Letting Something Different Happen
If your meditation seems stale or stuck, perhaps it is simply that you are not letting something else happen. This is true all along the path, from Day 1 until full Awakening.
For beginners: Will you let yourself progress along the path? Sometimes the reason we don’t experience concentration, deep bodily relaxation, confidence in reading suttas, or clarity in committing to a life path is simply because we haven’t allowed it. We have an idea that all of this is beyond us.
But no one is going to come and say, “OK, you’ve passed the level 1 test. Now you qualify to have longer stretches of mindfulness, go on longer retreats, and begin studying the root texts.” Instead, these yearnings arise from your own heart at the right time, and only you can decide to follow them. Sometimes we need to remember the wisdom revealed to Dorothy by the Good Witch: "You’ve always been able to go home." You can do more advanced practices – if you let that happen.
We can’t contrive these things into existence, or rush them along, but when they do start to emerge, we can be careful not to block them.
For experienced practitioners: Will you let yourself be a beginner? Perhaps we have done a couple of three-month retreats, or we have gained some reflective acceptance of not-self, or we’ve practiced for 25 years. Now we think there is nothing we can learn from the basic mindfulness instructions, from simple practices like self-compassion, from reading a sutta we’ve already read.
But actually, this path is an ever-widening circle that encompasses more and more of your being. Each new horizon that comes into view may include aspects of the mind that have never been touched by practice – parts that are as raw as you were on the first day you sat. You contain a multitude of newbies, and each one deserves to be met with the same kindness and mindfulness you brought forth on your first retreat.
In a sense, there is no advanced practice. At any time, we may find ourself being a beginner yet again. Can we humbly accept that?
For anyone and everyone: Can you recognize new responses to experience? The same anger comes up that we’ve seen 10,000 times. Most likely, the same habitual aversive response comes up also. But is that all? Is there anything else present? We are so attuned to the usual rut that we might not notice the first time compassion arises instead of aversion. And if it does, we might simply dismiss it – after all, that is surely not me; I don’t have any softness around this anger.
Or maybe something totally different happens – like the anger doesn’t even arise, and we laugh instead. Then suddenly we feel disoriented. Something is missing. Oh yes, the anger is missing! And we rush to create it in order that things feel normal. Can you recognize a new response and be willing to accept it? Can you let something different happen?
What this amounts to is letting ourself be something different. Perhaps it is helpful to know that this path will completely remake who you think you are – multiple times. There is no “true self” to arrive at, nor can you keep any version that comes along. In fact, this whole project of “self” starts to look quite suspect after a while – and that is something different that is well worth letting happen.
Don’t worry about this, or even think about it, too much. The task of noticing what is happening in real time, and allowing that knowing to get successively deeper and wider, will carry the mind toward less or even no suffering… If we let it.
If your meditation seems stale or stuck, perhaps it is simply that you are not letting something else happen. This is true all along the path, from Day 1 until full Awakening.
For beginners: Will you let yourself progress along the path? Sometimes the reason we don’t experience concentration, deep bodily relaxation, confidence in reading suttas, or clarity in committing to a life path is simply because we haven’t allowed it. We have an idea that all of this is beyond us.
But no one is going to come and say, “OK, you’ve passed the level 1 test. Now you qualify to have longer stretches of mindfulness, go on longer retreats, and begin studying the root texts.” Instead, these yearnings arise from your own heart at the right time, and only you can decide to follow them. Sometimes we need to remember the wisdom revealed to Dorothy by the Good Witch: "You’ve always been able to go home." You can do more advanced practices – if you let that happen.
We can’t contrive these things into existence, or rush them along, but when they do start to emerge, we can be careful not to block them.
For experienced practitioners: Will you let yourself be a beginner? Perhaps we have done a couple of three-month retreats, or we have gained some reflective acceptance of not-self, or we’ve practiced for 25 years. Now we think there is nothing we can learn from the basic mindfulness instructions, from simple practices like self-compassion, from reading a sutta we’ve already read.
But actually, this path is an ever-widening circle that encompasses more and more of your being. Each new horizon that comes into view may include aspects of the mind that have never been touched by practice – parts that are as raw as you were on the first day you sat. You contain a multitude of newbies, and each one deserves to be met with the same kindness and mindfulness you brought forth on your first retreat.
In a sense, there is no advanced practice. At any time, we may find ourself being a beginner yet again. Can we humbly accept that?
For anyone and everyone: Can you recognize new responses to experience? The same anger comes up that we’ve seen 10,000 times. Most likely, the same habitual aversive response comes up also. But is that all? Is there anything else present? We are so attuned to the usual rut that we might not notice the first time compassion arises instead of aversion. And if it does, we might simply dismiss it – after all, that is surely not me; I don’t have any softness around this anger.
Or maybe something totally different happens – like the anger doesn’t even arise, and we laugh instead. Then suddenly we feel disoriented. Something is missing. Oh yes, the anger is missing! And we rush to create it in order that things feel normal. Can you recognize a new response and be willing to accept it? Can you let something different happen?
What this amounts to is letting ourself be something different. Perhaps it is helpful to know that this path will completely remake who you think you are – multiple times. There is no “true self” to arrive at, nor can you keep any version that comes along. In fact, this whole project of “self” starts to look quite suspect after a while – and that is something different that is well worth letting happen.
Don’t worry about this, or even think about it, too much. The task of noticing what is happening in real time, and allowing that knowing to get successively deeper and wider, will carry the mind toward less or even no suffering… If we let it.
