Know and Let Go

[samadhi_steve]

Hi everyone

I would just like to share dhamma talk I have found helpful and penetrating. Maybe some of you have read it, maybe not but here it is:

[Nyana]

Thanks Steve, a very good dhamma talk.



All the best,

Geoff

[manas]

Hi all, I would like to post a question / musing here, so as to not 'hog' too many topics by starting a new one every time I wish to discuss a particular issue (I'm concerned that I may have done this, as in the last week I posted two separate topics already). Ok...

There is something so sweet and appealing about 'just knowing'. Just this much is what I do most mornings; sitting with legs folded crosswise, body erect and mindfulness alert, I allow awareness to be with the breath, in and out. That's it. And when mindfulness is sufficiently established (when the mind has calmed down somewhat), I allow mindfulness to just be there, noting EVERYTHING as it arises and vanishes in the field of awareness.

And yet, such simplicity runs totally counter to almost everything I was taught about knowledge. Like many here I'm sure, I finished school, went to Uni, did a degree, and learned how to flex my intellectual muscles to a great extent. Yet many years later, it has all ended up with me now choosing the most simple thing, just this breath, as the primary object of meditation, and 'just knowing' (unattached mindfulness) as the way to true knowledge and wisdom.

There is a part of me that says, "it can't be this simple (the way to truth)! There must be more to it than just breathing in and out, to 'just knowing'!"

I feel as though I am becoming increasingly simple, that the multitude of concepts, thoughts and ideas that I once valued so highly, will inexorably become like old discarded rubbish to be blown away by the wind.

[Kenshou]

Sounds pretty good to me. There is a certain joy in simply sitting mindfully and knowing as every little thing comes and goes, comes and goes, not you, not yours, not worth grasping to or interfering with, the relief of the mind "cooling off". Definitely a good thing to do. I think by doing just that, the 7 factors of awakening tend to naturally occur, and as you keep practicing your mindfulness becomes more precise allowing for more and more complete "release". One random guy on the internet to another, keep doing that.

[Reductor]

There is a part of me that says, "it can't be this simple (the way to truth)! There must be more to it than just breathing in and out, to 'just knowing'!"

I feel as though I am becoming increasingly simple, that the multitude of concepts, thoughts and ideas that I once valued so highly, will inexorably become like old discarded rubbish to be blown away by the wind.

*deep breath* "Aaaahahhhhhhhh......"

Feels good, eh?

Simple is peace, complicated is not.

[Hoo]

Hi....I feel as though I am becoming increasingly simple, that the multitude of concepts, thoughts and ideas that I once valued so highly, will inexorably become like old discarded rubbish to be blown away by the wind.

I experience the same thing. I'm not consciously renouncing anything, but "detaching" seems to describe it best for me. I tend these days to not pick up, or attach, to things I once thought to be important. I'm not good at it, mind you, but it does seem to be a result of practice instead of something I do in practice.

Hoo