Cats who teach me to fly…

It is moving towards letting go. How? Through meditation! After 800 hours of meditation, whatever thoughts that manifest in my mind would eventually return to the concentration which we always bring back when our thoughts drift away. It’s the same when unwholesome thoughts arise, but in a way that less effort is used to restrain such thoughts.

Attaining Jhana is no longer a concern anymore. What matters is right concentration. A mind free of unwholesome thoughts, non-grasping and peaceful. Lights often indicate a peaceful and a still mind with joy. Better still, when thought ceases  nothing is left but concentration. Sustaining it requires long periods of training. Being always patiently living at the present is the best training.

The twelve dependent origination begins with ignorance and it definitely ends with ignorance. That is why when the final fetter, ignorance is being eradicated, one becomes an Arhat!

Volitional formation which is the fourth aggregate, when understood correctly, makes it easier for the six sense base to be restrained. Understanding that the five aggregates with clear comprehension which are non-self, impermanence and the root of suffering, especially volition formation, helps practising non-clinging in a right way.

The process of experiencing the Dhamma is never easy. Buddha never said that there will be happiness when one experiences dispassion and cessation but more towards the feeling of equanimity. The period of transformation is a long process filled with gradual progression. Bit by bit and little by little…

One should not be complacent. There are more, so much more for me to practise. Sometimes, when Dhamma is being put aside during an argument, I would always laugh at myself. Understanding that the path to cessation wouldn’t allow me to do so. There is no self after all. We are in no control and whatever that is happening around us is based on cause and conditions. Confidence arises through threading the Eightfold Path and when understood and experienced correctly, it is indeed beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful in the end!