Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
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meditate". That's a big mistake; never come to me and tell<br />
me that something is getting in the way of your meditation.<br />
It's too easy; don't walk into that one.<br />
Someone recently complained on our <strong>In</strong>ternet forum, "I try to<br />
meditate but there is all this sound, and it's getting in the<br />
way of my meditation." Well, you know what the answer is<br />
going to be, if you've been paying attention - that the sound<br />
should be your meditation. At the moment when the sound<br />
is disturbing your mind, you have a perfect meditation<br />
object. Why is it perfect? Because you don't like it. Because<br />
you think somehow you have to fix it; that somehow you can<br />
make everything better by chasing it away. You are thinking<br />
something like, "all I have to do is go somewhere else where<br />
there is no sound." You are in the mode of trying to fix,<br />
trying to control, trying to satisfy your partiality. For this<br />
very reason it's a perfect object of our meditation, since by<br />
meditating on it you have the potential to change these<br />
habits into simple realization of the truth - it's just sound.<br />
I hear many stories of meditators who do this when they go<br />
home, when their family members are yelling and arguing,<br />
for example. They simply say to themselves, "hearing",<br />
"hearing" and, whereas normally they would get into an<br />
argument and cause even more suffering, they find that they<br />
are actually at peace in their minds, even while someone is<br />
shouting in their ear - "hearing", "hearing", and it's just<br />
sound. At that moment, there is wisdom - pure,<br />
unadulterated wisdom.<br />
I have told the story before about how I once saw a monk<br />
enter into cessation while we watched. He didn't intend to, I<br />
don't think; he was just explaining the meditation practice,<br />
but he must also have been practising as he taught. He<br />
explained that when you hear, you should say "hearing",<br />
"hearing". As he said this, his whole body suddenly froze,<br />
even his hand that was pointing at his ear. After almost a<br />
minute, he came back and sent the meditator to continue<br />
with their practice as though nothing had happened.<br />
Because he himself was undertaking the practice, then and<br />
there, his mind was able to let go and become free from the<br />
phenomenological world for a moment.<br />
Wisdom is to see things as they are. It's easy to hear that,<br />
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