Simply This Moment - Buddhist Meditation and Theravada ...

illusion that there is something to make, something useful to do, or something that hasto be done. When you stop all the doing, then you really have fun. When you stopdoing things and let go, that’s when you experience these jhāna states.The jhānas are no more than stages of letting go. The more you let go and the morethat disappears, the closer you get to jhānas. If you let go a lot, these things justhappen all by themselves. The jhānas are conditioned by letting go. That’s a verypowerful teaching. When you’re meditating always remember the Third Noble Truth.It shows you how to let go. It gives you the underlying theme of cāga (giving orletting go); this doesn’t belong to you, give it up. The five senses don’t belong to you.They are not you and they have nothing to do with you. Cāg and mutti: you canthrow the sense away and free yourself from them. Anālaya, not allowing these fivesenses to stick anywhere, and lastly painissagga, renouncing them, saying, “No wayfive senses, I’m not interested”. If you can really do that it’s called ‘letting go’. Yourenounce sounds, ‘I’m not interested in hearing’; just shut yourself off from sounds.‘I’m not interested in feeling; I’m not interested in this body’ – just cut off this body;it doesn’t belong to you and it’s not yours. “I’m not even going to scratch it becauseif I start getting involved in this body then I’m stuck; consciousness becomes stuck tothis body. I’m going to free myself”. Once you remember that in your meditation,you’re letting go of the doer, the controller, the sakhāras.You can only really let go if you’ve got a bit of wisdom, understanding, and insight.You need enough insight to have the courage and the faith to let go completely. Manymeditators get close to these jhānas but they can’t let go of that last bit of ego. Theywant to control, to do, to be in charge of deep meditations, rather than just letting go,sitting back, and enjoying the journey. Give control over to the process. Thesakhāras are the same as this whole craving of tahā (thirst), upādāna (taking up),and bhava (existence). In the latter part of the Dependent Origination it’s a differentway of saying the same thing, because the making of kamma is all based on craving,which is the fuel for more existence and birth. All this doing, all this reacting, all thismaking, all this wanting and not wanting is what causes rebirth. It provides the fuelfor sasāra, the fuel for more existence.225