<Attaining Enlightenment Through Meditation>
(Questioner) Hi Sunim, thank you for giving me a chance to ask a question.
I have a question about meditation and the study of the Buddhist scriptures.
I learned that the Buddha attained a peaceful mind and profound enlightenment
through meditation.
I am trying to practice meditation for the same purpose,
However, as a beginner who has yet to follow the path,
I have doubts about how I can reach such a deep state of enlightenment
simply by not thinking.
Could you explain how meditation leads to peace of mind and enlightenment?
(Sunim) Most of our agony arises primarily from our thoughts.
So, we must free ourselves from our preconceived notions
of ethics, morality, religious beliefs, and other paradigms that shape our thoughts.
For example: Consider a man and a woman
who have feelings for each other and become romantically involved.
In a typical relationship between two ordinary individuals,
they can simply like each other.
However, if they are Buddhist or Catholic clergy, they have been taught
that engaging in romantic or sexual relationships is forbidden.
As a result, those who have undergone such training,
while experiencing joy in their romantic relationship,
also struggle with guilt.
That guilt, the negative feelig they get, does not stem from the relationship itself
but rather from their belief that they should not be engaging in it.
Much of the suffering and issues we experience today occurs
due to the clash between reality, what we truly experience,
and our preconceived notions of how things should be.
This suffering disappears when we resolve the contradiction in one of two ways:
either by letting go of our preconceptions and accepting reality as it is,
or by clinging to our preconceptions and giving up what we desire in reality.
However, we can never truly resolve this problem
if we attempt to hold onto our preconceptions
while simultaneously trying to attain what we desire in reality,
because that contradiction will inevitably persist.
Let's take another example.
If there are traditional ethics or morals dictating that
men and women of certain ages should not see each other as romantic partners,
then engaging in such relationships leads to suffering.
Similarly, if we're taught that divorce is unacceptable after marriage,
yet circumstances call for separation or divorce,
this contradiction results in suffering.
However, In life, people may come together and go their separate ways.
Coming together is not the cause of suffering,
and separation or divorce is not the cause of suffering, either.
Rather, it is our preconceived notions of "what ought to be" that create suffering,
whether involves the beginning of a relationship or its end.
If we can let go of the idea of "what ought to be,"
we can eliminate much of the suffering that arises from internal conflicts.
For example, when we teach our daughters that having sex before marriage is a sin,
and they then engage in premarital sex, it causes them a lot of internal suffering.
We don't teach our sons this as much, so they may engage in premarital sex
without the same level of guilt. This is all because
of the preconceptions that we instill in our children.
For example, if you stop thinking right now, there is no cost to suffer.
So, that is why the foundational piece of our meditation is to stop thinking.
What position you take, however you breathe,
all that doesn't really matter.
Many of you say you meditate, but you end up quietly thinking.
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 know your thinking does not stop.
Naturally, your thinking is amplified by 2, 3, 10 times more.
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 all over the room.
And we don't see it well. It is almost invisible.
But if there's a ray of sunlight coming through the room,
we suddenly realize that a lot of dust is floating around.
And we take a cloth or duster and try to dust it off.
We realize that we are actually creating 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, what they're saying is that we constantly live
in a flux of thoughts and distractions, but we don't realize it
because we lack a single ray of light to actually illuminate them.
So, the fact that you actually sit down and start realizing
how dusty the room in your mind is, is not a failure in the meditation.
It's actually a process of meditating on that recognition.
It's the same as seeing that 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 and 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 Zen Buddhist tradition is a Koan,
just to focus on one single thought.
Or one single question like "Who am I?".
Just focus on that single question.
You know, other thoughts will constantly be there.
You just let them be.
The only thing you actually focus on is that single question.
For example, say you read a book in the middle of the forest.
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 into the substance,
birds may tweet, but you don't pay attention;
cars may run on the road nearby, but you don't pay attention,
nor do you pay attention to the stream 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 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 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 your attention can only focus on one thing at a time.
If you focus on here, you lose focus there.
And if you pay attention there, you 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, the time you can sustain focus on a single breath
before getting distracted can increase to 1 minute, then 5 minutes,
and then 10 minutes. It will gradually 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 is why there is 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 are just distractions.
Sorry for the lengthy response.
(Sunim/Questioner Laughter)
(Questioner) Thanks.
(Audience Applause)