Luang Por Liem: The Ways of the Peaceful - Wat Pah Nanachat

Over long periods of time, our experience will indeed change,
maybe even to extreme, incomparable, heavy suffering. But we
should sustain our mindfulness, saying, “Oh, this suffering is
really suffering.” Thus we remain mindful of it. We watch and
see, knowing that having arisen the suffering must also cease.
Seeing suffering in this way is actually quite fun. We see it,
“Suffering all day, suffering all night: Oooh…!” We want to cry,
but there is no point in crying. We want to laugh, but there is no
point in laughing. There is only suffering in its genuine form,
taking its turn as a normal experience. And we observe it,
knowing that having arisen, it will also have to cease again.
This is what we can feel when we really observe ourselves.
After a while things will change again. Sometimes, after one or
two days, our experience will go towards happiness again –
happiness in the morning, happiness in the evening, walking,
sitting, standing we experience happiness. We feel that our task is
only to watch and follow this experience by knowing and seeing,
keeping up mindfulness over long periods of time. Then, when we
sense that we have been doing our task in practising this way long
enough, we sit down in meditation. We sit and develop samadhi.
We sit with mindfulness well established. All by ourselves, we
keep sitting. And then, another change may take place: We
experience peace, coolness and tranquillity. We aren’t concerned
with our body, we experience a feeling of lightness of the body as
if there was not a “me”, not a “self”. There is complete lightness.
This is a refreshing and cooling experience. One feels peaceful
and secluded. The sankharas are stilled, all the proliferations have
ceased. The continuous changes of ups and downs, liking and
disliking have disappeared.
139