<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. These guard our thoughts.
For example:
Say a man and a woman who like each other have become lovers.
So, in a regular relationship between two ordinary people, they like each other.
However, if they are Buddhist clergy or Catholic clergy, they have been taught
not to engage in sexual relationships.
So, those people who are trained in that way,
while they enjoy being with the other person in a romantic relationship,
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
by choosing to abandon a preconception and accept 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 a 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.
But in the natural course of things, people come together
and separate all the time.
It's all coming together. It's not the cause of your suffering.
Separation or divorce is not the cause of your suffering.
It's your preconceptions of "what ought to be" that actually cause your suffering,
whether it's a first meeting or a separation.
If you can just erase "what ought to be," then you actually eliminate
a lot of suffering from your own internal conflicts.
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 is why the foundation of our meditation is stopping your thinking.
What posture you take, how you breathe, none of that really matters.
Many of you say you are meditating, but you 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 to stop thinking, you will find it doesn't stop easily.
Naturally, your thinking is amplified more than two, three, or tenfold.
So when you are meditating, your body may be still,
but you are always thinking.
So how do you stop thinking? Because if you intend to stop thinking,
that intention itself gets amplified.
That is why the old teachers told us this:
There's dust flying in the room.
We don't see it well. It is almost invisible.
But if there is a ray of sunlight that comes through the room,
We suddenly realize that a lot of dust is floating in the room.
We are trying to get rid of the dust from the room with a duster or a cloth.
Then, we are realizing that trying to do so only creates more dust.
Then, what do we do? We just have to let it be.
As time passes, most of the dust will gradually settle.
So basically, they're saying we constantly live
in a flux of thoughts and distractions, but we don't realize it
because we lack the single ray of light to illuminate them.
So, the fact that you actually sit down and start realizing
how dusty the room in your mind is, isn't a failure in the meditation.
it's actually a process of meditating on that recognition.
It's the same as seeing a single ray of light illuminating all that dust.
That first realization that "I live amidst all this dust,
in these distracting thoughts".
Then you start engaging in a kind of performance-oriented meditation,
in which you want to do meditation better and faster.
Thereby creating more distractions, letting dust fly even more.
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 thing to focus your thoughts 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
a Koan, 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 hear cars down the road.
So you can't really focus.
If the cars were not 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 strategic 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 are 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 and 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 are actually 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 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 practicing, you can sustain that focus
on a single breath for one minute before being distracted,
then five minutes, and then 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 come yet.
So even if a thought about Buddha comes unbidden to you while meditating,
that is just another distraction.
So, just singular focus on that breath; everything else is a distraction.
If it's a Zen Koan, anything that falls outside the scope
of 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 a 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 to literally kill them,
but obviously, we are saying is to not pay them any mind.
They're just distractions.
Sorry for the lengthy response.
(Sunim/Questioner Laughter)
(Questioner) Thanks.
(Audience Applause)