Cittaviveka

Teachings from the Silent Mind by Ajahn Sumedho

THis chapter titles 'Letting Go'.

Truly, wisdom springs from meditation;
without meditation, wisdom wanes;
having known these two paths of progress and decline,
let one conduct oneself so that wisdom may increase.
- Dhammapada 282


...if u fill your mind with more concepts and opinions, you are just increasing your ability to doubt. it's only through leaning how to empty the mind out that you can fill it within things of value - and learning how to empty a mind takes a great deal of wisdom.

... meditation is a skilful letting go, deliberately emptying out the mind so we can see the purity of the mind - cleaning it out so we can put the right things in it.

You respect your mind, so you are more caferful what you put in it. If you have a nice house, you don't go out and pick up all the filth from the street and bring it in, you bring in thingfs that will enhance it and make it a refreshing and delightful place.

.. when you are suffering - 'why am i miserable?' because you are clinging to somethin! Find out what you are clinging to, to get to the source. 'I'm unhappy because nobody loves me.' That may be true, maybe nobody loves you, but the unhappiness comes from wanting people to love you. Even if they do love you, you will still have suffering if you think that other people are responsible for your happiness of your suffering. Someone says "You are the greatest person I've met in my life!' - and you jump for joy.

Someone says "You are the most horrible person I've met in my life!' - and you get depressed." Let go of depression, let go of happiness. Keep the practice simple: live your life mindfully, morally, and have faith in letting go.

it's important for you to realise that none of us are helpless victims of fate - but we are as long as we remain ignorant. As long as you remain ignorant, you are a helpless victim of your ignorance. All that is ignorant is born and dies, it is bound to die - thats all, its caught in the cycle of death and rebirth. And if you die, you will be reborn - you can count on it. And the more heedlessly you lead your life, the worse the rebirth.

So the Buddha taught a way to break the cycle, and thats' through awareness, trough seeing the cycle rather than being attached to it. When you let go of the cycle, then you are no longer harmed by it. So you let go of the cycle, let go of birth and death, let go of becoming. Letting go of desire is the development of the Third Noble Truth which leads to the Eight Fold Path.

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THis chapter titles 'The 5 Hindrances'

Just as, 0 King, the bhikku, so long as these five hindrances are not put away within him, looks upon himself as in debt, diseased, in prison, in slavery, lost on a desert road. But when these 5 hindrances have been put away within him, he looks upon himself as a freed form debt, rid of disease, out of jail, a free man and secure ....
- Digha Niaya II - 73

In meditation one develops an understanding of the 5 hindrances - how, when one of them is present, you investigate it, you understand it, you accept its presence and you learn how to deal with it. Sometimes you can just tell it to go away and it goes; sometimes you just have to allow it to be there till it wears out.

We have subtle ways of being averse to that which is unpleasant and we tend not to be very honest about our intentions. Our habits are that as soon as something unpleasant arises we try to move away from it or destroy it. So long as we are doing this, we don't have any samadhi or concentration. It is only when these 5 hindrances are absent, or we are no longer attached to them, that we find any peace of mind or a concentrated heart.

It is only in the moment when a hindrance actually arises that we can really penetrate it and have insight. If you have noticed, you may go to some of these lectures and gain profound understanding of the Dhamma, but you can still get angry or feel desire for things. When the actual situation arises, you are not mindful; you tend to resist or resent or just judge.

The Buddha spoke of "5 Hindrances" on the spiritual path:
1 - sense desire (greed, lust)
2 - ill will (anger)
3 - dullness (sloth/torpor)
4 - restleness and worry (agitation)
5 - sceptical doubt

... In life, wisdom arises within us when we understand the things that we are experiencing here and now. You don't have to do anything special. You don't have to experience all kinds of extreme pain in order to transcend pain. The pain in your ordinary life is enough to be enlightened with. All these feelings of hunger or thirst, or restlessness or jealousy or fear, of lust and greed and sleepiness - all these we can regards as teachers. Rather than resenting them, saying, "What did I do to deserve this?" you should say, 'Thank you very much. I'll have to learn this lesson some day; I might as well do it now, rather than put it off."