<Attaining Enlightenment Through Meditation>
(Questioner) Hi Sunim, thanks for giving me a chance to ask a question.
So, I have a question on meditation and studying Buddhist scripture.
I learned that the Buddha achieved a peaceful mind and profound enlightenment
through meditation.
I am trying to practice meditation for the same purpose,
but as a beginner who hasn't gone through the path, I have some doubts
about how I can achieve such a deep state of enlightenment through not thinking.
Could you explain how meditation can lead to such peace of mind and enlightenment?
(Sunim) All our suffering actually happens because we think too much.
So, we need to truly liberate ourselves from our preconceptions of ethics,
morality, religious faith, and other paradigms. Those guard our thoughts.
For example:
Say a man and a woman like each other, they have become lovers.
So, in a regular relationship between two ordinary people, you like each other.
However, if you are Buddhist clergy or Catholic clergy, you have been taught
not to engage in relationship with, in a sexual relationships.
So, those people who are trained in that way,
while they enjoy being with the other person in a romantic relationship,
they also feel guilt.
So, all that guilt, that negative feeling, is not a result of having this romantic
relationship with another person you like.
It comes from your own preconceptions that you shouldn't be doing this.
So, a lot of the suffering and issues we experience today actually happen
because of the contradiction or collision between what is happening in reality,
what we experience in reality, and our preconceptions of how things should be.
That suffering disappears when you erase the contradiction
of choosing abandoning a preconception and accepting reality
or adhering to that preconception and foregoing your desires.
However, we can never solve this problem as long as we simultaneously adhere
to a preconception and desire what we want in reality;
that contradiction will persist.
So, another example:
If traditional ethics dictate that men and women of certain age
cannot be romantic partners, then such relationships create suffering.
Similarly, if we are taught that divorce is unacceptable after marriage,
yet circumstances call for separation, this contradiction creates suffering.
However, observing the natural course of relationships,
people come together and separate all the time.
It is all part of coming together.
It shows that separation or divorce is not inherently a cause of suffering.
It's your preconceptions of "what ought to be" that actually causes you suffering,
whether it's a first meeting or a separation.
If you can just erase "what ought to be",
then you eliminate much suffering from internal conflict.
For example, when we teach our daughters that premarital sex is a sin,
it causes them internal suffering when they engage in it.
But we do not teach our sons this to the same extent,
so they may not feel the same guilt.
This is all due to the preconceptions we instill in our children.
For example, if you stop thinking right now, there is no cost to suffer.
That's why the foundation of our meditation is stopping your thinking.
What posture you take, how you breathe, none of that really matters.
Many people say they are meditating, but they end up thinking quietly.
That is thinking, not meditating.
Thinking good thoughts does not mean you meditate well.
Meditation is a state of absence of thoughts.
If your thinking stops, most of your suffering will go away.
But once you try it, you will find your thinking does not stop easily.
Your thinking is naturally amplified many times over.
So when you are meditating, your body may be still,
but you are always thinking.
How do you stop thinking? Intending to stop thinking amplifies it.
So the old teachers said:
There's dust flying in the room.
We don't see it well. It is almost invisible.
When a ray of sunlight shines into the room from the outside,
we realized that dust floats in the room.
We are trying to get rid of dust in the room with something.
Then, we are realizing that trying to do so only creates more dust.
What do we do? We just have to let it be.
As time passes, most dust will gradually settle.
They mean we constantly live in a flux of thoughts and distractions,
but we do not realize it without that "ray of light" to illuminate it.
Realizing how "dusty" your mind is isn't a meditation failure;
it is part of the process of meditation to recognize that.
It's the same as seeing that ray of light illuminate all that dust.
The first key is to realize that "I live amidst distracting thoughts".
When you practice performance-oriented meditation,
which aims to meditate better and faster, it creates more distractions.
It causes more dust fly.
You have to just let it be.
But it doesn't really settle that quickly because it just flies around.
That's why the strategy is to focus your thoughts on one thing.
The easiest place to focus your thought on is your breath.
Basically, it is a strategy of focusing
on the inhalation and exhalation of your breath.
In Pali, it is called Ānāpāna.
Another strategy that came up during the Zen Buddhist tradition is
to focus on one single thought.
Or one single question, like "Who am I?".
Just focus on that single question.
Other thoughts will constantly be there.
You just let them be.
But the only thing you actually focus on is that single question.
For example, say you read a book in the middle of the forest.
You know, there are birds tweeting.
You hear a stream.
And you have cars down the road.
So you can't really focus.
If the cars weren't running,
if the birds stopped tweeting,
if the stream stopped running;
then you could actually focus in a quiet forest, right?
But you can't stop those things.
Just because you stop those externalities doesn't guarantee that you can focus.
But if you really focus on the book and get really into the substance
of the book, birds may tweet, but you don't pay attention to them.
The cars may be running on the road next to it,
but you don't really pay attention, nor do you pay attention
to the stream running beside you because you are really focused;
you are in that zone of focus.
So, meditation is all about the absence of thoughts,
but from a strategy perspective,
it's all about focusing on that one single thought.
Let's say you focus on the breath in and breath out.
So, when the breath comes in to know that the breath is coming in.
You're not thinking about the breath coming in.
This is a kind of sensory experience: the flow of the air as it actually travels
over your skin, through your nostrils, as it enters your lungs.
And you also feel that kind of tactile sense of the breath leaf in your nose.
This is experiencing, not thinking.
You are just experiencing that breath.
You might think of your mother at that time.
But once you actually get distracted by the thought of your mother,
you start thinking, "Oh, what about the time we went
on a picnic with my mom? What about the time
we had an argument with her?"
So, you actually create narratives around those thoughts.
This becomes a distraction.
So, you can't really stop the thought of your mother rising.
But despite whatever thoughts come to you, you keep focusing on the breath.
Basically, do not pay attention or give energy to that thought.
And then the thoughts kind of dissipate.
Then other thoughts will come.
You'll think about coffee.
But nevertheless, you focus on the breath.
Then the thought of coffee dissipates.
So you will have countless thoughts rise and fall, rise and fall,
as long as you don't pay attention to them.
But once if you start actually doing it, when you think of coffee,
you kind of follow it and create a story out of it;
"What kind of coffee do I want? With whom do I want this coffee?".
At that time, you have already lost that focus on your breath.
Because our attention can only focus on one thing at a time.
If I focus on here, I lose focus there.
And if I pay attention there, I lose attention here.
Thoughts are just that; as long as you don't pay attention
to them, they will just rise and fall, rise and fall.
So, when we say we are distracted, those random thoughts are
not distractions in themselves. It really becomes a source of distraction
when you start creating stories around those thoughts.
So, if you keep on practicing, the ability to sustain that focus
on a single breath will increase. It may be one minute
before you are distracted, then five minutes, and ten minutes.
It will actually increase.
So, the attention span on that single breath will continue
to increase, and you will experience less distraction.
Then you start actually gaining autonomy.
You are no longer beholden to your past memories or future hopes.
The reason you get angry, you get sad, you feel this emotion and that is
because all these past memories come haunting you.
You become fearful, anxious, and nervous because you are thinking about the future.
So, if you are not captured by thoughts of the future,
then all your anxiety and nervousness will go away.
So that is why we teach to be awakened in the here and now,
without being captured by your past memories or the future
that has not yet come.
So even if a thought about Buddha comes unbidden to you while meditating,
that is just another distraction.
So, a singular focus on that breath; everything else is a distraction.
If it's a Zen Koan, anything that falls outside the scope
of the exploring that question is a distraction.
And so, in that state, even what you read in the scriptures, sutras,
or even Buddha's own teachings are just distractions.
That's why there's teaching if you see a Buddha,
if you think about the Buddha, kill the Buddha.
If you encounter your teacher, kill the teacher.
So, we don't really mean literally kill them,
but obviously, we're saying not to pay them any mind.
They're just distractions.
Sorry for the lengthy response.
(Sunim/Questioner Laughter)
(Questioner) Thanks.
(Audience Applause)