15 Nov Whatever Happens, Happens for Good – November 16 2020
Thirty years later, you’d think I’d be really good at it (meditation). Well, in some sense, I am really good at it; but what I’ve learned is, that doesn’t mean that I’m not thinking all the time. That’s a strange thing. I seem to have an extremely busy mind. There’s a lot of activity… All kinds of things happen when you meditate… And the basic attitude is: no big deal…
This is like a core theme…: that whatever arises is fresh; is the essence of realization… Whatever arises — in our body, in the confused mind — it’s regarded as the essence of realization. Whatever arises. If you cling to it as ‘I’m doing well now,’ or ‘this is how it’s supposed to be,’ that’s adding something extra. And if you panic or criticize, that’s adding something extra. On the other hand, even the panic and the praise are ‘whatever arises is fresh, is the essence of realization.’
You see, that’s why I think I have this lousy meditation that doesn’t bother me anymore. Because whatever arises is fresh, and I know that’s absolutely true. So I just have this hopelessly unworkable, non-meditative mind that I’ve devoted my whole life to and talked to millions of people about it. It’s like completely absurd.
And actually what I’ve also noticed about the few people in my life who are considered to be completely awake: they learned to stay. And that’s what you feel. You feel this sense of eternal presence. They don’t go off anywhere like we do. They just stay. And that seems to be what enlightenment is. It’s the simplest thing and the most profound thing at the same time.
Pema Chodron,
Getting Unstuck:
Breaking Your Habitual Patterns and
Encountering Naked Reality
Each time we meditate we are practicing letting go of our ideas of ‘how this should be.’ We have the thoughts, we get caught by the thoughts, and when we realize we are off the mantra, we easily, gently let go of the thoughts and return to the mantra.
We are practicing being okay with what is, non-attached to any and all outcomes. ‘Whatever happens, happens for good.’
We are practicing ‘being,’ as opposed to doing; practicing knowing ourselves as something other than our thoughts and other than our feelings; practicing the experience of ourselves as the ultimate truth of our Being — consciousness itself.
If you have completed the four-day course to learn Vedic Meditation, you already are an expert meditator. Now it is time to accept this fact and to let your experience be the perfect experience it actually is. What keeps it from being that perfect experience is only our idea that it should be different than what it is. And we can change this in a moment.
In meditation, whatever happens, happens for good.
Today I will meditate for twenty minutes morning and evening. I will close my eyes with the intention to repeat the mantra effortlessly, and I then will remember that whatever happens, happens for good.
Stream, Kirkland, WA