Meditation: The Heart of Buddhism AJAHN BRAHM

Meditation: The Heart of Buddhism
AJAHN BRAHM

For those of you who have difficulty meditating, it's because you haven't learned to let go yet in the meditation. 

Why can't we let go of simple things like past and future? Why are we so concerned with what someone else did to us or said to us today? The more you think about it, the more stupid it is. You know the old saying, "When someone calls you an idiot, the more times you remember it, the more times they've called you an idiot!" If you let it go immediately, you will never think about it again. They only called you an idiot at most once. It's gone! It's finished. You're free.

Why is it that we imprison ourselves with our past? Why can't we even let that go? Do you really want to be free? 

Then acknowledge, forgive and let go, what I call in Australia the "AFL Code" - Acknowledge, forgive, and let go of whatever has hurt you, whether it's something that somebody has done or said, or whether it's what life has done. For instance, someone has died in your family and you argue with yourself that they shouldn't have died. Or you've lost your job and you think without stop that that shouldn't have happened. Or simply something has gone wrong and you are obsessed that it's not fair. You can crucify yourself on a cross of your own making for the rest of your life if you want to; but no one is forcing you to. 

Instead you can acknowledge forgive and learn in the forgiving. The letting go is in the learning. The letting go gives the future a freedom to flow easily, unchained to the past.

....Letting go of the past is so we can enjoy the present, so the future can be free. Why is it that we always carry around the past? Attachment to the past is not a theory, it is an attitude. 

We can say, "Oh I'm not attached". Or we can say, "I'm so detached I'm not even attached to detachment," which is very clever, and sounds very good, but is a lot of old rubbish. You know if you're attached if you can't let go of those important things that cause you to suffer, that stop you being free. 

Attachment is a ball and chain, which you tie around your own legs. No one else ties it around you. You've got the key to free yourselves, but you don't use it. Why do we limit ourselves so and why can't we let go of the future, all the concerns and the worries? Do you worry about what's going to happen next, tomorrow, next week, next year? Why do you do that? How many times have you worried about some exam or some test, or a visit to the Doctors, or a visit to the Dentist? 

You can worry yourself sick and when you get ready to go to the dentist you find they have cancelled your appointment, and you didn't have to go anyway!

Things never work out as you expect them to. 

Haven't we learnt yet that the future is so uncertain that it doesn't bear worrying about? 

We never know what's going to happen next.

When we let go of the past and the future, isn't that being on the path to deep meditation? 

Aren't we actually learning about how to be at peace, how to be free, how to be content.

These are indications of what enlightenment means. It means seeing that many of our attachments are based on sheer stupidity. We just don't need this. As we develop this meditation deeper, we let go more and more.

The more we let go the more happiness and peace it gives us. This is why the Buddha called this whole path of Buddhism a gradual training. 

It's the path that leads one on, one step at a time, and at every step you get a prize. That's why it's a very delightful path and the prizes get more delightful and more valuable the further you go. But even on the first step you get a prize.

https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebmed065.htm

15th December, 2022