Standing Alone!

I recently realised whatever the qualities that arise in our minds cannot sustain themselves unless we give them the power to sustain. I must have done this many many times in my meditations but the realisation only hit me a few days ago. But it only hit me in regards to unwholesome qualities. Because I had an unwholesome thought in my mind at the time. It was anger. I felt the anger arising in my mind. Along with that I also had the feeling that I ought not do anything but simply watch it. Something that I have done so many times over the last few years.

However, this time as I watched the anger and as anger gradually died away, I was struck by the understanding, that when left on their own, these qualities have no strength of their own. This is something I have seen a million times over the last few years but for the first time, I realised the power of letting things be and not trying. The real kind of 'letting go'. It was a powerful lesson for me. Of course until I sat down to write this blog, I only saw as it being unique to unwholesome qualities. While there was that nagging thought in my mind that something was not quite there, it was when I sat down to write the blog that it hit me, that all qualities irrespective of the value it carried cannot last unless ones gives it the momentum.

That is such a powerful understanding.

But I also realise that that momentum, comes without our knowing in the first place. From a deep seated need to just move on. Like waves in the ocean. When the water moves closer to the shore, it breaks automatically on it's own. There is no doer, no thinker. But it happens over and over again. Just the same when a thought appears, good or bad, there is that momentum that it comes with ultimately it disappears. But our thinking and adding fuels it to continue over and over again.

Our lack of awareness too makes it impossible to see the patterns so that we can simple allow it to pass. Or to even notice the stirring so that we can let it pass without adding more ripples to it.

This is one of the most fascinating things I came to see and understand. Of course to see as it unfolds is harder. To see as it unfolds and let it simple takes it course, when it's charge with an emotion, like a tsunami breaking, is even harder. But at least now I know.