To Be Success In Practice
1. Do not expect anything. Just sit back and see what happens. Treat the whole thing as an experiment, take an active interest in the test itself. But do no get distracted by your expectations about the results for that matter, do not be anxious for any results whatsoever. Let the meditation move along at its own speed and in its own direction. Let the meditation teach you what it wants you to learn. Meditative awareness seeks to see reality exactly as it is. Whether that corresponds to our expectations or not, it requires a temporary suspension of all our preconceptions and ideas. We must store away our images, opinions and interpretations someplace out of the way for a duration. Otherwise, we will stumble over them.
2. Do not strain. Do not force anything or make grand exaggerated efforts. Meditation is not aggressive. There is no violent striving, just let your effort be relaxed and steady.
3. No rush. There is no hurry, so take your time. Settle yourself on the cushion and sit as though you have the whole day. Anything really valuable takes time to develop. Patience, patience and patience, please!
4. Do not cling to anything and do not reject anything. Let come what it comes and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. IF bad mental images arise, then that is also fine. Look on all of it as equal and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens. Do not fight with what you experience, just observe it all mindfully.
5. Let go. Learn to flow with all the changes that come up. Loosen up and relax.
6. Accept everything that arises. Accept your feelings, even the ones you did not have, accept your experience, even the ones you hate. Do not condemn yourself for having human flaws and failings. Learn to see all phenomena in the mind as being perfectly natural and understandable. Try exercising a disinterested acceptance at all times and with respect to everything you experience.
7. Be gentle to yourself. Be kind to yourself. You may not be perfect, you are all you have got to work with. The process of becoming who you still be begin first with the total acceptance of who you are.
8. Investigate yourself. Question everything. Take nothing for granted. Do not believe anything because it sounds wise and pious and due to some holy men mention it. See it for yourself. That does not mean that you should be cynical, impudent or irreverent. It means you should be empirical. Subject all statements to the actual test of your own experience and let the results be your guide to truth. Insight meditation evolves out of an inner longing to wake up to what is real and too gain liberating insight into the true structure of existence. The entire practice hinges upon this desire to be awake to the truth. Without it, the practice is superficial.
9. View all problems as challenges. Look upon negatives that arises as opportunities to learn and to grow. Do not run away from them, condemn yourself or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great! More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in and investigate.
10. Do not ponder, you do not need to figure anything out. Discursive thinking would not hurt you from the trap. In meditation, the mind is purified naturally by mindfulness, by wordless bare attention. Habitual deliberation is not necessary to eliminate those things that are keeping you in bondage. All that is necessary is a clear, non-conceptual perception of what they are and how much they work. That alone is sufficient to dissolve them. Concepts and reasoning just get in the way. Do not think. See!
11. Do not dwell upon contrasts. Differences exist between the people but dwelling upon them is a dangerous process. Unless carefully handled, it leads directly to egotism. Ordinary human thinking is full of greed, jealousy and pride. A man seeing another man on the street may immediately think, "He's better looking than I am". The instant result is envy or shame. A girl seeing another girl on the other side may think, "I am prettier than she is". The instant result is pride or proud. This sort of comparison is a mental habit and it leads directly to ill feeling of one sort or another : greed, envy, pride, jealousy or hatred. It is an unskillful mental state, but we do it all the time. We like to compare our looks with others, our success, our accomplishments, our wealth, possession or even IQ and all these lead to the same place-estrangement, barriers between people and ill-feelings.
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