THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS By Ajahn Sumedho - DharmaFlower.Net

practising letting go. The more you begin to see how to do it, then themore you are able to sustain the state of non-attachment.ACCOMPLISHMENTIt is important to know when you have let go of desire: when you nolonger judge or try to get rid of it; when you recognise that it’s just theway it is. When you are really calm and peaceful, then you will findthat there is no attachment to anything. You are not caught up, tryingto get something or trying to get rid of something. Well-being is justknowing things as they are without feeling the necessity to passjudgement upon them.We say all the time, ‘This shouldn’t be like this!’, ‘I shouldn’t be thisway!’ and, ‘You shouldn’t be like this and you shouldn’t do that!’ andso on. I’m sure I could tell you what you should be - and you could tellme what I should be. We should be kind, loving, generous, goodhearted,hard-working, diligent, courageous, brave andcompassionate. I don’t have to know you at all to tell you that! But toreally know you, I would have to open up to you rather than startfrom an ideal about what a woman or man should be, what aBuddhist should be or what a Christian should be. It’s not that wedon’t know what we should be.Our suffering comes from the attachment that we have to ideals, andthe complexities we create about the way things are. We are neverwhat we should be according to our highest ideals. Life, others, thecountry we are in, the world we live in - things never seem to be whatthey should be. We become very critical of everything and of ourselves:‘I know I should be more patient, but I just CAN’T be patient!’....Listento all the ‘shoulds’ and the ‘should nots’ and the desires: wanting thepleasant, wanting to become or wanting to get rid of the ugly and thepainful. It’s like listening to somebody talking over the fence saying, ‘Iwant this and I don’t like that. It should be this way and it shouldn’tbe that way.’ Really take time to listen to the complaining mind; bringit into consciousness.I used to do a lot of this when I felt discontented or critical. I wouldclose my eyes and start thinking, ‘I don’t like this and I don’t wantthat’, ‘That person shouldn’t be like this’, and ‘The world shouldn’t belike that’. I would keep listening to this kind of critical demon thatwould go on and on, criticising me, you and the world. Then I wouldthink, ‘I want happiness and comfort; I want to feel safe; I want to beloved!’ I would deliberately think these things out and listen to themin order to know them simply as conditions that arise in the mind. Sobring them up in your mind - arouse all the hopes, desires andcriticisms. Bring them into consciousness. Then you will know desireand be able to lay it aside.