Showing posts with label tranquillity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tranquillity. Show all posts

Thursday, January 9, 2025

What is vipassana (insight) meditation?


The Buddha's answer: What exactly is vipassanā?
Ego Podcast (Buddhism) Jan. 9, 2025: Many believe vipassanā (pronounced \vee-paw-saw-naw\) is said to be a standalone meditation technique distinct from samatha (\saw-maw-taw\), but the Buddha’s teachings suggest a deep integration of these practices. They are not standalone methods at all. Explore the truth about vipassanā and its role in successful Buddhist practice.

This video explores what vipassanā ("clear seeing") truly means, its role alongside samatha, and how they contribute to ultimate liberation. It is only on the basis of calm, stillness, and serenity developed through samatha that successful vipassana is possible. The first is the rocket fuel that feeds the second.

Like, comment, and subscribe to deepen understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. #VipassanaMeditation #SamathaAndVipassana #BuddhaTeachings #MeditationTechniques #InsightAndTranquility.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Find Calm on Election Day: cute animals


Meditation + confidence = calm.
Calm.com and the San Diego Zoo are providing a peaceful diversion on Election Day with cute animal videos

Why it matters: It's important to find ways to de-stress and stay calm during election season, which won't be over on Nov. 5th.

Driving the news: Calm is hosting a live stream from the San Diego Zoo on Instagram so we can take a break from political doomscrolling to watch capybaras, meerkats, penguins, and other beautiful wildlife.

It starts at noon PT until polls close across the country.
Those humans are so full of fleas, ticks, and bugs because they won't clean each other.
.
Between the lines: Calm also has free "Election Season Support" content with breathing exercises, meditations and other mindfulness tools.

🐅 The intrigue: While he won't be featured on the livestream, a new tiger cub is out to play at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Baby Barong, which means "king of spirits," stepped out of his den for the first time last week. Watch him here or visit him in person at the park this weekend. More

Thursday, June 27, 2024

Chicken Brain/Monkey Mind: Meditation


Don't choke your man-chicken all week and expect it to calm down when you sit for meditation.
.
I can't get this man-chicken to shut the h*ll up!


Oh, it's you. (Gary Larson)
The Buddha taught two general types of "meditation" (bhavana, "cultivation"), calm (shamatha stillness = samadhi) and insight (vipassana, "clear seeing"). It all begins with calm and relaxation. It is essential for entering a meditative state. This is greatly aided by letting go and allowing the meditation to occur naturally. We are not "doing" it; it is just happening. What we do do is set up the conditions, the ingredients, the circumstances for calm to happen.
Discursive (monkey) thinking in average American
Pick a quiet and undistracted location, time, and come to it in silence (because outward silence gives way to inner silence), well rested with the determination to sit for such and such a length of time, say 20 minutes or an hour. The habit or "ritual" of doing it cues the mind to get into that peaceful state.

Quick and easy techniques to calm anxious mind
It is very refreshing. With the mind trained to enter this lightly hypnagogic state of deep relaxation, things can go very deep in a relatively short time. Otherwise, we risk taking to the mat for years, only noticing progress after a while. Of course, progress is made from meditating even once, but it is not likely to be noticeable until we sit on a somewhat regular basis and have our waking life mirror our inner calm.

Big set up. The punchline is lying behind the cowboy's hindquarters.

Look away, Monk, or you'll get no peace!
What happens in a sitting meditation is very much affected by what we do for the other 23 or more hours of the day. By way of comparison, imagine owning a chicken. And once a day (alone) or once a week (in a group), we sit to meditate for an hour. What is the likelihood that that chicken is going to stay calm and quiet for an hour and not bother anyone? Next to none. But it all depends.

If anyone thinks a chicken is going to calm down because we tell it, "Calm down and shut up!" or attempt to beat, strangle, and chase it around the room, try to grab it by the neck and wrestle it to the mat, we must not know very many chickens.

They are nervous, inquisitive, territorial, bothersome, easily disturbed nuts. And once riled, it is almost impossible to get them to calm down again.

Training our chickens (minds) to fly effortlessly is meditation.
But if we pet it lovingly, soothe it, look on it with kind eyes, bring it back to sitting still again and again, without getting angry or frustrated with it, it might calm down for a minute, and not much more than that.

But if we choke our chicken, yell at it, threaten it, grab it by the feathers and try to force it down, scream at it to shut the h*ll up, that will never work. It will only reflect what we are intending at it.

Now we may say, we don't have a chicken and we never will. But we do, and we always have. Only we call it a mind. That mind is much more sensitive than a chicken, much more reactive to our attitude towards it, much harder to settle and keep calm even for a minute. We can fake it until we make it, but "monkey mind" may drive us so crazy that we can't even fake it.

Then what are we doing? Berating it, treating it the way we were raised -- or at least all the bad ways in which we were raised: yelling, anger, punishment, threats, condemnation, criticism, dismissal, non-support. Whew, what a number our parents or caretakers did on us.

What were you expecting, Doctor, a chicken? - No, my Little Ducky, no.
If only a detective were on hand to make sense of the clues.

We have actually always been taught that one way to remain calm in the midst of the "slings and arrows" life hurls at us -- being hit with unpleasant words, sights, sounds, circumstances, or threats, or attitudes and shades and the sense that we are not liked or, worse yet, physical abuse -- is to slowly count to ten.

Well, what's the use of that if we have not in advance linked that counting to a calmer state.

I like life much better now that I'm not afraid you'll yell at me for anything wrong I might d.
.
What comes first, calm or a calm-chicken?
But the Silva Method of Mind Valley's Vivek, we can accustom our minds to associate that calm counting with an objective measure of calm, a more soothing brainwave state. Try it. And at all times everywhere for the whole week between group sits (but particularly at every solo sit), be nice to your chicken. Treat it as you would want to be treated in the best of circumstances.

If only we had a nice closing line to wrap it all up in a memorable way. "A happy wife, a happy life" or, in this case, "a foul fowl is a living howl," where "howl" means hell. "A happy hubby, a stubby chubby"? No, that one doesn't work. Got it! "A happy spouse, a peaceful house"! Yes, that's an original!
  • It's a technicality, but things arise together. Paticca samuppada (Dependent Origination, Conditioned Co-Genesis, Conditionality) means things co-arise simultaneously. See Bhikkhu Bodhi, As It Is (tape series),
  • Gary Larson (The Far Side); This is Part II by Meditation Instructor Seven, as told to Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Moon, Wisdom Quarterly, from a Mind Valley commercial by Vivek Lakhani based on an idea, insight, and teaching by Jose Silva, author of Silva Mind Control.

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

A magic trick for deep meditation


These breakthrough salesmen can get irritating. Everyone is offering a get rich scheme, rarely with any substance. But finally a longform commercial came across our surfing with some substance.

This trick offers real possibility. It was developed by mind expert Silva of the famous Silva Mind Control Method.

He is no longer with us. But his discoveries are being carried on by spiritual entrepreneur Vivek Lakhani of Mind Valley/ He shares this easy to grasp method to produce astonishing results.

Serene tranquility meditation is learning to let go and relax. It is close to the sleep state, but it is not sleep. The difference may be defined in terms of brainwaves. The conscious mind is very active, characterized by an alpha brainwave pattern. Beta is deeper and slower.

But if we cross our legs and sit to meditate, good luck letting go of the "monkey mind," thinking, distractions, the Five Hindrances (lust, annoyance, sleepiness, agitation, and skeptical doubt). Meditating soon becomes little more than the "chore" of bringing the mind back and beginning again and again.

Done incorrectly, we build up resentment, anger, and try to control things too much. Or we drift endlessly in discursive thoughts and fantasies. Or we pass out, particularly if we are sleep-deprived in our regular life. Nearly all of us are, and it never becomes so apparent.

If we persist, things get better. If we stay regular, it pays off. But good luck doing either. What we could use is a trick, a shortcut, a hack. Meditation instructors will say, "Don't bother with that. Stop grasping, setting up expectations, or thinking of it as a chore."

"Just sit. Just breathe. Just be." These things are easier said than done. Luck starts seeming like a real component because, due to past karma in previous lives, a few people are naturals. They take to sitting the way a stone duck in the shape of the Buddha takes to the mantle.

They let go, relax, and go deep. If the reader is such a person, carry on. There's no need to do anything more other than to persist in the practice, making it a twice daily habit until sitting for an hour at a time seems natural and comfortable.

If, however, the reader is not so luck, does not plunge into serenity, and is losing patience, what to do? Give up? Never. Try harder? No! That's a worse idea. Try easier. And the way toward that could be aided along by Silva's discovery. Fathom this.


When we wake up, most of us rush out of sleep, and this is done by checking our phone for our addictive dopamine hits.

Here is the fact. When we awaken, if we do not rush out of bed, we are still in a deeper brainwave state than our waking life, which is busy and exhausting. We awaken in beta.

The practice or self-training is this: When awakening, stay in bed for 5 minutes, emerge slowly, stay relaxed and quiet. But from now on for the next 30 days, sit up slowly into the meditation pose in bed. Stay in that pose for 5 minutes, while counting down (backward) from 100, 99, 98...all the way to 1.

The brain has something to do so it won't fall back asleep. Continue this for 10 days. On Day 11, count backward like before but this time from 50, 49, 48...all the way to 1, at the rate of about one count to one breath.

On Day 20, count down from 10 to 1: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Do over and over for those first five minutes after arising. What will happen?

A miracle will happen. And that miracle is this: We will have trained our minds -- in just 30 days -- to associate counting down from 10 to 1 to immediately put us in that relaxed beta state.

Now when we sit for meditation, we begin with a deep breath and counting down. By the time we hit 1, we are in alpha. How long did it take us to get there? Less than ten breaths. Now we can really enter a peaceful meditative state at will, effortlessly (or all the effort has already taken place during those 30 days of counting for five minutes in our waking calm). CONTINUED IN PART II
  • Part I: Meditation Instructor Seven, as told to Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Moon, Wisdom Quarterly, based on a Mind Valley commercial by Vivek Lakhani based on an idea, insight, and teaching by Jose Silva, author of Silva Mind Control

Friday, February 16, 2024

What is Samadhi, concentration or stillness?

Ven. NyanatilokaBuddhist Dictionary; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Concentration" is a very misleading translation of the Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu term samādhi. It literally means "the [mental] state of being firmly fixed."

Sam+ā+√ hā is the fixing of the mind [attention, the heart] on a single object. "One-pointedness of mind (cittass' ekaggatā), Ven. Visakha, this is called samadhi" (MN 44).

The English language term "concentration" connotes effort, struggle, control, and force, as if it is something achieved by grimacing, pressing one's temples, and strongly desiring in the heart. These are all antithetical to samadhi.

One enters with ease, calming down, letting go, directing and guiding the mind persistently but without force or frustration. Fixation might be closer, except that that usually involves strong craving.

Imagine a light in a dark room. It would not be difficult to notice. It might be the only external attraction with only internal distractions.


Coming back to it until the mind becomes fixed or fixated on it would be good, at least to the extent that it otherwise clears the mind and brings it into the present moment: this attention on this single thing.

While often very weak it is one of the seven mental concomitants inseparably associated with all consciousness. Compare with the terms nāma (name or mind) and cetanā (intention, motivation).

"Right stillness" (sammā-samādhi), as the last link of the Ennobling Eightfold Path (magga), is defined as the first four meditative absorptions (jhānas).

In a wider sense, comprising also much weaker states of attention, it is associated with all karmically skillful/wholesome (kusala) consciousness.

"Wrong attention" (micchā-samādhi) is attending associated with all karmically unskillful/unwholesome (akusala) consciousness.

Wherever in the texts this term is not differentiated by "right" or "wrong," "right" attention or stillness is meant.

In stillnes or attention one distinguishes three grades of intensity:

(1) "Preparatory stillness" (parikamma-samādhi) existing at the beginning of the mental exercise.

(2) "Neighborhood stillness" (upacāra-samādhi), that is, stillness "approaching" but not yet attaining the first meditative absorption (jhāna), which in certain mental exercises is marked by the appearance of a "counter-image" (patibhāga-nimitta).

(3) "Attainment stillness" (appanā-samādhi), that is, that stillness that is present during the absorptions (App.) For further details, see bhāvana, The Path of Purification (Vis.M. III), and Fund. IV.

Mental stillness connected with the four noble (enlightened) path-moments (magga), and fruition-moments (phala) is called supermundane (lokuttara), having nirvana as their object.

Any other attention, even that of the most sublime absorptions is merely mundane (lokiya).

According to DN 33, the development of stillness (samādhi-bhāvanā) may procure a fourfold blessing:
  1. present happiness through the four absorptions;
  2. knowing and seeing (knowledge and vision or ñāna-dassana, here probably identical with the "divine eye" (abhiññā) through perception of light (kasina);
  3. mindfulness and clear comprehension (sati-sampajjana) through the clear knowledge of the arising, turning, and passing away of feelings, perceptions, and thoughts;
  4. extinction of all cankers (āsavakkhaya) through understanding the arising and passing away of the Five Aggregates clung to as self (khandha).
Stillness is one of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment (satta bojjhanga), one of the Five Spiritual Faculties and Five Powers (bala), and the last link of the Noble Eightfold Path.

In the threefold division of the Noble Eightfold Path (into the categories of virtue, stillness, and wisdom), stillness is a collective name for the three last links of the path (sikkhā).

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Need to calm down? Try psycho-biotics

Just Calm from Just Thrive (justthrivehealth.com); Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What is Just Calm? Just Calm is more than a supplement, it's a secret weapon in the battle against occasional anxiety and stress. It's a specially formulated blend, pairing B vitamins with the unique "psychobiotic" probiotic strain B. Longum 1714™.

This groundbreaking product is clinically proven in multiple human clinical trials to lower stress and support better mood, sleep, focus, and emotional health. Here are 5 reasons why people in the know choose Just Calm to take control:
  1. Wave goodbye to occasional anxiety
  2. Get deep, revitalizing sleep
  3. Ditch the jitters and unlock calm energy
  4. Lift the fog and find the focus
  5. Improves mood... justthrivehealth.com
What about nutrition for meditation?

I set rolling the Wheel of the Dharma
In a famous story from the time of the Buddha, there were Buddhist wandering ascetics (monastics) living in one area who could not make progress in their meditation. So they went to visit the Buddha to ask him about this. He perceived that their problem was nutritional. He advised them to take the eight kinds of foods (based on the ancient Indian, presumably Ayurvedic, system of flavors) in their diet. The locals, hearing this they prepared for them a diet rich in variety -- hard and soft, salty and sweet, pungent, astringent, and so on. (See, e.g., The Six Flavors of Ancient India). By doing so, they got all the micronutrients (trace minerals, good fats, vitamins or macronutrients, and calories they needed, and their meditation practices miraculously improved. We are mind and body, mentality and materiality (nama-rupa), not just one or the other.
I feel great and energetic.
And maybe a serenity meditation (samatha) practice would become possible. The first thing to do in any meditation is not "concentrate" or focus. It is to let go. We reduce our attention to the here-and-now (rather than the then-and-maybe).

There's that famous saying, "Most of the bad things in my life never happened." It means of all the things we worry and stress about, MOST of them never happen. So rather than living in worry and the future, let's live in the present moment where everything is all right.

We can look around and see that everything is fine. It's the future where the problems might be. It's the past where they were, but right here right now is fine. It's safe to meditate...if only we could meditate.

Who knew MOST of the neurons in the body might not be in the brain? They have been found all along the gut lining and the heart. No one talks to us about those. So the best way to get the "head" in order is to get the gut healthy, both short and long intestines, stomach, digestion, absorption. Stop ruining the lining with gluten, and start absorbing nutrients and supplements (from criticalhealthnews.com).

Friday, October 6, 2023

Develop and practice Reiki skills (10/18)

Kerri Draper, Huntington Beach Reiki, Santa Ana, California; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist MeditationDisclosure Project), Jen B. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Enjoy an evening of meditation, Reiju ("attunement"), and Reiki energy healing. We start the evening with a very brief meditation then practice Reiki on each other, taking turns on the massage table.

The chakras are energy centers of the body.
The instructor attunes everyone during the healing session and is available to work with anyone who wishes. Groups of three form to alternate hands on healing.

This is a great time to meet others in the group and practice healing skills. For those who are new to Reiki, come enjoy a night of healing.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

The way to absorption and enlightenment

Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) with Sayalay, Wisdom Quarterly

Say what? Slow down. Sit down? Be humble?
What is it going to take for meditation (natural levels of absorption) to succeed?

Yes, "there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on," if Robert Plant (the lead in Led Zeppelin) is to be believed.

The stairway to heaven is twofold, calm and insight. Mindfulness (dispassionate, non-investigative, attention and radically-acceptance of the present) helps with both. 

I'm ready to start. - You could've started sooner.
But it is better to begin what the Buddha called the "gradual training." That establishes samadhi or coherence (blissful all together mind), on a foundation of virtue (sila).

When these states are cultivated, they become a strong foundation for a more important practice. That is the effort toward enlightenment and liberation, bodhi and nirvana.

That gets underway -- vipassana through systematic satipatthana, i.e., insight via establishing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness). The real secret will be the practice of Dependent Origination (paticca-samupada). But all of that can wait. The mind/heart must first be prepped and purified.

It's nearly effortless now. Allow it.
Stop. Sit still. Or freeze in any of the other three postures (standing, walking, or lying down) and give attention to something that always stays in the moment, in the ever-changing present, such as the ever-present breath. Relax with each exhalation. LET GO of everything. We've been waiting to exhale. This is it.
  • The Buddha's admonition to give will make sense now as in giving there is a letting go, and it is that letting go, that non-clinging or internal-renunciation that makes all the difference. How could we let go of the bigger things (views, ego, pride, willfulness, opinions, etc.) if we are still clinging to the small and insignificant ones?
The mind will go into the object of attention, which may be a sign (nimitta) brought about by focusing on the breath to the exclusion of everything else.

The sacred instructions
Who are the noble ones, and how do we know?
Communicating with an enlightened (someone attained to at least the first stage of path fruition) nun, we secured these step-by-step instructions for reaching the first meditation.

We'll reserve those for Part II. This article is about the harder thing, getting started. If there's one word to associate with meditation, it's sticktoitiveness. Persistence pays off. Starting and stopping and not building up momentum is exhausting, leads to expectations, and gets going about as well as a fire from rubbing two sticks together. (Try it and vividly experience how much it's about starting and not breaking off until there's smoke and an ember to nurture, like the pleasant zest and enthusiasm one feels for the nimitta once it appears).

How does it feel? - Meditation or this silly cap?
Now let's get kooky and creative: the cap. What will put us on the path and hold us there until lift off? Lift off is deceptive because of beginner's luck or stories one inevitably hears about "naturals" effortlessly sitting, attaining, and progressing very quickly. People like that, just start. This is for people not like that.

The cap, the cap
that covers the skull
Can crack, be krak,
and never be dull

Helmet to contain
twinkling neurons
and dancing brain
Footballer's drum

Dome of gold
crystal arrayed
Scuffed and old
Binaural at play

Crown, tiara, dunce
magnets, Faraday cage
Employ it young
Come back with age

Where are thought,
Experience, feeling?
Surely the heart,
Not the ceiling...

That may not work. Well, it's OK. Be creative.
A copper wire or band with clear quartz crystal (or amethyst, rose, etc.) will serve for a start. Arrange it over the forehead so the stone rests over the third eye (pineal gland). Then just let it be.

To fall asleep, we have to pretend to already be asleep. Therefore, it follows that to absorb, be as if already absorbed.

Does it have to be a cap, helmet, or headband? Could it be a laurel wreath, woven out of plant-helpers like the vine of the dead, an MAO inhibitor, and the bark of a tree or a mushroom cap feted by datura flower petals, stems, and a creeper?

That might work as the volatile oils, scents, and vibrations begin to do their work by proximity and sympathy. Frequency, vibration, it all seems to be about resonance.

Friday, July 21, 2023

What is serenity? (B. Alan Wallace)

B. Alan Wallace; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Shamatha: Meditation for Balanced Living: The Qualities of Attention
(Wisdom Publications Inc.) April 24, 2023. Wisdom Academy Online Courses. In shamatha: Meditation for Balanced Living, a Wisdom Academy Online Course, to discover a range of methods for developing meditative serenity, tranquility, quiescence, or shamatha, particularly as a foundation for Tibetan dzogchen practice with renowned teacher Lama Alan Wallace. Students learn mindfulness of breathing (anapana sati), settling the mind in its natural state, and the practice of “shamatha without signs.” Enroll now at: wisdomexperience.org/courses...


What is shamatha? | Dr. B. Alan Wallace
(Study Buddhism) Oct. 3, 2016. KARMA TASHI LING BUDDHIST COMMUNITY. Love their content? Support on Patreon: patreon.com/studybuddhism. Buddhist teacher Dr. B. Alan Wallace explains the purpose and benefits of shamatha ("calm abiding," stilling the mind), one of the foundational Buddhist practices alongside intensive mindfulness for focusing the mind to gain insight.

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Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Easy "Balloon Meditation" explained

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly
Balloons over Bagan, Burma: How to learn about Buddhism (learnreligions.com)
.
Trying to explain "meditation" after a long Buddhist meditation retreat of hundreds of hours of sitting is tough.

But it's about the only time one might be able to explain what happens or what's "supposed" to happen. That's because things are fresh and pre-verbal.

Once the talking (verbalizing) starts up again in the mind, concepts, assumptions, connotations, and confusion come in.

What hasn't been said before and much more cleverly?

Buddha Balloon art (Banksy)
But my mother asked me to, and an example sprang to mind, one never heard before: It could be called "Balloon Meditation."

If one were to get on a balloon laden with the weight of the world and lots of luggage (psychological baggage), one might wonder why the floating, the rapture, the blissful uplift, didn't start right away.

One is ready and gung-ho for a journey, an adventure, a wild ride into the unknown celestial spheres above mundane human experience.

One might think to make more heat, blow more hot air, or jump up and down to shake the basket.

One might well become restless on top of being over-eager (full of craving for the experience), experiencing aversion about not getting off the ground already, confused about what's not happening for all the desire one is generating for something to happen.

How high can a "balloon" go? All the way to the moon because it's really in the atmosphere.


How not to meditate
Sukhothai, Thailand (Alamy)
I sat down, strapped in (braced myself), and wished to go. But nothing happened! A wise meditation instructor might then point out a very simple thing: This isn't a plane, a crane, or other mechanical transport moved by force or combustion power.

Struggling and striving, wanting, craving, needing to go -- and getting angry, reacting, or getting confused -- will keep one on the ground and soon out of the basket. (One can overdo blowing hot air, overheating and burning up the balloon: Just enough heat is enough, let go of everything, and wait without expectations).

How to meditate
The way to go, wherever it is one might go, is very easy: Let go. Not only let go of whatever binds one to the ground. That's easy. Now do the hard part: Throw the luggage (baggage) out. Get rid of all excess weight. And as one does, whaddyaknow, it works.
  • Think of "meditation" not as what one does but as what happens to us when we are not doing anything but sitting mindfully and still, dispassionate and content, full of wholesome states of mind. It's natural. It doesn't need "doing."
  • It needs allowing, patience/forgiveness (khanti), and contentment (Pali santutthitā, Sanskrit santosha) coupled with the balanced effort to persist without pushing.
I did it, and now I know how others did it.
It can't be faked. One can't "let go" by appearance and hold on in secret. That doesn't work. One actually has to let go.

One can let go with the help of faith (saddha, confidence/conviction) in one's meditation teacher or the historical Buddha or the noble sangha (the invisible community of attained practitioners who followed the Buddha's instructions, most of them while not wearing monastic robes).

It's hard to let go out using reason and logic and certainty; that tends to bind one up in uncertainty, circular questioning, skepticism, and doubt.

Doubt is good inasmuch as it leads to investigation. It does no good now, sitting waiting to go. It's time to go (now), so let go (now). Allow to go. There's no need to push.

Instead, look around the basket. Let go (get rid) of all that dead weight, all that baggage holding the balloon to the ground. The balloon is enough to carry one to lofty heights but not if it's laden with cares, worries, concerns, attachments, fear, or the weight of the world on one's shoulders.

How?
Take a wider view (Buddha Doodles/Facebook)
There's a line of inquiry that might unload some of the weight or make it possible to cast off the weight we were formerly cherishing and holding onto for protection. What? Contemplating how harmful it's been, how it holds us back (in a sad attempt to protect us).

Aversion (dosa, hatred, fear, boredom, hesitation) is fundamentally an attempt to protect ourselves. Now when we don't need it, it's still here doing its job. Let it go.

Look at the harm being done by not letting go, and it may just be possible to wipe the sticky glue from the hand and be free of it. Better things are waiting.

If not rocket force and thrust from below, what will be the "propulsion"? Rapture (piti), effervescence, joy, a floaty sense of weightlessness, taking oneself lightly. It works! But it's closer to play than work. It plays! Play.

Okay, now what? We have the balloon. We have the fire. - Okay, let go. Just let go.