Monday, November 17, 2008

Just let it all be

Traditionally the Eightfold Path is taught with eight steps such as Right Understanding, Right Speech, Right Concentration, and so forth. But the true Eightfold Path is within us -- two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, a tongue, and a body. These eight doors are our entire path and the mind is the one that walks on the Path. Know these doors, examine them, and all the dharmas will be revealed.

The heart of the path is so simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are. This is all I do in my own practice.

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.

Of course there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this -- just let it all be.

--Achaan Chah
A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah

Monday, November 3, 2008

Create a Little Distance

If you can meditate, if you can create a little distance between your mind and your being, if you can see and feel and experience that you are not your mind, a tremendous revolution happens within you. If you are not your mind, then you cannot be your jealousy, you cannot be your sadness, you cannot be your anger. "Then they are just there, unrelated to you; you don't give any energy to them. They are really parasites who have been living on your blood, because you were identified with the mind. Meditation means disidentification with the mind. "It is a simple method, not something complex that only a few people can do. Just sit silently at any time, any moment, and watch. Close your eyes and watch what is going on. Just be a watcher. Don't judge what is good, what is bad, this should not be, this should be . . .

No judgment, you are simply a watcher. "It takes a little time to attain pure watchfulness. And the moment you are a pure watcher, you will be surprised that the mind has disappeared. "There is a proportion: if you are only one percent a watcher, then ninety-nine percent is mind. If you are ten percent a watcher, then ninety percent is mind. If you are ninety percent a watcher, then only ten percent of the mind is left. "If you are one hundred percent a watcher, then there is no mind -- no sadness, no anger, no jealousy -- just a clarity, a silence, a benediction.

--Osho