Dhamma (Protection)

Two weeks ago, before the start of the Dhamma school Ven. Somananda gave a mini talk on what Dhamma meant. It was such a brief but a meaningful talk that resonated with me very deeply. It was about the meaning of Dhamma. Dhamma means protection, to up hold. The Buddha said that whoever upholds the Dhamma is protected by the Dhamma itself. Over the last 4-5 years of my life I have begun to understand the true meaning and the depth of what the Buddha said. There is a profundity that I didn't realise for many years but only started to understand along with serious practice and dedication to the five precepts, meditation and striving for a life that falls in life with that of what the Buddha preached.

Dhamma truly is a protector. But it does not protect just by the fact that you are a Buddhist. It does not protect you just because you are well-versed in the suttas, the pali canon, and all the teachings of the Buddha. The Dhamma protects one only when one becomes the Dhamma itself. One must put aside all notions, beliefs, knowledge, views and a sense of self and truly give oneself to the practice of Dhamma and then the wheel begins to turn. It was fascinating to observe and see the process unfolding within oneself. It's like the blossoming of a flower. One cannot make it open its petals, but one can only make the sun shine upon the flower bud and wait for the petals to open up. So too does Dhamma. As it grows in you, Dhamma opens around you like a protective sheath, surrounding you in its cover. It's not a cover that's visible. It's an invisible sheath of protection that you carry with you as long as you maintain the practice.

It's so very powerful but unlike many things in the world that can be seen, heard, touched, smelled Dhamma cannot be felt by the senses. This is what makes things hard for us all, including myself. Because it's all within oneself away from the normal sense contacts and the sense world, it's easy to stray away from that and swept by the currents of what is immediately in front of you. So, we depend on the protections provided by the sense contacts and the sense world. For example, we depend and we put so much effort and importance to material things like houses, money, cars, and more houses and all kinds of other things but none of these things give us protection. Perhaps in the short-term from the sun, rain, snow, winds etc but all these things are subject to change and decay. Also as we change the allure and the fascination these things hold for us wither away. Both are temporary.

So, we seek protection in what is temporary and flimsy. But yet find great solace in them. However, just because we cannot see, hear and touch we don't make the effort to seek what can provide us eternal protection: the Dhamma. It's hard and requires much work and effort. I find it so very ironic that people are willing to work their butts off in going to work for more than 8 hours a day for 5 days a week and sometimes even more, raise a family and feed them and look after them and work like dogs to continue feeding them and up keeping them, cook, clean, shovel snow and do numerous tedious work day in day out and yet not allocate a single hour or a day or a few days a year to their spiritual development. None of the day to day things they do, have much benefit to each one of us other than ensure our survival for the length of period we live...then we are gone. But we work and fret over things like we would live a life time.

But no one thinks of the eternal life that each one of MUST ride on our own even after death. That life has to be walked whether we like it or not. But none of the activities that we do for our survival in this life, would help us in that journey. But no one thinks of this. I don't understand why? Is it because the question is not pressed hard enough? Perhaps that's why old people start visiting the temples and start observing sil, or giving more danas? Because with old age comes the pressing issue of death. But when we are young, no such pressing issue?! How ignorant are we?

Anyway, Dhamma will only protect those who live according to Dhamma. We have to shape our lives according to Dhamma whether we like it or not. It helps to realise the deeper truth presented by the Buddha rather than read them and understand them as just another intellectual jargon. That way shaping our life becomes that much easier. When one shapes life according to the Dhamma, one becomes something larger than oneself. Dhamma is the truth of everything. As we shape our lives according to the Dhamma we align ourselves to the greater truth of things. By doing so, we becomes one with things as they should be rather than fighting against it. That's why great arahants could live life in total harmony, because they were in sync with everything.

In the world, we ask for what cannot be, we crave for what is not real and is in constant friction with life and everything and truth. Basically we are living against the Dhamma. That's why there is so much misery, heartache, disappointments, anger, rejection, disapproval. When one starts to align oneself with the Dhamma all these above things fall by the way side because ones perspective change and along with that one beings to see the truth and way things are rather than things ought to be according to ones egotistical wishes and whims. When that happens life starts to synchronize.

It's the most beautiful thing in the world. But it takes time and work. Not outside work but much introspection and contemplation. It takes self-discipline and single-minded dedication. But when your life starts taking shape you can see for yourself the beauty of the Dhamma. The great benefits borne in the heart. They are the miracles of life.

May you too find the miracles that lie deep in your heart!

Roles that we play!

Role Playing is a popular adult-learning method. It gives the opportunity for people to step into the roles of others and play them so they may get a better understanding of what people in that particular role go through. For example, managers play roles of their subordinates, people in customer services play the role of their customer, so they get to feel what's it like to walk in the shoes of another. But the good thing about this type of role playing is that we know we are role playing and what type of role playing we are engaged in and that we can get out of it when the game is over.

There is another kind of role playing that we do all throughout our lives. That kind of role playing, for most of times we don't even know we do it, we don't know why we do it in the first place and most importantly we don't know that we have a choice to play or not to play. This is the role playing we do in every day of our lives as a mother, father, son, daughter, a boss, a worker, a husband, a wife, a grandmother, a grandfather, an aunt, an uncle, a granddaughter, a grandson and the list goes on and on.

Each role is played in the drama we call 'life': at different times or sometimes at the samtime. But we play them nevertheless. The society (including our loved ones) determine how these role ought to be played. There are boundaries, specifications/expectations assigned to each of these roles. As we take on each one, we have to start playing them. It's like a broadway show or a movie. You have lines and certain ways to depict your character. In the same fashion one must play the roles in life as well.

Now, some of you would argue to say that I am mistaken. That you have the right to chose and that in your roles things are not that cut and dry. My question to you is 'Really?' Please try stepping out of the boundaries, expectations set and see the reactions. What reactions would you get? So, we, humans (who are supposed to be able to have a higher thinking function and an ability to carve out their own destiny) are reduced to puppets who are made to dance according to the movements of the strings called 'roles'. Isn't that the funniest thing in the world? Actually NO! The funniest thing is that majority of us, willingly and happily dance all of our lives without much questioning.

The few who have risen to question and refused to dance have withered the storms that have filled many history books or have become sacrifical lambs. So, we dare not challenege the greater wisdom (or should I say idiocy) of society.

Why do we do role playing? I have come to understand that humans do this out of desire, fear and lack of understanding.

We role play out of wanting to belong (desire). We fear rejection. Those who have stepped out of boundaries have done so with great personal and even professional sacrifice at the given point of time. So, they gave up both fear of rejection and desire of wanting to belong. But humans in general want to feel part of a pack. We are social creatures so we need to feel a sense of belonging and we will go to great lengths to move into the circle rather than stay outside of it. Then the biggest reason of all is lack of understanding. If we understood and had clarity as to 'why' then neither fear nor desire will exist. They will fall by the way side. But because we don't have clear comprehension we are stuck.

One of the things we needs to understand is that is that none of these roles are written in stone. Everything changes. With time and place and people it all changes. No one needs to feel that they have to fit into something they don't want to. There is no need for a sense of oppression which leads to depression. Trying to play a role that one is not comfortable or don't want to is like trying to fit into a size 2 dress size when you are a 6. Or for guys trying fitting into a pair of pants a few sizes too small. How would you feel? Even if you squeeze yourself in it, because you have to, will you last long? Will you enjoy it? Can you have fun? Investigate and answer for yourself.

Another understanding is that we can be that change. We have the choices. People fear change. They fear change in themselves as much as they fear change in others. It's two sides of the same coin really. One doesn't go without the other. We alone have the choices. The execution of the choices are also ours. But what people cannot and will not wither are the consequences. Because of thise even when people have choices, they walk as if they don't. They remain puppets hung up by strings. Because making choices gives ownership and that is a scary proposition for most humans. Taking a choice is taking a stand. People are scared of taking a stand. When you take a stand you are by yourself. This removes you from the pack. People don't want this. They would rather bask in the false security of belonging to something than take a stand facing the truth that ultimately you are and will always be alone. Please don't mistake 'alone' with 'loneliness' here.

Another is that when you stretch out of desire to please others, it will somewhere down the road will exhaust you. People get frustrated, angry, feel let down, depressed because they do so much out of desire to please and find that after all what they have said and done, they are still left standing on their own. It is the most saddest and dissapointing thing of all. So, if you are going to do stuff for others be realistic and don't do it because you want to please others or out of a desire to be included or praised. Do it because it is what you genuinely want to do. Be true to yourself above all. This is the guts to stand on your own.

Another is that when you don't stretch out of fear, it stalls your own growth. I said to someone recently that people mature in their bodies but never in their minds. Humans minds stay immature as when they are in their teen years sometimes, even when they are in their 50's and 60's. Isn't that sad? This happens because we don't allow ourselves the right to grow. We constantly contain ourselves within the boundaries set for us by others. Please note that being a CEO doesn't make us emotionally mature. It only makes us live in the boundaries of society. Being a millionarire doesn't make us emotionally mature, it makes us a prisoners within the desires set by society.

So because of these things we don't develop our understanding. Because of it our understanding does not have the depth to see the role playing we do. To see why we do the role playing. Why we continue to do so despite the physical and emotional hardships that come long with it. It is very unfortunate. These are truly the ties that bind us.

I find it so fascinating. I mean I myself have done this for many years in my own life. But I have always questioned the wisdom of society as a whole and searched for a one of my own. I always believed that life was more than what it was presented to me by my elders and those around me. I always believed that there was something out there. Despite how unpopular I got, how intolerable I got and how rejected, ridiculed and reprimanded I got, I stuck to my guns, because I trusted my instincts above all. Then I was shown bits and pieces of that truth from a far away place over the last couple of years. A place I didn't think existed but I knew in my heart was there. In many ways, I felt free. It wasn't even a sense of validation. It was a sense of freedom. My heart felt an upliftment and a setting of free. Like a bird being able to finally fly away. I was finally able to fly in my own truth. A beautiful feeling of joy, wonderment, freedom and gratefulness.

I wish people could see this. Ajhan Brahm says this so well. He says that we have locked ourselves in a prison and the door of that prison is open to us at all times but we just don't want to walk out of it. I truly understand what he says. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. It's the most freeing thing in the world as well.

Adaptation of a "Single Story"

Recently I listened to a talk by a Nigerian woman on diversity called a "Single Story". In essence it was how we think of a country, a race or a group people based on a single story we hear about, experience etc. This she says is what lead to discrimination. Her talk was based on a collection of stories from her own experiences of how she herself discriminated and judged other based on a single story and how she experienced discrimination and judgement from others based on a single story.

When I listened to talk, it revealed more that the issue of diversity. For me it revealed many aspects of humanity itself. Our prejudices, our attitudes, our insensitivity's, inability forgive one another was all there in this one little talk. It was beautiful to listen to. So, I wanted to write a blog expanding and adding my thoughts on how we all from time to time get caught up in 'Single Stories" and how we ought to get out of them.

Think about it, the moment we like someone, we are caught up in a single story. We like/love someone because of something wonderful in them or something wonderful they did to us or because they are known to us. Now just because of that does it make this person a wonderful person? It's like a serial killer isn't it? They have a family and they love their children and wife or whoever in their lives but they go on other people's loved ones. But if you ask their wife and children, their would probably say "Oh my dad is a wonderful person": we are caught up in a single story.

In the same way, think of a person you hate, dislike. They may have done you wrong or your loved ones some wrong. But that alone doesn't make that person a bad person. In the world how many of us pass negative judgement on others, based on a story we hear from our friends, or an experienced had by a loved one?! Again we are caught up in a single story.

Some people, life itself becomes a single story. Death of a loved one, death of a child, the fact that they were raped or molested as a child becomes who they are that all other experiences in life fades away to leave them with the horror, anger, hatred of one experience they had for maybe only minutes in their lives. Isn't that sad?

The Buddha was so wise to point this out many centuries ago. He said that we should see things for what they are and not according to what we want them to be. We see things through prisms of Desire, Aversion and Delusion. The moment we wear these lenses we don't see the total picture. But we wear them anyway. We always carry these lenses with us and take them out at any given point of time when we encounter an object through any one of the senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thinking).

But we never see that we put on these lenses. We are so used to wearing them all the time. It's like putting on sunglasses the moment the sun is out. The moment we encounter an object we put the lenses on usually the first two are in combination with the lens of Delusion. Then all is distorted. Anything that follows the contact, any thinking, speaking, acting is just simply wrong. Because it stems from a mis informed source.

So the Buddha said to investigate: to never to take things for what they are. Always to look and see until you see the same from many angles. This increases your chances of getting the story at least partially correct. If you are lucky you may get all the angles and see it properly. It's like taking a flight and climbing to greater heights. The big overwhelming tree suddenly becomes small and you also see that there is a river close by. So things are not that bad. But you have to get a bigger and better view.

It's hard to do this. To remove yourself from a single story to making a larger story or a story with many angles. Because sometimes, we begin to see things that we don't necessarily want to see. Sometimes we want the story to unfold in a certain way but as we start investigating we start seeing things we don't like. This makes us uncomfortable. Well, this is the beauty of the Buddha's teachings. He said that we should always bend our knowledge and our understanding to our direct experiences. Not the other way about. So truth take precedence even if we have to drop all of our pre-formed knowledge, even at the expense of great discomfort.

I loved this talk, not only because she spoke with great clarity, openness, insight, but because the talk contained many aspects of humanity which she did not explore. It also, for me, contained many aspects of the teachings of Buddha that I have come to cherish and that I try to apply into my life.

On Being Busy!

The last few weeks I have contemplated on being busy. Personally I am not a very busy person. This was a conscious decision few years ago when I realised that there was more to life that just running the rat race that we all run. There was something more that we need time for. With that I decided to cut down on things in my life. It didn't come hard for me but those around me it came as a shock. For some it was rather unpleasant and other it was something of a socially deviant thing that I was doing. But by this time I had subject myself to doing things according societal norms but none had brought me the promised 'satisfactions', so I was going to listen to myself. I always had good instincts but sometime despite those, was too adamant when my instincts told me to go in a direction which would not have brought much approval from the rest of the world. But finally I was willing to give it a try.

So now I have much time to meditate and reflect and contemplate. I find that it had made me much stronger over the years. I am less moved by what goes around me, the opinions, praise and blame of others. I find that I have a house and a safe place inside me that I can walk into anytime and in that I am always welcome and loved and cherished and that I can find peace, quiet and even moments of bliss and happiness in the midst of darkness outside. I am truly grateful for that.

So, now I have looked outside of my life the last few weeks. For I have encountered the word "busy" many times from many people from around me. I find it rather interesting that we all like being busy. Being busy gives us something to do, to occupy ourselves with and our time with. With that we no longer feel alone, bored, unworthy, left to our own devices, unloved and without meaning in their lives. So we like being busy. It's funny that people don't know 'WHY' they get busy in the first place. I think if they only did they probably will not get busy as much as they do.

I met people who work because they want to be busy, they study because they want to keep busy, they want to look after their grandchildren because they want to be busy, some want to have children because they want to be busy....but I don't think they do these things because they want to be 'busy' but because they want to be loved, find meaning, feel worthy, feel that they belong to someone, or something.....either way we all have this burning desire to feel part of something. Why?

Because our 'EGO' cannot stand on its own. We are in essence are very weak. I understand this because I have investigate this within myself. The need to be. We need to get occupied with things sometimes anything because we want to belong. We need to be part of something. So we do things in a very selfish way. This is why people get disappointed. When other don't meet your expectations, when other let you down or criticize you or whatever, we feel resentment or disappointment because we do things out of selfish desire. If we did things for the sake of doing, then none of these self centered needs will arise.

So, in order to free our EGO, to make ourselves stand on our own we need to first and foremost see ourselves very clearly. We need to put ourselves in the microscope. But the nature of the beast is that when we are so busy doing things and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, there is not a moment to breath or a moment of rest to put ourselves under the microscope or even take a peak through that lens, and even if we do both, there isn't the time to understand and process what we just saw. So, we keep on rolling with the punches, as they say until the last punch throws us right into the coffin. But what use will that do to us?!! This is my biggest questions.

I mean we live life, and other live life trying so hard to make a "life for themselves" so they say. They all say that. They do a job, buy a house, a car, raise a family do many more things to "make or build a life for themselves" but they don't take the time for themselves and they are in the centre of the drama: they are the main character of the play. When the main character of the play is weak and doesn't know the lines, can that play or movie or drama be a successful play/drama or movie?! NO! So why? Why all this hullabaloo to run around and do so much and get busy when you are the one who is being run down to the ground?! Why not take the time and treat as if you were the main character of your own movie for goodness sake?

But I doubt people will ever see it like that. If I tell it the way I said it above, they will say that I am being selfish. But really ask yourselves am I being selfish or am I asking you to be realistic?

What is also ironic is the world is so programmed to think busy and reward busy. A person who is not busy (now I don't mean someone who is lazy and sleeps all day and is like a couch potato) in people's eyes should be a monastic or should be living in a temple. But these days even the priests are too busy! The world presses and oppresses if someone takes that time to contemplate and to meditate and live that quiet life. It's hard to have that choice that almost as if you are being discriminated for wanting that. Isn't that ironic.

My wish for myself above all is that I would find more moments of quietness and time of reflection as I continue this life. Whatever the future may hold, I value the moments of reflection greatly. They are a source of strength and great understanding. No books or degree has ever given me the kind of understanding and strength that has some about through meditation and contemplation of Dhamma. I am truly grateful to the Buddha for that. My wish for anyone else is that they in their hearts would know this truth as well. All we do, be it great or small, comes to and end someday, and there is nothing we take with us except the time that we have spent with ourselves in those quiet times. If we haven't done that, then we have wasted a precious life we have received and death would be in vain.

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.