Forest Path - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

faith in the quest 223
seem like pious platitudes, and the practice really doesn’t gel. We
may even find ourselves trying to avoid meditation, even though we
still aspire to its fruits. But then, if we are willing to go against the
grain, once the mind starts to become calm, and sati and sampaja¤¤a
increase, then that kind of negative thinking appears foolish once
more. The pacification and clarification of the mind’s intrinsic power
seem so obviously the most intelligent thing that we could be doing.
We see how state-specific are our thoughts about life.
If the mind takes joy in its object, chooses it wholeheartedly, then
what starts to become clear is the inherently peaceful nature of the
mind. The meditator experiences clarity, transparency, brightness
and purity; he connects with the strength, resolution and firmness of
the concentrated mind. At the same time, with samàdhi, we are
aware of a flexibility, suppleness and malleability in the mind. Put
into words that sounds self contradictory doesn’t it. How is that
possible? How can the mind be both firm, resolute and rock-solid,
and yet at the same time flexible and pliable? Well why not? It’s not a
logical theorem. It is ‘paccataÿ’, to be realized by each person for
themselves.
With the practice of samàdhi the meditator samples the initial wonders
of the inner world. He reaches the gates to the marvellous:
something few human beings ever experience. Here is where the
mind begins to intuit its full power and potential and is exhilarated
by that. The meditator sees how unsatisfactory and superficial ordinary
sense consciousness is — it’s as if human beings are just
skating around on dirty ice looking for water, never aware of the
beautiful, cool flow beneath their feet.
Here, as the mind becomes imbued with sati and samàdhi, the
powers of this penetrative awareness can be applied. The mind, in
accordance with its nature, will move and flow towards the
objects of investigation and contemplation. The mind emerging
from samàdhi is naturally ripe for the emergence of pa¤¤à. With
pa¤¤à, what becomes most clear to us is that every aspect of our
experience, everything that we can perceive and conceive, has the
same value. We enter a calm egalitarian land. Everything does
exactly the same thing: it arises and then passes away. For the first
time the nature of experience far outweighs the significance of its
content. We make a radical switch or revolution from obsession with