to mystery or to uncertainty. To insecurity, to the immensity of the universe, to death itself, rather than just try to avoid, try to protect, try to distract, try to run away, or just use palliatives as nice thoughts about everything's going to be all right and everything's okay, just to give us a sense of a kind of temporary sense of feeling. Report an error in the passage at 4:41 Highlight the passage at 4:41

5:33 All right about ourselves. But Report an error in the passage at 5:33 Highlight the passage at 5:33

5:44 when I investigate fear, for example, I go right into my body because sometimes you feel right in the kind of pit of your stomach that kind of knot of fear that comes sometimes under certain conditions where things seem to be getting out of control, where there's too many unknowns. ...factors in your life, too much uncertainty or threats coming from outside or just the sense of loss and change that you can't predict or control, you don't know what's going to happen. Report an error in the passage at 5:44 Highlight the passage at 5:44

6:24 That kind of anxiety that can linger and kind of hang around us almost like all the time. Sometimes it seems like it just hangs around us like a... Like cobwebs in a room. And Report an error in the passage at 6:24 Highlight the passage at 6:24

6:45 the way of meditation then is a direct looking and admitting this feeling into consciousness. So that's the means that the Buddha used was to allow conditions into consciousness, to let them arise into one's experience as consciousness. And then through allowing something into consciousness we... Have this ability to recognize it for what it is, it's the way it is. But we also are contemplating it according to its nature as an impermanent condition. Report an error in the passage at 6:45 Highlight the passage at 6:45

7:25 So all conditions are impermanent. The anicca, the impermanent nature of conditioned phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

7:36 So the unknown and that sense of fear, anxiety, there's an emotional reaction to the unknown or to the possibility of Pain, sickness, loss in the future, both on the physical level, afraid of being hurt, of getting cancer, getting disease, or just the problems of old age. We can be frightened of the possibilities that we know are there that a human being can experience physically. Report an error in the passage at 7:36 Highlight the passage at 7:36

8:09 Fear of being left alone, of being rejected, being thrown out in the cold. ...of being unloved and dismissed, unwanted. Then there's the fear of just loss, of losing all that we love. People, our loved ones dying, or that which we depend on being taken away from us. Being lost out in the cold, poor, old and diseased. Report an error in the passage at 8:09 Highlight the passage at 8:09

8:43 It's a nightmare scenario, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

8:50 One winter here, the first winter here in Amabati, it was so cold here. We had that freeze, Siberian freeze. I remember going out in the middle. We had this meditation retreat going on. I was going out walking in the ice and snow. Then the lights, you know, get dark and you get these kind of yellowy, kind of orangey lights in the lampposts. Report an error in the passage at 8:50 Highlight the passage at 8:50

9:17 You get this kind of sick orange glow on the ice and snow. Report an error in the passage at 9:17 Highlight the passage at 9:17

9:27 I'd... Report an error in the passage at 9:27 Highlight the passage at 9:27

9:30 I contemplate this, you know, what if I, what if everybody decided to leave and I was all alone in this cold place in this kind of dismal light and with no hope of anything, any kind of relief or anything good happening ever again. Trying to bring into my mind all the worst possible things that could happen to me. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

10:01 But of course that is different, isn't it, than when they actually are. You can, just by bringing into consciousness the possibility of pain and loss in the future, you can get depressed with that. But then the actual experience is something else. And this is where mindfulness is the way, the means that the Buddha used toward liberation. Report an error in the passage at 10:01 Highlight the passage at 10:01

10:28 Because... Like each one of us is a conscious entity in the universe. Each one of us is a point of consciousness in this vast universe. This is a way of reflecting and getting to acknowledge what actually is the way it is. When you take out just yourself as a personality, as a man or a woman or this or that, just the experience of consciousness that we all have at this moment. Report an error in the passage at 10:28 Highlight the passage at 10:28

10:57 Each one of us is a point of light in the universe, like a star in the sky. Every human being, every creature, in fact, is that. Report an error in the passage at 10:57 Highlight the passage at 10:57

11:10 Consciousness is like light, isn't it? It's where, you know, when the consciousness stops, the life force goes out. You can notice when somebody dies or an animal dies, the light goes out of their eyes. It completely switches off like electric light. So when we see each other, we can get caught up in the personality and appearance and the memories that we have about each other. Report an error in the passage at 11:10 Highlight the passage at 11:10

11:41 Another way of reflecting is reflecting on the experience of consciousness, not in terms of something to be frightened of, but something to respect, something to treasure, something to even be grateful for. Report an error in the passage at 11:41 Highlight the passage at 11:41

11:59 And then how to... Develop conscious experience in a way that isn't deluded, isn't coming from wrong views, misunderstandings, ignorance. Report an error in the passage at 11:59 Highlight the passage at 11:59

12:15 So that's the challenge that we face, all of us, is how to inform, how to instruct ourselves with wisdom about the way things are, about our own humanity, our own experience of life from this point that we're experiencing it from. Report an error in the passage at 12:15 Highlight the passage at 12:15

12:34 Whether we like it or not, we have to experience life from where we are. It's just the way it is. I remember I never liked having a human body. I always wished I was a Devadara, an angel. You know, one of these kind of ethereal bodies, light bodies that can float around and didn't have big feet. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 12:34 Highlight the passage at 12:34

13:07 Good sense of humor, your child. Report an error in the passage at 13:07 Highlight the passage at 13:07

13:29 You're not afraid right now, are you? But Report an error in the passage at 13:29 Highlight the passage at 13:29

13:38 also... The tendency to see fear as a personal problem and, you know, talking to so many people these days about how they perceive themselves and the problems that they have in regards to themselves as personalities, very strongly based on attachments to very fixed views about what we are, about what you are, what I am. Report an error in the passage at 13:38 Highlight the passage at 13:38

14:06 And then... Because of that, we can maybe analyze and see that we have a lot of fear, anxiety, worry, a lot of anger, resentment, and we see these as kind of weaknesses or faults that we have, and that we shouldn't have them. It's best if we didn't have such kind of emotions. But that's not the way life is for a human being, isn't it? We're not living in a realm where Where we experience life only from a level of a devada, with a beautiful ethereal body, with nothing to be frightened of. Report an error in the passage at 14:06 Highlight the passage at 14:06

14:47 I don't know whether devadas have fears or not. Never thought of that. If there's any devadas around, let me know. Report an error in the passage at 14:47 Highlight the passage at 14:47

15:05 Devada, maybe. Report an error in the passage at 15:05 Highlight the passage at 15:05

15:11 But fear Report an error in the passage at 15:11 Highlight the passage at 15:11

15:27 to me is a natural kind of emotion. That every human being has is part of its instinctual. It's a way of protecting ourselves from being eaten up by other animals, or it's a way of protection for us to know when danger is around, to have a sense of not to do this, not to say that, not to go someplace where our life is in danger, or to be able to recognize danger. Report an error in the passage at 15:27 Highlight the passage at 15:27

16:11 where it becomes a problem for us is not in the actual experience but in the identity the attachment we have to that emotion either in modern life say modern life here in Western Europe where life is fairly secure in the sense of material advantage Advantages in governments and in the fact that the kind of law of the jungle is not, you know, we have courts, we have rights, we have all kinds of security so that the basic drives for self-preservation are oftentimes not really noticed that much because we can live in a realm of comfort and ease and security just on the level of enough food and shelter and medical facilities, things like this, that we can take for granted. Report an error in the passage at 16:11 Highlight the passage at 16:11

17:08 But still we become frightened and oftentimes anxiety-ridden about the possible loss of these things. of a shelter, loss of someone that we depend on, loss of financial security or of rights. even before these are lost, we can... Find ourselves quite anxious, anxiety-ridden about the possibility of losing. Being in love with another person, another thing, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 17:08 Highlight the passage at 17:08

17:45 Where we feel the joy of caring and revealing that emotion towards somebody else. But also, with that, is the fear of loss. In poetry, you hear that refrain of... Report an error in the passage at 17:45 Highlight the passage at 17:45

18:05 The joys of falling in love, of being in love, but with that also comes the inevitable anxiety about loss and separation. Report an error in the passage at 18:05 Highlight the passage at 18:05

18:16 So in terms of dharma, we're contemplating the impermanent nature of this realm that we're very much involved with. And that includes everything that we can experience in terms of visual sight or the organs of the eyes themselves, the eye consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 18:16 Highlight the passage at 18:16

18:56 carry that through all the senses of, you know, of the smell, taste, touch, then the retentive memory that we have, that we can persecute ourselves with of the past, about, because I did this in the past, what will happen to me when So, Report an error in the passage at 18:56 Highlight the passage at 18:56

19:25 that's... lot of people have a tremendous guilt about things that they've done in the past, they expect that when they die they have to pay, there'll be retribution. Report an error in the passage at 19:25 Highlight the passage at 19:25

19:26 of horrible state where they'll have to experience of some sort, way of paying off a debt from having done something they shouldn't have done. Report an error in the passage at 19:26 Highlight the passage at 19:26

19:40 So that's... So that many people, as they get older too, they start regretting things that they've done when they were young. And they can get caught up in an obsessive guilt about something that they've done in the past. Report an error in the passage at 19:40 Highlight the passage at 19:40

20:01 So the emphasis, say, of liberation is on the here and now. This is the pachubhanathamma, enlightenment, liberation. liberation, salvation. Report an error in the passage at 20:01 Highlight the passage at 20:01

20:18 Salvation, intuition, awareness, always is about the immediacy of the moment, being with the present, and being able to respond to the present in a way that is with wisdom rather than with fear or with infatuation. Report an error in the passage at 20:18 Highlight the passage at 20:18

20:54 Even Report an error in the passage at 20:54 Highlight the passage at 20:54

21:05 with high tech, you're frustrated. Report an error in the passage at 21:05 Highlight the passage at 21:05

21:21 The way to deal with fear then is to be aware of it as experience. And what really is the path of liberation is to be able to admit the experience into your consciousness. And this is very important because fear has this tendency for us to immediately, the first reaction is to try to get away. You know, to try to distract ourselves and get rid of it. So there's a lot of resistance that we've developed around fear. Report an error in the passage at 21:21 Highlight the passage at 21:21

22:00 For example, in Thailand, the culture talks a lot about ghosts. There's a lot of ghost stories in the Thai culture. And you start hearing about ghosts when you're a little child. Ghosts are, even when you grow up, you still... Have this incredible fear around the possibility of ghosts. Ghosts in the, somebody dies or somebody, you know, you hear that there are ghosts living in some place like in Hampton Court and Berlin's ghost is supposed to be still active there. Report an error in the passage at 22:00 Highlight the passage at 22:00

22:40 And whenever you hear the possibility, then this starts, this anxiety, this fear, this terror about. about this meeting something, a specter of some sort. Then how to use that is by really going into the actual experience of fear, what it does to you physically and emotionally. Like the body, once you get the idea of how to really look at your body with an intuitive awareness in the present, by just noticing, say, The sensations in it, like when you feel frightened or you feel threatened or you feel a level of anxiety, there's something bothering you, you're anxious about. Report an error in the passage at 22:40 Highlight the passage at 22:40

23:31 You can often find it in your body, like in the lower part of your body, the abdomen, the gut. You can feel a kind of a knot or a sense of churning sensation there that is... Report an error in the passage at 23:31 Highlight the passage at 23:31

23:51 Cause through this experience of fear. You can contemplate it as an emotion that you have, the kind of mental environment, this sense of trying to just, not without thinking or analyzing, but just beginning to notice the mood of fear or anxiety that you're feeling. Not in order to get rid of it, but to accept it, allow it to be consciously accepted, embraced. Report an error in the passage at 23:51 Highlight the passage at 23:51

24:24 As it is. So you're changing your relationship from being somebody who's trying to get rid of something you don't like or seeing it and always explaining it on a highly personal level as some kind of personal weakness or personal problem to looking at it for what it really is. Seeing it as part of your path as a way to develop wisdom rather than as Some kind of emotional fault that you have that you feel is an obstruction for your spiritual development. Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

25:06 So in meditation, we're actually changing the attitude from the highly personal self that is very identified with the body and with the conditioned emotions, the habits, the thoughts that we have, which, you know... What we acquire after we're born. I mean, because I wasn't born in Thailand, and my parents didn't believe in ghosts. Report an error in the passage at 25:06 Highlight the passage at 25:06

25:35 They said, there are never any ghosts. When I went home and talked about ghosts, my mother and father said, there aren't any ghosts. That's ignorance. Ghosts don't exist. So my basic conditioning was that when the subject of ghosts came up, there aren't any. I acquired that from my parents. Report an error in the passage at 25:35 Highlight the passage at 25:35

25:57 I could always go into haunted houses and kind of laugh at people that were frightened and show off how brave I was because I didn't believe in those silly things. But still, strangely enough, I've had strange experiences happen to me in this life, which does make you wonder whether there are ghosts around. Report an error in the passage at 25:57 Highlight the passage at 25:57

26:30 But that's not the problem. Whether there are ghosts or aren't ghosts. I'm not trying to solve that one for you. Buddhists, we don't believe in ghosts. Or you shouldn't believe in ghosts. Or ghosts don't make a proclamation. There are no such thing as ghosts. Or to say that there are. I don't really know. Report an error in the passage at 26:30 Highlight the passage at 26:30

26:50 But I know that I don't know that. And I know that I don't have to know that. I don't necessarily want to know all about that. That kind of experience, whether they really are such things or they really are not such things. What I can know is that this is the way it is, that if there's fear, it's like this. Report an error in the passage at 26:50 Highlight the passage at 26:50

27:18 If there's anxiety or worry, it's like this. When there's jealousy, jealousy feels like this. When there's greed or lust, Or longing, it's like this. When there's dullness, sleepiness, restlessness, insecurity, doubt and uncertainty, it feels like this. So this is called direct knowing. You're knowing the way it is. All these things are what they are and in the present they're like this. Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

27:57 So they're infinitely variable and changing. But that which is the knowing, this intuitive knowing, is what we're using now, rather than knowing about things, having opinions and theories that we operate from, and then interpreting experience always from some perceptual position, from some idea that we have. Report an error in the passage at 27:57 Highlight the passage at 27:57

28:27 So this allows us to experience life in a way that is honest, it's direct, And then we can. Whatever happens to us is seen and accepted. But also we're using wisdom in this way so that the wisdom allows us to put it in the terms of dharma, of the way it is. All conditions are impermanent. And then also to realize once we let go of this blind attachment, The force of habit and this ignorance that pushes us around and pulls us every which way. Once we stop doing that, then it's like we're tuned in on a universal level rather than a personal. Report an error in the passage at 28:27 Highlight the passage at 28:27

29:25 This is how I experience life more and more from a sense of a universal experience rather than just personal me, this Ajahn Sumedho perception. Report an error in the passage at 29:25 Highlight the passage at 29:25

29:40 Because that is a convention that one still has to accept as part of life experience. But the real experience isn't operating from I am Ajahn Sumedho, but from opening my heart, my mind to life as I'm experiencing it without trying to perceive it through the sense of me as a personality. Or through all the conditions that I've acquired in my life that can influence and distort experience in the present. Report an error in the passage at 29:40 Highlight the passage at 29:40

30:26 I was listening the other day to an Ajahn Chah tape. And now in Thailand they've tried to collect all the tapes that he's made over the years. And I remember when I first went to... ...went to stay with him in 1967. Somebody gave him a Philips tape recorder, and it was before the cassette tapes were available. Report an error in the passage at 30:26 Highlight the passage at 30:26

30:56 They had these reels. And he really took to high technology very quickly, and he would tape everything he said. And then he liked to listen to his own tapes. And one time he took me on a tour, visited other famous teachers in the Northeast, and we taped all their, what they had to say. And all these tapes, then I didn't know what happened to them. In a climate like Thailand, everything degenerates, deteriorates very quickly. Report an error in the passage at 30:56 Highlight the passage at 30:56

31:31 Over the past few years, they've tried to collect all these old tapes, and then they've got this new equipment which can kind of re - And do these tapes again, but take away all the kind of static and unwanted sounds in the background, or the bad parts of it can be removed through this new technique. Report an error in the passage at 31:31 Highlight the passage at 31:31

31:56 So I'm listening, I have the whole set now of Ajahn Chah's tapes. And just to, it's a kind of real treat for me, because on some of these tapes, I was very much a part of his life, you know, and I mention quite often in these tapes. Report an error in the passage at 31:56 Highlight the passage at 31:56

32:11 It makes you feel good. Remember the good old days back in Thailand with Ajahn Chah. But what he's saying, his style of teaching was always to try to emphasize that the Buddha is something you're using now. And so in the way he talks in these tapes, he's using this word Buddha not as a reference to... Report an error in the passage at 32:11 Highlight the passage at 32:11

32:41 The Buddha of the past, you know, the Gautama the Buddha, or the sage, or the founder of Buddhism, but as a real experience in the present. And this is very much his style of teaching, the emphasis on this, using this butoh, or this sense of Buddha, Buddhahood in the present. And so this also is something to contemplate, the fact of... Report an error in the passage at 32:41 Highlight the passage at 32:41

33:12 of our own ability to awaken into the present is without thinking I've got a little Buddha inside me or making any kind of complicated ideas about I am a Buddha or you are a Buddha. You don't need to do that. We're stopping. We're trying to restrain ourselves from creating, complicating everything toward the immediacy. Report an error in the passage at 33:12 Highlight the passage at 33:12

33:40 of Buddha, Buddhahood in the present, of the simple ability that all of us have, every single person in this room can be awake in the present, can pay attention. Report an error in the passage at 33:40 Highlight the passage at 33:40

33:57 And so it's a very simple thing, too. It's not like a highly developed, refined state that you have to get in order to become enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 33:57 Highlight the passage at 33:57

34:12 Oftentimes, we tend to create the idea of enlightenment or the realization of the nibbāna as some kind of very highly developed refinement of conscious experience that for us seems impossible. It seems too remote, too difficult, too many things preventing us from that level of refinement. Report an error in the passage at 34:12 Highlight the passage at 34:12

34:44 Even as a Buddhist monk, it's interesting, many of you probably think Buddhist monks live in this level of refinement. We don't. Report an error in the passage at 34:44 Highlight the passage at 34:44

34:57 We're not very refined, actually. I wish sometimes we were a little more refined. But the Buddhist monk, the Buddhist nun, the samana, isn't a refined state, but a... it. Report an error in the passage at 34:57 Highlight the passage at 34:57

35:20 It's an open state, a receptive state of being. It's based on allowing for the basic needs of food and shelter, robes and medicine. It's allowing us to be human and to respect the limitations that we have with our bodies, with our humanity, and not trying to become a super... Superman or some special kind of refined creature, but being fully human, respecting that humanity and being able to let go of our identity, our habitual clinging and attachment, identity to the body, to the conditions of the mind. Report an error in the passage at 35:20 Highlight the passage at 35:20

36:15 So that is achieved, that actually happens when you pay attention. When you awaken. Now I notice it's interesting when I have this shower in my caravan and every morning I take a shower and there's this little fan and you pull a string and the fan goes on in the shower to take out the moisture. Report an error in the passage at 36:15 Highlight the passage at 36:15

36:46 And so then when I come out of the shower I switch off the fan, pull the string. If I don't do that, then the fan goes on and on and on and on. But even after I pull the string, the fan still goes on, and then it goes on for maybe a couple of minutes, and then it switches off. Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

37:09 So sometimes, heatless moments take me over after I get out of the shower. I come out of the shower, and I can't remember whether I switched the fan off. Report an error in the passage at 37:09 Highlight the passage at 37:09

37:22 So I pull the string, and then I go to the morning chanting. I come back and the fan's still on. Report an error in the passage at 37:22 Highlight the passage at 37:22

37:34 So obviously I had switched the fan off before. I couldn't remember. It was like being asleep, wasn't it? These things, a whole life can be just kind of automatic kind of reactions. You get kind of programmed into acting like this. You get out of the shower and you pull this thing. But you're not actually with what you're doing. Report an error in the passage at 37:34 Highlight the passage at 37:34

37:56 Your mind is somewhere else. Report an error in the passage at 37:56 Highlight the passage at 37:56

38:06 So I contemplate that as I'm not awake when I'm doing that. That part of me is not awake, not with the present, when I'm just pulling the string without knowing. It's not reached consciousness yet. It's more like just something that you do unconsciously. So I've used this as a way of, you know, it's quite interesting for me to develop mindfulness around this fan in my shower. Report an error in the passage at 38:06 Highlight the passage at 38:06

38:34 And the other morning I... Out of the shower, and I looked at the string on the fan, and I said, I am going to pull that string. Report an error in the passage at 38:34 Highlight the passage at 38:34

38:47 And then I went and I pulled the string, and I really pulled it wholeheartedly, and I was fully with the pulling of the string, and there was no doubt. When I went to the morning chanting, and Report an error in the passage at 38:47 Highlight the passage at 38:47

39:07 I went back, the fan was off. Well, that might seem rather trivial kind of experience, not terribly important, admit, but it is an example of so much of our life is unconscious, you know, it's just habitual performances, going through the motions of life. And it's when we really are with life, you know, in the present, when we're in that state of real attention, that... Report an error in the passage at 39:07 Highlight the passage at 39:07

39:39 Then the mind will not get lost in anxieties and worries about the future. It is not going to get caught up into what if this happens, what if that happens, because our attention is with the way it is now. And even if those kind of emotions start coming, we're aware of them as something arising, ceasing. We're looking at them, we're acknowledging them, and we're not just trying to automatically dismiss them. Report an error in the passage at 39:39 Highlight the passage at 39:39

40:10 So that's another one. One becomes addicted to meditation techniques. So I remember years ago I had the insight into letting go. Report an error in the passage at 40:10 Highlight the passage at 40:10

40:23 Yeah, all you have to do is let go of everything. Just let go and don't hold on to anything. That's the truth. So for a while that worked. I just say let go and it seemed to work. Everything that I was attached to seemed to... You know, no longer be a problem just by saying, let go. Let go, let go, and remind myself, let go. And it worked for a while. Then after a while, it didn't work anymore. Report an error in the passage at 40:23 Highlight the passage at 40:23

40:54 And I'd say it even with more emphasis. Let go! Report an error in the passage at 40:54 Highlight the passage at 40:54

41:00 And I was so disappointed because I thought, now I've discovered the secret. All I have to do is say, let go, and everything just happens. But then, not like that, because what I attached to was the go. Report an error in the passage at 41:00 Highlight the passage at 41:00

41:14 was the idea of letting go as a way of getting rid of things. And so this is where the paññā, the wisdom is necessary to see, to recognize what attachment is so that we're not, it's not just a matter of knowing the right words and saying the right formulas and having the right technique and then everything's going to, you know, happen for us and be enlightened and it'll be just... Report an error in the passage at 41:14 Highlight the passage at 41:14

41:42 You know, from now on, it's very easy for us. But life is forever challenging us in its own ways, dealing with the way we do attach, even to Buddhism or meditation techniques or ideas about practice or Report an error in the passage at 41:42 Highlight the passage at 41:42

42:05 our own abilities to practice. I hear a lot of people, because they tend to See, like meditation as another kind of achievement. And then they maybe form some opinion about what a good meditation is, about what you think somebody else does, who you think is a good meditator. And then you compare yourself with maybe a very high idea or perfect ideal of what meditation should be. Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:43 And then as the years go by, you find out you just never seem to be up to that standard, that ideal. And you try hard and go through various periods where you're really, you know, 100 % disciplined, practicing hours a day, going to meditation retreats, reading the suttas, coming to the monastery, doing all the right things, and then it'll... Report an error in the passage at 42:43 Highlight the passage at 42:43

43:13 And after a while it all kind of falls apart and you lose interest. And then you feel, you know, because you don't have that same drive that somehow you've fallen away or you can't do it. Report an error in the passage at 43:13 Highlight the passage at 43:13

43:29 So we do see ourselves and those are views based on the idea that I am a person who is trying to develop meditation and get somewhere with it. Maybe I do get somewhere, but then whatever you get, you tend to lose eventually. So one feels despair or discouragement or boredom or disinterest. Report an error in the passage at 43:29 Highlight the passage at 43:29

43:57 But in terms of real practice of paying attention in the present, all of that we can pay attention to. You know, like the inspired moments, the eagerness, the... Report an error in the passage at 43:57 Highlight the passage at 43:57

44:26 and then you that. that's also part of the the disinterest, the resistance, despair, the disillusionment with the whole process. Because it's the These are emotional experiences and habits that we are experiencing. So it's through this willingness to pay attention to those. Report an error in the passage at 44:26 Highlight the passage at 44:26

44:57 So it's not selective in terms of trying to think only good thoughts but even the arising of bad thoughts by allowing even the bad thoughts or the nasty emotions into consciousness then we can can let them go. It's through willingness to use conscious experience allow emotional habits be accepted what they are that we can actually relinquish them, them go, without this delusion of letting go, which is really trying to get rid of because we don't like them. Report an error in the passage at 44:57 Highlight the passage at 44:57

45:44 I notice in my own practice certain negative states I don't like, that I have, and I don't, you know, and I can see, I remember observing this, going through several, you know, where you're having really peaceful time, and you're going to the meditation hall and you sit down and your mind goes to this nice, tranquil state, and it seems to kind of... Report an error in the passage at 45:44 Highlight the passage at 45:44

46:17 It's easy to sustain that level of this kind of emptiness. Then one Report an error in the passage at 46:17 Highlight the passage at 46:17

46:35 day you go into the temple, you sit down, and it doesn't go there. And you feel this kind of negative feeling coming up. And then you see this resistance to these negative feelings. Because there's really the memory of the previous meditation where it creates this desire to have those blissful experiences. Report an error in the passage at 46:35 Highlight the passage at 46:35

47:03 So, and you say, that's a good meditation. When you get that blissful peace, that's good meditation. And then you go in and your mind isn't peaceful and there's no bliss and it's just restless and negative thoughts coming and then you think, terrible meditation. Had a terrible meditation. Report an error in the passage at 47:03 Highlight the passage at 47:03

47:28 But that is, don't believe that. It's good meditation too. Terrible meditation is good. Report an error in the passage at 47:28 Highlight the passage at 47:28

47:39 Because changing your attitude towards it is an important thing. It's willingness, embracing quality, to let them be what they are, to accept the condition for what it is. It's not approving, not saying I approve or I like, but it's willing to let it be what it is. And then through that, you're willing to let it to experience that. Report an error in the passage at 47:39 Highlight the passage at 47:39

48:10 And in your willingness to let it be what it is, you don't create suffering in your mind. Because the suffering is really resistance. Report an error in the passage at 48:10 Highlight the passage at 48:10

48:20 Some negative mental state and then the resistance, oh no, here it comes again, not this, I don't want to feel like this, I don't want these thoughts right now, and then that whole resistance, trying to push out, get rid of, distract yourself from them. Report an error in the passage at 48:20 Highlight the passage at 48:20

48:38 So I encourage you to instead... To develop the more the welcoming. So the bad thoughts, they welcome bad thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 48:38 Highlight the passage at 48:38

48:52 I think it works for me. It's a lot better than saying, oh no, here come some thoughts I don't want. How can I get rid of them? It's attitude. Report an error in the passage at 48:52 Highlight the passage at 48:52

49:06 And embracing, to embrace something is your, like when you embrace somebody, you're accepting them totally at that moment, aren't you? You're not just going to embrace. I'll embrace this part, but I don't want to have anything to do with the rest. Report an error in the passage at 49:06 Highlight the passage at 49:06

49:25 Embracing has this quality of total acceptance. It doesn't mean that you like every part of the person you're embracing. But it's a welcoming, uncritical willingness to accept somebody for what they are, or something for what they are, for what it is. And that attitude then allows consciousness. To be a vehicle for resolving those problems, for letting go. And then you are actually learning how to inform conscious experience with wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 49:25 Highlight the passage at 49:25

50:06 This wisdom isn't something you learn. It's not like Buddhist wisdom that you've got to spend time kind of memorizing out of Buddhist scripture. But the actual practice Meditation is the using of wisdom, seeing into, looking into, recognizing, observing, learning from experience until you actually see for yourself how things actually are, what actually works for you. Report an error in the passage at 50:06 Highlight the passage at 50:06

50:40 Now when I describe this, I'm trying to describe it from my own experience. That's the best I can do, what I can offer. So that, you know, it doesn't mean that you're going to, you know, maybe it doesn't mean much to you what I've said. Report an error in the passage at 50:40 Highlight the passage at 50:40

51:02 But recognize it is an attempt to try to describe a way that I deal with the conditions of my mind and body that I've found work in which the suffering that I create otherwise is not created. Report an error in the passage at 51:02 Highlight the passage at 51:02

51:21 And where the... The experience of life then is much more one of joyfulness and fearlessness because you feel open and embracing the universe rather than trying to protect yourself from a vast, frightening universe that you just have to try to ignore most of it because it's too threatening to you. Report an error in the passage at 51:21 Highlight the passage at 51:21

51:56 Offer this as a reflection. Report an error in the passage at 51:56 Highlight the passage at 51:56

52:02 And it's 3 o 'clock now, tea time. And so I invite you all to have a cup of tea or whatever they've got. And then in about 20 minutes, for those of you who are interested, please come back and we can have further discussion. Report an error in the passage at 52:02 Highlight the passage at 52:02