The mental layer carries guilt. The development of virtue and keeping the precepts help to clear this layer of all the guilt. Otherwise, all kinds of guilt will come up in meditation instead of gladness, joy, and inner happiness. According to TRANSCENDENTAL Dependent Origination ( sequence of conditions leading to Awakening), freedom from remorse arises automatically in one who is virtuous. Gladness arises automatically in one who is free from remorse. Next in the sequence are Rapture ( piti), Tranquility (passaddhi), Inner Happiness ( sukha), Samadhi ( jhana), Wisdom, etc. | Effort To the Right Places: . It is important to apply effort in a balanced way, not too lax and not too tense. Setting aside enough time for personal meditation retreat everyday is very important. Usually, the mind just settles a little then our busy interaction stirs it up again. It then takes a while to settle, but before long it gets stirs up by interaction and activities. Setting time aside to be in silence and turning within allows the mind to settles. This makes it easier for stillness of mind to happens. However, your retreat routine needs to be put together in a way that is enjoyable. Otherwise, you will not stick to it. |

By saying the observer is not a self or an essential me, and by putting that peace between the observer and the observed, there is no possibility for the hindrances to grow. The hindrances are suppressed by that means. By focusing my mindfulness there rather than whatever else. You're suppressing the hindrances. When the hindrances are suppressed, especially desire and ill will, the wanting, the doing, you also suppress all the other hindrances.
Physical and mental factors of experience worked together to produce personal experience ( that gives the illusion of a self) and personal choice) . For example:
1. Form -As you walk in the garden, your eyes come into contact with a visible object.
I
V
V
3. Perception( labeling, association,judgement, pre-conceived notions)
- the mind figures out what the object is.
Your aggregate of perception will identify that visible object as, let us say, a snake
I
V
4.Sensation/ Emotion ( Pleasant, Unpleasant, Neutral) .
Once that happens, you will respond to that visible object with the aggregate sensation/ feeling of displeasure, or more specifically that of fear.
I
V
* Volition is the action/ reaction . When VOLITION is mixed with MENTAL FORMATION, and influenced by FEELING, what you usually get is a conditioned response or a habitual action. As we know, habitual actions can sometimes be good for you, sometimes bad for you.
. - Finally, you will react to that visible object with the aggregate of mental formation or volition, with the intentional action of perhaps running away or perhaps picking up a stone.
In all our daily activities, we can see how all the five aggregates work together to produce personal experience.When the aggregates of consciousness, perception, Feeling, and Samsakara rest, all your samskaras disappear. They are burnt away, and you start witnessing , your awareness happen, and you realize everything is a dream, and you are unaffected by the dream.
When there is inner chatter , emotion, or other hindrances arising in the mind as mentioned above , your face, head, and body is not particularly relaxed with all this mental activity. So just come back, relax your face with a serene and relax smile.
From a very young age we are taught to perform and compete with others. As adults, we spend most of our time trying to keep up with friends and neighbors. There is a strong pressure to run in the rat race because those who are not running fast enough are looked down upon by their peers or people in our society. We are so busy running from morning to evening everyday that we hardly have the time to ask ourselves why are we always running, where are we headings as a society and what is happening to our world. |
|
| " Have you ever been happy in the future? Have you ever felt rich, loved, sad or angry in the future? Even if you feel happiness for something that might happen in the future, you always feel it in the now. You cannot feel in the future. You cannot experience in the future either. It is all done in the present. That is the only place where you can experience the beauty of life. Real happiness and joy can only be found in the present. Still we constantly try to create the best circumstances so that we can , one day, be happy in the future. And thus we are running after a moving train, a train we can never catch. See yourself running behind that train, then stop and turn back, back to the present. Only when you have done that will you be able to see that the present already contains everything you need." | We may ask, " But what about working on our future or creating our future?"
We should do that. But that doesn't mean that we should allow worries to govern our lives. Only look at the future as an even better present for us to create. We can project for ourselves a new future, therefore we can create. |