Watch but not react

Our practice and mental cultivation in this life is to observe the way things are: suffering and the arising of suffering.

We should understand and acknowledge what suffering is, not just react to it.

In the second Noble Truth lies the insight to let go of desire.

The third Noble Truth is the realization of cessation. Cessation doesn't mean annihilation. When we let go of desire, it ceases. That's just Dhamma, the way of things. All conditions are impermanent, so whatever comes into being, falls away.

The focus of the third Noble truth is to realize the cessation of things. This is quite subtle and if we don't set our minds on practising for that realization, then we miss it all the time . Who notices how things end or cease?

We're much more interested in the arising conditions of life. Like sexual activities, delicious flavours and beautiful sights. We want pleasurable experience, an exciting lifetime with romantic relationships and adventures. So the arising of desire is what we tend to become dazzled and fascinated with.

But we can't stay fascinated forever, can we? We can only stay that way for a while: it reaches its peak and then we seek another exciting object to follow. This is what samsara is about. The endless seeking of some kind of new, absorbing condition to become . And then we get bored, disillusioned, depressed and uncertain.

Nobody wants to be bored. The thing is, when we live a life of just one exciting adventure after another, we get incredibly bored. We get bored with excitement too!

What was exciting yesterday is boring today, so we have to think of something even more exciting than that.

Understand and acknowledge that freedom is not from external but turning within the Mind itself. This is where we need to see what grasping is and letting go, and the cessation that follows.

But it's not a rejection of anything. It's a realization, where desire based on ignorance, is let go of.

We can actually see desire, then it ceases and there is the realization of cessation of desire - when there is no more desire, what is our mind like? This we have to really observe.

Mindfulness is the way to the deathless. We sit and watch, being able to observe desire - not suppressing or trying to get rid of it, not following it blindly. We turn towards that cool, calm position knowing and seeing, witnessing and recognizing the way things are.