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.
[My favorite word is] and. It is so hopeful.
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it.
Let each hour of the day have its allotted duty, and cultivate that power of concentration which grows with its exercise.
Magic enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.
When it comes to the mental world, when we design things like health care and retirement and stock markets, we somehow forget the idea that we are limited. I think that if we understood our cognitive limitations in the same way that we understand our physical limitations β¦ we could design a better world.
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