If you haven't cried deeply a number of times, your meditation hasn't really begun.
Interpretation
Deep emotional experiences are essential for true meditation and self-discovery.
Ajahn Chah emphasizes that genuine meditation goes beyond mere sitting in silence; it involves confronting and processing deep emotional pain. By allowing ourselves to experience and cry over our emotions, we open the door to a profound understanding of ourselves and enhance our meditation practice.
In practice
In a mindfulness workshop, the facilitator used the quote to stress the importance of emotional release in personal growth.
Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free.
When sitting in meditation, say, "That's not my business!" with every thought that comes by.
If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.
To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind.
Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.
The heart is just the heart; thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. Let things be just as they are.
The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home.
Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
From my example learn to be just, and not to despise the gods.
Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything.
I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up, to pick yourself up and to move on.
Direct your attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life-by denying the Now.
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