dhammadrops

Monday, January 26, 2009

Just be




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ONLY ONE BREATH


'Can we be mindful of one inhalation?

'Yes.'

'And of one exhalation?'

'Yes.'

There's nothing more to it than that. However, we tend to expect to go into some special state. And because we don't do that, then we think we can't do it.

But the way of the spiritual life is through renunciation, relinquishment, letting go not through attaining or acquiring. Even the jhanas are relinquishments rather than attainments. If we relinquish more and more , letting go more and more, then the jhanic states are natural.

The attitude is most important. To practise anapanasati, one brings the attention onto one inhalation, being mindful from the beginning to the end. One inhalation, that's it; and then the same goes for the exhalation. That's the perfect attainment of anapanasati. The awareness of just that much is the result of concentration of the mind through sustained attention on the breath - from the beginning to the end of the inhalation, from the beginning to the end of the exhalation. The attitude is always one of letting go, not attaching to any ideas or feelings that arise from that, so that we're always fresh with the next inhalation, the next exhalation, completely as it is. We're not carrying over anything. So it's a way of relinquishment, of letting go, rather than of attaining and achieving.

The dangers in meditation practice is the habit of grasping at things, grasping at states; so the concept that's most useful is the concept of letting go, rather than of attaining and achieving. When we're trying to attain something that we expect or remember rather than really working with the way things are, as they happen to be now, we are caught in the hindrance of greed. So the correct way is one of mindfulness, of looking at the way it is now.

Insight is more and more a matter of living insightfully. It's not just that we have insight sometimes, but more and more as we reflect on Dhamma, then everything is insightful.

We see insightfully into life as it's happening to us.

As soon as we think we need to have special conditions for meditation, for developing insight, then we're going to create all sorts of complexities about our practice.

So we need to develop letting go: to not concern ourselves with attaining or achieving anything.

When insight comes, and we let go even of our insights, that is another insight.

In each moment it's as it is.

With Anapanasati, one inhalation, at this moment, is the way. We're not thinking of yesterday's inhalation and yesterday's exhalation while we're doing the one now. We're with it completely, as it is. Our training is based on establishing our awareness in the way it is now rather than having some idea of what we would like to get, and then trying to get it in the here and now.

When we hear disturbances and sounds during our meditation practise, we will feel annoyed, but when we accept that the noises would be part of the practice we open our mind to noises, the silence, the whole thing. That's wisdom. If the noise is something we can stop - like a door banging in the wind - go close the door. If there's something we have control over, we can do that.

But much of life we have no control over. We have no right to ask everything to be silent for 'my' meditation. When there is reflectiveness, instead of having a little mind that has to have total silence and special conditions, we can have a big mind that can contain the whole of it: the noises, the disruptions, the silence, the bliss, the restlessness, the pain. When the mind is all-embracing, then we had develop flexibility and can focus our mind in equanimity in all circumstances. That's freedom.

It's through wisdom that we develop it, not through will-power or controlling or manipulating environmental conditions.

Desire is insidious. When we are aware that our intention is to attain some state, that's a desire. So we let it go. If we are sitting here, even with a desire to attain the first jhana, we recognise that that desire is going to be the very thing that's going to prevent the fulfilment. So we let go of the desire, which doesn't mean not to do anapanasati, but to change the attitude to it.

So what can we do now ? Develop mindfulness of one inhalation. Most of us have enough concentration to do that. We must try to develop a mind that's glad at just being able to do that much, rather than being critical because we haven't attained the first jhana, or the fourth.

If meditation becomes another thing we have to do, and we feel guilty if we don't live up to our resolutions, then we start pushing ourself without an awareness of what we're doing. But if we are putting that skilful kind of attention into our daily life, we'll find so much of daily life very pleasant - everything is life becomes a Dhamma lesson.

Sustaining our attention on the breathing develops awareness but when we get lost in thought or restlessness, that's all right too. Don't be a slave driver, guide ourselves rather than driving and forcing ourselves.

Nibbana is a subtle realisation of non-grasping. We can't drive ourselves to Nibbana. That's the sure way of never realising it. It's here and now, so if we're driving ourselves to Nibbana, we're always going far away from it.

We need to burn up attachments in our mind. The Holy Life is a total burning up of self and of ignorance.

More and more the path is just being here and now, being with the way things are. There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to become, nothing to get rid of. When there is no ignorance remaining; there is purity, clarity and intelligence.



--


A flower falls,
even though we love it;
and a weed grows,
even though we do not love it.



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