The first days of the New Year are great days for refreshing our commitment to what supports our inner growth. So, I feel like some encouraging words (as much for me as for you.) The post I put up at Awakening Positivity, today, also speaks encouragingly of real change in our personalities. I hope you’ll be able to read it.
“First, realise that this Way is one which can be known here and now, as a result of which a mindfully-living person releases his hold on the world.” – The Nikāya Buddha, Sutta Nipāta: Mettagu’s Questions. Translated by Saddhatissa Bhikkhu.
Letting go of our hold on the world can be cultivated by meditating, and at any moment by letting be what is. Of course, this takes a willingness to develop our character, on the basis of an engaged bodily life – learning to appreciate our combodiment. The body – in sickness or in health – is a multi-dimensional field of spiritual qualities. It takes patience to grow. Partly because to become who I am, I have to let go the habits of that marvellous error, my maladapted self.
‘World,’ here, should be understood to include our experience of ourselves. It’s everything that we experience. Letting our experience be, so that it can just be at peace is the way, and the destination.
And, why would I let go of my hold on the ‘world’? Because grasping at it distorts it. Because it doesn’t satisfy to gain a grasped world. Because letting it be what it is in itself becomes more and more marvellous as you enter the way of living ‘hands off’ style. The world (in its true light) is just astounding. And, finally, this is peaceful.
“I will teach the destination and the way partaking of the destination. Listen to what I say. What is the destination? The withering away of greed, of hostility, and of delusion, is called the destination. And what is the path partaking of the destination? Present-moment awareness directed toward the body. This awareness is what is called the way partaking to the destination.
“Thus, Practitioners, I have taught you the destination and the way partaking of the destination. Whatever should be done, Practitioners, by a compassionate teacher out of compassion for his students, desiring their well-being, that I have done for you. Here are the bases of trees, Practitioners, these are empty huts. Meditate. Do not be slack, lest you regret it afterwards. This is my instruction to you.”
– Destination (Parāyana Sutta) From the Samyutta Nikāya 4.43.44. Translated by Christopher J. Ash.
May you find joy during 2016, by consistently taking care of yourself in your wholeness.