All quotes from
Ayya's book
Words are concepts,
which can be twisted out of shape. Our
minds are magicians and are capable of transforming one thing into another.
When we sit down to
meditate, we are trying to transcend our everyday consciousness, the
consciousness used to transact ordinary business…. It is our survival
consciousness…. Our everyday consciousness is neither unique nor profound, just
utilitarian…. In order to attain the kind of consciousness that is capable of
going deeply…we need a mind with the ability to remove itself from the ordinary
thinking process. Attaining this sort of
mind is only possible through meditation.
[Meditation] is a
means to change the mind's capacity in such a way that it can perceive entirely
different realities from the ones we are used to.
There's only one way
of dealing with suffering when it arises, and that's to drop the wanting;
suffering will then disappear.
Being mindful means
that mind and body are in the same place.
Meditation is the
means by which we can practice mindfulness to the point where insight becomes
so strong that we can see absolute reality behind the relative.
Only people who
never meditate believe what they are thinking.
"Awareness, no
blame, change" is an important formula to remember: become aware of what
is going on within, but do not attach any blame to it.
All our sense
contacts generate feelings…. From touch contact arises feeling, and from that
comes perception, the realization that "this is painful" or
"this is not nice". Let's say
that we call it "pain". Then comes the immediate, impulsive reaction
in the mind (which is also karma-making): "I don't like it,"
"I've got to move"…. The mental formations (sankhara) are also our
karma formations.
We make karma first
by thought, then by speech, and lastly by action.
Purification of
emotions brings clarification of thought.
The whole of the
spiritual path is one of purification, which means a constant letting go.
Our suffering comes
from our resistance, from wanting people and situations to be different.
Attachment creates
partiality, holding us back form transcending our judgmental attitudes.
We need to remember
that karma is always initiated in the mind and then followed up by speech and
action. We only have these three doors:
thought, speech, and action. Since all
starts in the mind, that's our first and foremost focus of attention.
When we realize that
the mind is the one paddling the boat, with the body as a passenger, then we
have a much better insight into our priorities.
Another reaction to
suffering is self-pity, which is fairly widespread but quite useless and
counterproductive, since it generates more unhappiness. Once self-pity has set in, the next step is
near at hand, namely, depression.
There is no way to
say goodbye to [suffering] unless and until we have transcended our
reactions. This means that we have
looked suffering squarely in the eye and have seen it for what it is -- a
universal characteristic of existence and nothing else.
Liberation goes
beyond personal existence, but within personal existence, unsatisfactoriness
is. If we accept that fully, we don't
have to suffer.
There's no cause for
mental pain unless there's something inside oneself that is reacting to that
trigger.
Fear is the first
and foremost hindrance to going deeper.
In the beginning,
fear is the greatest obstacle. The
remedy is perseverance.
Joy comes from our
inner understanding that, because of impermanence, there is nothing to hang on
to, nothing to worry about, nowhere to go, nothing to be done.
When there is sloth
and torpor, the mind has no strength at all, not even enough wakefulness to fix
itself on the subject of meditation. The
more often we put our mind to the subject of meditation, the more we counteract
torpor. A mind without clarity also
creates sloth in the body.
Skeptical doubt is
the enemy of faith and confidence, and therefore of practice; the mind can
provide all sorts of ideas, doubts, and excuses --- "There must be an
easier way", or "I'll try something different", or "I'll
find a better teacher or a better monastery", or "There must be
something that will really grip me."
The mind is a magician: it can produce a rabbit out of any hat.
Continuity covers up
impermanence but certainly doesn't alter the fact of it; again and again we are
fooled into believing ourselves to be a solid entity.
Rigidity of the body
is detrimental to expansion of the mind.
Inner happiness
depends on concentration and not on someone else's approval.
When there is no
desire, no craving, then there is also no suffering, and that brings peaceful
contentment.
Unsatisfactoriness
is masked by change, by movement.
Sometimes we run away from it, distract ourselves, or move our body.
Observing pleasant
or unpleasant feelings and our reactions to them helps us to realize the
circumstances involved in creating "me". Knowing this clearly, we can make use of this
understanding in daily life. We no
longer have to believe what our mind concocts, but we realize it is caused by a
condition, a trigger. It is up to us to
turn the mind in wholesome directions.
Suffering is not
only pain, grief, and lamentation, but it is also unsatisfactoriness and
nonfulfillment. We also need to remind
ourselves that the past is irrevocably gone, the future is just a concept, a
hope, and that we have only this one moment in which to realize our
aspirations.
In order to grow
spiritually, we need to understand that a trigger has generated a reaction,
indicating to us that this emotion is one of the weeds growing in our heart,
which we need to attend to.
