Let go.
You are nothing. And you are so much more.
The New Mindscape #5–2.
When you try meditation, at first, it might actually feel stressful. It’s a common idea that the whole point of meditation is to concentrate or to empty the mind. But if you try to do this, you’ll find out right away that the mind is constantly generating all kinds of ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions and so on. It’s a wild monkey, as many Buddhist texts say. It’s a mess. That is the first thing you will find out. And you will discover that it’s incredibly difficult to calm down the mind. And this will make you get even more stressed!
You want to calm down, but new irrelevant ideas come — new films, new text messages, new emails, et cetera. All these things keep coming to your mind, distracting you, no matter how hard you try.
The purpose of the ‘naming’ method is not to force the mind to calm down, but to let these thoughts come. Let it come; just name it. For instance, I just thought I had to text my friend Joe. So I would say, ‘Thought of texting Joe,’ and then let the thought go. Let it come, and let it go. Let it come, and let it go. Let it come, and let it go. And gradually, the idea will come and go. You name your thought, observe it, see it for what it is, and let it go on.
In a way, your mind is like playing a film — these things come and go. Normally, our thoughts and feelings capture us. But through watching and letting them go, a sense of calm starts to arise, so that we are no longer captured by these thoughts. Then, we become calm spectators or observers of these things.
We may still have worries, but we just let them go. So the monk in the video says that as we see, we realise a lot of things about ourselves, because we’ll see many of our deep emotions or obsessions come up. As we see these thoughts coming and going, we become more aware of ourselves.
At the same time though, we also gain a certain amount of detachment from those thoughts and feelings. When anger comes, you feel the anger, name it, observe it, and let it go. In this way, anger becomes something separate from yourself, as it comes and goes. Where you see that somebody is angry, as the monk says, you realise the same thing is happening to him — anger came into his mind and captured him, just as sometimes, anger comes into your mind and captures you. By doing so, you can understand others better.
According to Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu, The results of this practice are as follows:
— The mind becomes calmer, lighter, and happier.
— We realize things about ourselves and the world around us. We see that there are things in our mind that we could do without, we see why our suffering arises.
— We come to understand things and understand other people. When people get angry at us, we used to think they were evil. Now we understand that they have the same emotions that we have inside ourselves. We understand why people do, say, and think the things they do. We see that they are just like us, and we are just like them.
— We become more aware of the world around us, and of the people around us. We become more aware of the things inside of us. We become more able to take things as they go.
— We can let go of the evil, unwholesome states which exist in our minds. States of anger, greed, delusion, anxiety, worry, stress, fear, arrogance, conceit — things of no benefit to us or to other people, that create suffering and unhappiness.
In the final videoclip, Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu explains that the meditation practice leads us to see the root causes of suffering: the desire for permanence, for satisfaction, and for control. He talks about three insights about reality, which he says are the ultimate results of practising this kind of meditation. These insights are among the key teachings of Buddhism.
The first, he says, is attachment or the illusion of permanence. We tend to think that all the things that we see and are conscious of, all the things in the world, all things in our minds are stable and permanent.
Yet, through this practice, we become aware of their impermanence — everything is just coming and going. Therefore, none of these things will last. This is the first insight that comes from this practice.
We all know intellectually that nothing is permanent. However, psychologically, we’re still very much attached to the permanence of things. I’m very attached to my iPhone, for instance. I don’t want to lose it for a minute. I’m very attached to my best friends and to my family, and want those relationships to last forever. All these things are deeply important for me. But none of them will last forever.
The second insight is about grasping for satisfaction. In our world, we always strive for satisfaction. We consider that satisfaction comes from something outside us. We seek money, because we think we can buy satisfaction with it, such as buying movie tickets, mobile phones, buying holiday resort packages for relaxation, and so on. We’re all always grasping after these things, because we think that this is what brings satisfaction.
The insight from this meditation is that such satisfaction is something that is always fleeting and will never last. After a few months, you may get sick of your iPhone, and desire a better one. That holiday resort may become boring. So you’ll grasp, grasp and grasp constantly, and feel unhappy when you don’t get it. And you’ll feel unhappy even if you do get it, because it’s never enough.
The reason for this insight is because as you watch our thoughts coming and going, you will become detached even from happy thoughts. So even a feeling of comfort or satisfaction is not something that you would try to prolong. Instead, you should also watch it, observe it, name it and let it go.
All these things — the feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, happiness or unhappiness — are never permanent. And we realize that a lot of things we strive for, such as different types of achievements and interests, are not intrinsic to us. They are the result of our following the crowd and internalising what other people consider to be important.
We are fooled into wanting to acquire such achievements and passions. But then, we become mindful of them, and we realize that they are not who we truly are.
The final insight is the uncontrollable nature of the world. We ultimately cannot control all these things that come and go. The desire to control is a main cause of suffering and conflict among people, which often culminates in violence and wars.
Mindfulness trains us to watch the comings and goings of our feelings, thoughts and mental states, and thus allows us to give up the idea of controlling our thoughts and the things in the world. Gradually, we try less to control our thoughts, and our thoughts control us less. Thus, we become aware of our incapacity to control everything.
These are three insights about reality that come from these practices. When we ultimately realise that these things that we considered so important are impermanent in some ways, it also leads to another question: who are we then, if we are none of those things that appear in our mindscape?
And then, the ultimate insight that comes with these practices is the realisation that you are nothing.
But, paradoxically, being nothing, you are infinitely more than all of those thoughts and objects of consciousness.
If you let go of them, you may come to a realisation of something so much greater, so much more beautiful, which is described as a deeper wisdom, the light of consciousness, and boundless compassion. These are infinite spiritual qualities. They bring joy and peace to yourself and to others.
Thus Abdul’ Baha compared the mind to a mirror. If we clean off the dust and clutter of various ideas, desires and objects of consciousness, the mind becomes a pure mirror that reflects the light of divine qualities.
***
All of these insights are expressed in the core teaching of the Buddha, which is commonly called “The Four Noble Truths,” followed by the Noble Eightfold Path. Please read the following two articles about the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path, here:
See the next essay, on The imaginary I. Can phones and brains understand the ideas they convey?
See the previous essay, on Observe your Mindscape: Sit back and watch your objects of consciousness.
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This essay and the New Mindscape Medium series are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong’s Common Core Curriculum Course CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change, with the support of the Asian Religious Connections research cluster of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
