Sayalay Dipankara, The Happiness of a Beautiful Mind edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
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| Are you thinking what I'm thinking? - Yeah, what's for lunch? (Jacques-Louis David, 1788) |
That having been said about faith (saddha or confidence, conviction), you're here and meditating.
After trying to concentrate on our breathing for about 10 to 20 minutes, or even after just a few breaths, the mind wants to go elsewhere.
It doesn't want to stick on the meditation object. What does the mind want to stick to? It wants to think about (cogitate) something -- about tomorrow, about what's for lunch, [or what making love with this person or that would be like].
This is desire (tanha, lit. "thirst," craving, greed, longing, obsessing). This desire comes from within us.
We don't want to concentrate on the breath because the breath is too simple. We don't like it. The breath-object is very simple, simplistic [i.e., boring], an in-breath component and an out-breath.
Because it is so simple, the mind doesn't want to stick to it. The mind wants to complicate things and think about whatever it might dream up.
Do we know what we'll cook tomorrow? We don't know. We can guess. Can we be sure our guess is correct? Since we cannot be sure our guess is correct, it's better not to waste our time. Let it be.
Never mind what we'll eat tomorrow. Just eat. Don't think about what we want to eat. Instead, eat what is being eaten. This is to help us overcome desire. This is only an example. There are many other desires, not just food.
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| Brahma Vihari Buddhist (the "Supreme Abode") abbey, Indonesia |
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Now we may be thinking that this place is not so good to sleep in. Next time we go home, we'll relax and stay in our house comfortably. We may not want to return to this Brahma Vihari abbey (Indonesia).Many different kinds of thoughts can be experienced by different people with different desires.
There is no need to check our minds. We know our thoughts just by looking at our outward expressions based on our experiences. (Audience laughs).
I've been teaching meditation for 20 years. I am not so foolish as to scold people nowadays, so I just take care of my own mind. Everybody needs to take care of his or her own mind.
It's very difficult for me to control your mind. But I can remind you. If we really want to practice the Dharma (Dhamma), we need to live a simple life.
We can't compare here with our house or comfortable conditions anywhere else. Even if we feel suffering due to food, we need to be patient.
Patience is very important. If we know how to be patient and humble, everything will be okay for us. We can take it. We can forgive. And we can accept. We won't feel that everything is negative. That's the reason we need to be patient.
Patience is for the Dharma. That's how we contemplate to take care of our mind. This is how we begin to get a handle on craving. More
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