Depth of expectations and subtlness of letting go

In life we all have myriad of expectations. From the moment when we are born to the moment we die, we live on expectations. We expect to be fed by our mothers, we expect love from those around us, we expect to get our salaries in the bank account at the end of the month, we even expect good weather according to weather reports. Our expectations our like soap suds. Subject to bursting at any given moment without our permission. Because of this we suffer. That suffering is called disappointment. Usually we blame something other than ourselves as the cause of our disappointment. Because we are never attuned to what really goes on in. The real cause of disappointment is what lies within. Our expectations are the cause. So, we always need to look within. Not look outside and look to find blame outside. Looking within we should not blame ourselves either.

Anyway, then comes letting go. The word has become famous now. Almost a fad in my thinking. But sometimes, I wonder whether people really understand what letting go really means. Anyway, whether there is real understanding or not, when one let's go of one's expectations, then there is freedom from suffering that comes from disappointment. Letting go doesn't happen in the outside. It happens in the inside. It's happens between you and the thing. It's a response. For example. Let's say you want to eat chocolate. The real letting go is being able to still like chocolate but not want to eat it. Nowadays what people do as letting go is, dislike what they don't want, so that it's easy to not to want what they actually want. This is wrong kind of letting go. Proper letting go is you still like what you want but you cannot desire it the way you desired it. I remember Ajhan Brahm saying it so aptly (I am not sure how exactly he said it but he said it something to the effect of) you love your enemy not hoping that he would change but so he could continue to be your enemy. Isn't that such a lovely freeing way of living and looking at life.

Anyway, today this hit home for me in meditation. I felt the depth of my expectations and the subtlness we have to develop in letting go. Our (at least my) expectation run deep. They have taken root like oak tree over many many life times and uprooting them it hard. It takes much effort. In order to uproot such deeply rooted expectations (desires) I have to cultivate such a subtle sense of letting go. It is only through that, that there is any hope of realising the Dhamma and the dept of a Buddha's teachings.

So in my meditations I realised how attached I have gotten to my own realisations. As a result I have developed expectations in my own meditation. While I am not suffering from it. I can see my expectation lurking in the depths of my mind. If I am careful and develop letting go at deeper levels I will eventually suffer and my meditation will fall apart. I realised that today. This came about in the most proper time. It was only a few days ago that I got an email from Ayya asking me to give up everything and her only advice is for me to let go of everything. Then only to find that I am hanging on to things in my own mind.

So I am writing my blog so that I remember in future how deep my expectations are. My desires. I celebrate thinking that I am letting go, only to find that I am getting trapped again in my own desires and own expectations. They may not seem obvious to the outside but they are as real as they can be in the inside. They are as strong in the samsaric cycle to keep me trapped for many many lifetimes if I don't see them. The only remedy to let go. But at much subtle levels. So hard to see. And so difficult to do I find. When my own ego rears its head up again and again wanting to assert itself. Wanting to heard again and again. To feel the need to exist.

Things can only be put to rest when only seen and understood through Dhamma

If there is anything that I have come to obey that is Dhamma the truth of nature. There IS such a thing. It CAN be seen and felt. It's hard but it is possible. Over the past three years I have come to obey it and worship it over all other things and trust in it's power. But because it's so hard to see, I still struggle with myself and with the nature of things. But life, despite many of it's difficulties, has been very kind to me in many ways, in presenting Dhamma for my experience, very rarely though but I have seen it.

I feel I see life through a new set of eyes. Just as I see my own difficulties I also see the difficulties of others. While my own difficulties, some of it, I have been able to make peace with them, because I see them through my new set of eyes, I see the struggle of others because they don't have the benefit of seeing it through a different perspective. My heart fills with compassion for them. If only.......

This is the reason why I am writing the blog. Because after everything is said and done, after all of the hair splitting arguments and all of that, there is only one way to fine peace in ones heart and lay eberything to rest. That is to see things the way they really are. The BUddha said this 25 centuries ago. I used to read it with wonderment, amazement. It's almost like, the Buddha had a secret. But now I understand (with little I know) it was no secret. It was a simple statement but a very deep and profound one. In a way YES it is a secret because most of us are not privy to it. But it is always there for the taking.

The secret is to know, see things for the way they are. Anicca, dukka and anatta. The impermannce of things, the suffering of things and the non-self in things. How wonderful and how freeing it is. I am in no way implying or saying that I understand these phenomena for the way they are. But I have had experiences which have made me question whether things are permanent, blissful and a self as the way we think they are.

Being able to question, having experiences to get to the point of at least questioning, brings oneself enormous amount of relief. This is my point. It gets you new eyes! Then you don't look life, it's problems in the same old way, and because of that you don't suffer the same old way. On the other hand you don't go into euphoria the same old way either. There is a kind of a balance the mind gets to (in a manner of speaking.....certainly not equanimity that the BUddha speaks about but kind of getting on to the road) When this happens you are on a different ground and you begin to see others. Because they are the ground that you once walked on. It's not judging them but seeing them. It's like you've moved from grade one to grade 2. Now you see grade 1 students doing the same old math problems etc. You see the same old struggles etc....

Just like in school, you cannot take the exams for them...so in life the lessons have to be learnt by the struggler. Also unlike in school there is no chronological order to life. There could be 50, 60 and 70 year old people in grade one and 20, 30 years old who have gone past grade 12. Such is the school called life / Dhamma.

Either way, the heart will only come to rest when one understand and develops the eyes in line with the Dhamma. This cuts across all races, religion, cultures, countries etc. Dhamma is not BUddhist though the BUddha discovered it. Dhamma us universal. Things like loving-kindness, compassion, forgiveness, hatred, jealousy, generosity, kamma, rebirth, conciousness, nibbana are universal and will govern all beings irrespective of personal and individual beliefs and wants.

Until that common ground is reached people's hearts will not rest either and will not find peace either. But while I write this and I might sound an extremist in writing what I write, I will never impose my views on anyone. I will only travel my path firmly according to my understanding. Whether someone travels the path or believes in it or not does not matter to me for their salvation and peace of mind is their business and their responsibility. But Dhamma will always stand the test of time.

Mind and Body

It's been a while that I've written a blog. It's really not for the lack of things but somethimes I am not finding the time as I used to before. But I thought perhaps I could make a note or two today.

You know how it is...we think we are someone. I think there is a person called "Anosha". But according to Buddha it's only the mind and body combination together minifesting as an entity. But in essence, if one were to take it apart, there isn't a person called "Anosha". Look at it this way. We call a 'car' a 'car' But if all the parts were to be take apart, can we call it a 'car' anymore. So just like that as long as mind and body work together we can give names to it...."John", "Anosha", "Ranil", "Tubby" but the moment one were to go none will exist. This is symbolised in death in the way we know it.

But, what if we get to experience it while we are alive in our own body and mind process itself?! Would it not be fantastic! Well, that's what happened. It was one of the most wonderful experiences. It begs the question and makes me go back to what the BUddha said all these years ago that there all physical and mental phenomena are coreless and without a self.

When I was meditating yesterday, in my breath meditation, I had this wonderful experiences where I was watching the breathing but it wasn't me anymore. But there again was just the knowing of the breath. But there was the breathing. The full breathing. Complete knowing of the breathing in and out. Like a fan. Effortless, beautiful breathing and then the knowing. Almost a complete disconnection not an absorption that I has felt before but a disconnection. There was the knowing and then the breathing and nothing else.

It was not ecstasy. But it was just knowing and complete silence and peace. I don't know how long it lasted but after a while all that silence and peace gradually disappeared and then there was "Me' again...the thinking, all the thoughts, the analysing came back again.

I am getting shaped by these meditative experiences more and more, I find. I don't get them often. I don't expect them to happen either. But when they do, out of the blues, they seem so beyond the reality I live in. The memories are vivid. There is simply nothing comparable to anything that I have ever experienced in my life to the experiences that I have in meditations. Most times I don't even have adequate words to describe them. There is something that is unique, so pure....so calming, so intuitive about them. They are attractive and powerful but not in a sexual or in a wordly kind of way. They are subtle not staring in your face. But they are strong. They change your without even you knowing it. But it takes time.

I am glad by it. The Buddha must have been a very wise person. For him to have laid down a method so clear to have survided 25 centuries he must have known what he was talking about really well and he must have been an exceptionally skilled teacher. I am forever grateful for him.