Opening Up to the Sunlight of Awareness - Thich Nhat Hanh

"Beginning meditators usually think they must suppress all thoughts and feelings (often called “false mind”) in order to create conditions favorable to concentration and understanding (called 'true mind'). They use methods such as focusing their attention on an object or counting their breaths to try and block out thoughts and feelings. Concentrating on an object and counting the breath are excellent methods, but they should not be used as suppression or repression. We know that as soon as there is repression, there is rebellion - repression entails rebellion. True mind and false mind are one. Denying one is denying the other. Suppressing one is suppressing the other. Our mind is our self. We cannot suppress it. We must treat it with respect, with gentleness, and absolutely without violence. Since we do not even know what our 'self' is, how can we know if it is true or false, and whether or what to suppress? The only thing we can do is to let the sunlight of awareness shine on our 'self' and en-lighten it, so we can look directly.
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Just as flowers and leaves are only part of a plant, and just as waves are only part of the ocean, perceptions, feelings and thoughts are only part of the self. Blossoms and leaves are a natural manifestation of plants, and waves are a natural expression of oceans. It is useless to try to repress or stifle them. We can only observe them. Because they exist, we can find their source, which is exactly the same as our own.
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The sun of awareness originates in the heart of the self. It enables the self to illuminate the self. It lights not only all thoughts and feelings present. It lights itself as well."
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- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart

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On Bringing Awareness to our Sexuality

"One some level, we as a society regard sexuality as something dark, forbidden.  This shadowy undercurrent of puritanical sentiment still flows deep in our cultural memory.  As a consequence, the desire for sex is rarely simple.

Sometimes is it imbued with the thrill of conquest or the lure for the forbidden.  Often it is driven by the thirsting desire for excitement and romance, to cover over the anxiety of our aloneness.  And almost always, from our very core, there comes some desperate craving for acceptance, for love.

Yet the power of our sexual energy is in itself neither good nor bad. Far more important than the mere denial of fulfillment of desires, the clarity of our awareness determines whether our sexuality is a heaven or a hell."

Ezra Bayda from Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts)

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When Meditating, Don't Chase the Shadows

"When you sit and meditate, even if you don't gain any intuitive insights, make sure at least that you know this much: When the breath comes in, you know. When it goes out, you know. When it's long, you know. When it's short, you know. Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, you know.

If you can know this much, you're doing fine. As for the various thoughts and concepts (sanna) that come into the mind, brush them away -- whether they're good or bad, whether they deal with the past or the future. Don't let them interfere with what you're doing — and don't go chasing after them to straighten them out. When a thought of this sort comes passing in, simply let it go passing on. Keep your awareness, unperturbed, in the present.

When we say that the mind goes here or there, it's not really the mind that goes. Only concepts go. Concepts are like shadows of the mind. If the body is still, how will its shadow move? The movement of the body is what causes the shadow to move, and when the shadow moves, how will you catch hold of it? Shadows are hard to catch, hard to shake off, hard to set still.

The awareness that forms the present: That's the true mind.  The awareness that goes chasing after concepts is just a shadow. Real awareness -- 'knowing' — stays in place. It doesn't stand, walk, come, or go.  As for the mind — the awareness that doesn't act in any way coming or going, forward or back — it's quiet and unperturbed. And when the mind is thus its normal, even, undistracted self — i.e., when it doesn't have any shadows — we can rest peacefully. But if the mind is unstable and uncertain, it wavers:

Concepts arise and go flashing out — and we go chasing after them, hoping to drag them back in. The chasing after them is where we go wrong. This is what we have to correct. Tell yourself: Nothing is wrong with your mind. Just watch out for the shadows."

From "The Art of Letting Go" by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
Translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff)

Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo

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