Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org
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and to agree with it, but the key is to understand it for<br />
yourself, to see things as they are is just simply, for what<br />
they are. If the stomach is rising, wisdom means to know it<br />
simply as a rising motion:<br />
paṭissatimattāya - with specific and exact remembrance of<br />
the object for what it is,<br />
anissito ca viharati - dwelling independent of the object,<br />
na ca kiñci loke upādiyati - not clinging to anything in the<br />
world.<br />
So when you consider of the meditation practice, this activity<br />
where you are required to practice walking slowly or sitting<br />
still and repeating a mantra, before you entertain the view<br />
that somehow this mundane activity is obstructing your path<br />
to spiritual attainment and supermundane wisdom, you<br />
should consider carefully what sort of wisdom you're looking<br />
for if not understanding of mundane reality for what it is.<br />
The meditation really is supposed to create obstructions. It's<br />
meant to obstruct our habitual clinging to pleasant<br />
experiences like deep states of tranquillity that we think of<br />
as stable and permanent and satisfying; it's meant to<br />
obstruct our judgemental and analytical mind, keeping us<br />
from speculating about the past or future. It is meant to<br />
keep us from falling into all intellectual and emotional traps,<br />
to keep us seeing reality just as it is, without investigating or<br />
complicating it in any way. Without a constant reminder of<br />
ultimate mundane reality, it will be difficult to keep ourselves<br />
from clinging to pleasant experiences, since they feel very<br />
much like the goal of the practise; the meditation technique<br />
we use is designed to keep us from wasting time cultivating<br />
states that have nothing to do with reality.<br />
This simplicity is difficult to appreciate, and often a meditator<br />
will think such a practise is actually detrimental to their<br />
spiritual development because of how it stops them from<br />
dwelling on pleasant or profound states. It can even happen<br />
that a meditator, knowing they must contemplate on<br />
impermanence, suffering, and non-self, will come to<br />
complain that they are unable to observe the truth because<br />
they're too busy watching their stomach. Meditators actually<br />
quite often come to complain that their observation of the<br />
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