OM PEACE MOKSHA - OPM
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Pay attention to the meditator.
Paying attention to the meditator doesn't mean paying attention to your body, mind, thoughts and feelings, since these are mentally constructed objects.
Pay attention to who or what body, mind, thoughts and feelings appear to. I find that I, to be thusly observed, exists very close to my voice box, and is where I am looking from. This is because the term “I" is also ultimately a kind of concept. Yet this “I" is subject - who or what is observing.
To observe I - watcher or observer - is to observe the centre of action from which I operate. This centre of action is the ego: who I think I am. Interestingly, who I think I am comprises of mental objects, with body and mind being the basis. Therefore, I (subject) identify with my body, mind, thoughts and feelings (objects), taking myself as them. This confusion, springing from me (subject) identifying myself with body, mind, thoughts and feelings (objects), is the cause of all suffering.
When these mental form objects are dissolved and I see through the illusion that I (formless subject) am some sort of form (comprised of a composite mental object, generally existing as the self-image), then all my fears, worries, and negative emotions vanish. These unpleasant feelings all sprang from my mistaken belief and experience that I (subject) am a form (mental object).
Body, mind, thoughts and feelings are all concepts. We observe and live life through these concepts, believing they are real. Observing reality through the filter of our concepts, we don't see reality, which is by nature non-dual and exists at a fundamentally non-conceptual level.
Meditation is all about breaking through our self-imposed thought prisons, to experience life at a non-verbal, experiential level. In this tremendous sense of connectedness no duality exists. No duality is experienced. Hence it is absolutely impossible to feel lonely, disconnected, isolated, or separated from others and the world in this state.
Awareness of I (subject) reveals the living reality of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, as they operate within me. I observe that I am a centre of action: a bundle of motivations, thoughts, intentions, volition, and voluntary, conscious actions, all of which comprise craving: an inner pressure to become, to move away from what is now. Observing this inner pressure, I see clearly that suffering is not in reality: nobody and nothing out there causes my suffering. Instead, suffering lies within this inward pressure, springing from my motivations, motives, volition and action. Freedom lies in awareness of I, the actor, realising I cause all my own suffering, through all this unnecessary doing. Seeing this directly, I lose my fear of the world and people. Being unafraid, I no longer find any need to avoid anyone or anything. Thus I realise that all my suffering has no basis in reality. Instead, all my suffering springs from I, from where I am always coming.
The purpose of this self-awareness is to arrive at mental inaction. In mental inaction, there is no volition, motivation, willful action, inner pressure or craving. Then duality can also no longer be found. Everything and everyone are then experienced as being completely interdependent and inseparable. This tremendous sense of connection is freedom from all forms, seeing directly that reality is intrinsically formless. Thus there is no longer a form - me as a body, mind, thoughts and feelings - that was born, and that will one day cease to be. Thus we find the Heart Sutra, to now be our own living experience:
Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, doing deep Prajna Paramita,
clearly saw emptiness of all the five conditions,
thus completely relieving misfortune and pain.
Oh Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness,
emptiness no other than form.
Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form.
Sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness are likewise like this.
Oh Shariputra, all dharmas are forms of emptiness;
not born, not destroyed, not stained, not pure, without loss, without gain.
So in emptiness there is no form;
no sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness;
no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
no color, sound, smell, taste, touch, phenomena;
no realm of sight, no realm of consciousness;
no ignorance and no end to ignorance,
no old age and death and no end to old age and death,
no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no extinguishing, no path, no wisdom, and no gain.
No gain and thus the bodhisattva lives Prajna Paramita,
with no hindrance in the mind; no hindrance, therefore no fear.
Far beyond deluded thoughts; this is Nirvana.
All past, present, and future buddhas live Prajna Paramita
and therefore attain anuttara samyaksambodhi.
Therefore know Prajna Paramita is the great mantra,
the vivid mantra, the best mantra, the unsurpassable mantra.
It completely clears all pain. This is the truth not a lie.
So set forth the Prajna Paramita mantra,
set forth this mantra and say,
Gate! Gate! Paragate! Parasamgate! Bodhi Svaha!
The breath, supposedly an aid to meditation, is more often a hindrance to meditation. For, in observing the breath, there is volition, will and motivation. All these fall under the header of ignorance and craving: craving arising from the ignorant perception of being a self of form. In this experience there is craving, but no awareness of the real movements of craving within myself. Thus, if I forget about watching anything in particular, and allow attention to settle in its own source (I who am reading this), then a direct, non-conceptual awareness of the Four Noble Truths arise within. Specifically, there is direct awareness of craving and what it does to me. There is also clear awareness that I am responsible for my suffering, not others or the world.
When there is no fear, because there is no longer anyone or anything to fear, my need to manipulate and control my thoughts and feelings, end. Then I don't interfere in or try to change anything I am thinking or feeling. In this perfect mental inaction, the world ceases to exist in the old way. In this ineffable perfection there is no separation between anyone or anything, and no longer any inner or outer contradiction, disorder and conflict.
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“Deserve” is rather judgemental. Like “deserving punishment” or “what did I do to deserve this?”
Karma is not about a punishment or reward system for KPI’s it is simply the economy of ACTION.
Whatever quantum of positive, good and beneficial actions you put out into the universe the equal amount of good will accrue to your Karma account. Likewise the amount of suffering you cause to others will also come back to you in equal measure.
If you are experiencing a period of great joy and happiness or a period of sorrow and disappointment than you are obviously reaping the results of what yourself have sown in the past.
The way to deal with success and setbacks is to accept them stoically and recognise that your actions do have consequences and move on. Rather than grieve about why its happening to you or fret about deserving or not, just take full responsibility for all your actions, accept it and do your best to spread goodwill and cheer and to become a benevolent and beneficent presence in the world.
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If you meditate on any object, sooner or later you will be attached with it, but how can you be attached with your breathe, it is already there.
Meditation simply means free from attachments.
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