Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org

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