A Talk on Cultivation and Meditation by ADAM MIZNER

so I don't like dragging the meditation out because um meditation is an act of seclusion not a social activity so when you come to something like this you come to learn the technique but it's actually homework you have to go home to practice with somebody why is it inactive seclusion well the first thing you do is seclude the body you seclude the body away from extra activity still the body is secluded from strength then you allow the Mind become secluded from being busy from running around on this and that and the sense GES being distracted

so in normal life all of our senses are active in meditation we try to tone down and only use one sense T to rest on one single object so it's a deeper level of seclusion the deeper L as you enter into B shamata and through the J the level of seclusion gets deeper and deeper then when we begin to practice theas and realize the liberating insights the Mind becomes secluded from the mental defilements all the way up until the level of Aran and they're completely secluded from mentals and it's the Perfection of seclusion so this

is why when we come to a group meeting the true purpose is to listen to the Dharma and then you go home and practice the of seclusion seclusion doesn't mean you have to live alone within a tree or a cave it means secluding the Mind from that which is unskillful so all of you come here obviously for a certain reason which is personal but still I'm going to ask some of you why you're here so that with you what is it do you want from this not just me from and everything okay good answer anyone

else anything specific to calm the mind to get past stress if it's just to become free from suffering then that's that's the ultimate answer so when we say Dua the word Dua often translated as suffering if we look at it what does it really mean I prefer stress so you know we cannot be suffering so to speak but we can under stress it becomes semantics really but all movement all activity is stressful lifting up your arm put stress on the mus on the muscles on the Skeleton on the heart thinking is stressful put stress on

the brain so the true meaning of stress is not meaning I'm stressed out then I can't come that actually dupa is stress that's why even Blissful states are labeled as dup by the Buddha because there are still an energy colliding with your awareness so it's still a movement of stress activity so with that in mind we know that Stillness is pointing towards the way out of stress we want to cultivate the way for stress to end for the ending of do that's why we practice mental Stillness shamata stealing the body and steing the mind because

it's less than having an active body and an active mind so when the Mind runs around with a thousand things it's busy with work it's busy with relationships loved ones friends keeping up images and appearances doing this and that it's highly strong highly stressed there's a lot of activity a lot of pressure a lot of things going on we call it deeper when they become less when we come home we finish work we finish arguing with our spouse everyone letting us chill out we can sit down on the couch and let go there is less

du there is less stress and deeper again if you enter shamat calm the Mind calm the body peaceful feeling envelops the body that peaceful feeling in meditation comes from seclusion of the body and seclusion of the Mind the more you become secluded or the less stress the less activity the more pleasant the abiding is so the shamata the calm present abiding grows within your life but we know that this is not good enough because anyone that's experienced in meditation knows that meditation ends you're sitting and it's Blissful and it's wonderful and then you come out

it just ends all on its own and then when it you come out and it ends all on its own you have to go pee and you have to go eat you have to go to work you have to deal with people that are a pain life goes on so activity happens to you again and arises again so there needs to be a more efficient way than trying to be perfectly still even though we understand essentially the nature of Duco is movement so we want it to end but we can't make it end if just

making movement end with the ending of Dua then we could just let off a bomb and there would be Su we would just all die and that would be the end and that would be awesome they would be no du but unfortunately that simple because activity just starts again there's no end to be found so we need to find a way that's more intelligent that actually works in the long run practicing meditation for Stillness is extremely important and extremely skillful but it's downfall is that it's un it's impermanent it comes to an end why does

it come to an end it comes to an end because it's dependent on causes and conditions when you sit down with your legs crossed on the mat if the mat's not too hard not too soft your back straight and you don't have a back injury if you don't have a runny nose and you can breathe that day you don't have a cough and there's no music going on there's no crying baby maybe you can enter shamata and find Stillness but if any of those things are there you can't enter sham have you ever tried to

enter samat with a cough with a runny nose with a really sore back when there's rocks in your cushion there are so many variables causes and conditions that are innately unreliable which will come in and interfere practice this is the nature of reality it cannot be depended on we cannot depend on cause and condition life around us does not fit our ideals of being peaceful just cuz I want to be a meditator oh I want to be a meditator I know what I'm going to do I'm going to go to Thailand and learn dharm and

practice Samar then I'm going to enter a very deep J for hours and hours at a time possibly days that this will be ongoing and know Stillness and that is only known by the DAV but then you come and you've never been to a more noisy place in your life this is just the way life is conditions are impermanent and changing and unsatisfactory or stressful they don't do what we want so we need to find a better way what is that better way the better way is repus reper or to see things clearly often translated

as Insight which I think is misleading because we think of inside as like a ding the little light bulb comes on moment when we have an inside but that's not what prasa is prasa is to see reality as it is it's not a ding moment it's an everpresent clear lens of Consciousness when the Consciousness constantly recognizes the truth the Dharma the pass so what is the Stillness that we're looking for we're looking for the Y The Knowing quality the awareness to become still still in seeing truth so it's always there seeing the truth not getting

distracted and running off and seeing that which is not true so our awareness gets caught it gets caught in the body so you're sitting here meditating and the knees hurt or the hips hurt or your back hurts and the awareness runs to your knee or your hip or your back this is the awareness not being still on the way things are but running onto the way we think things are we call this delusion so the knowing quality runs off and gets busy with the world the world is these five senses in the mind it runs

off with everything that we experience and gets caught up it runs off with our emotions our thoughts feelings in the body and gets caught the knower is not still the knower is busy it runs around like a monkey so it is daa it is stressful it doesn't have any ease or any rest so theana is the stilling of the awareness and the clarifying of the awareness to see the way things are to see impermanence to see stress and to see s we call this the part of the p in some traditions they talk about the

union of stamata and theas the union of Tranquility meditation and clearing it's called the Samar that is pleasing to the Buddhist why does it get such a grand title because that is attainment when your Vasa has Stillness that means it's ongoing it doesn't waver it's constant when it's constant suffering cannot arise and you find the freedom from suffering so this is the path in the practice in short first to calm seclude the body to calm and seclude the mind from other sense objects and thoughts to simplify things to let go gradually to allow the mind

to become secluded from the mental defilements cause us pain and cause pain to those around us we do that by seeing the way things look when you see things for what they are you have a natural distaste for them so when you see something rotten outside on the street you have no desire to run over and get busy with it you don't want to touch it you don't want to go near it it's rotten it's unpleasant when you begin to see that anger is something that's rotten and unpleasant you see it for what it actually

is you no longer want to get involved it we want to get involved with it because we don't see its true nature when we're deluded by things they are attractive when we see the truth of them we naturally want to let them go the defilements of the Mind are like that they seem attractive to us anger can feel empowering lust feels Blissful you know the list goes on and on of our experience in this mind and body the way we get caught up in it and we chase after the experience but when that happens because

we don't see the truth of it we only see the Mirage and we're deloted by it in a lot of spiritual Traditions they talk about oh all is illusion life is an illusion it's not true it's not an illusion this not this is real this is all actually happen but it is a delusion which means that we are fooled by it it's real but we're fooled by it is different to an illusion we are deluded by the way things are we don't see the way they really are we're Tried by the way things are into

thinking that which is painful is Pleasant so we chase after that which is painful endlessly looking for pleasure and finding more stress over and over and over again so we need to find a way to see that which is not stressful first intellectually you have to understand it otherwise you're not going to go in the right direction this is why you've listen to Dharma this is why we read about Dharma and this is why we try to learn but it's not good enough intellectually it doesn't serve any purpose as far as removing suffering from our

lives once we know intellectually then we have to apply the practice so we apply the practice first by practicing shamata when you calm the mind and still the body you begin to see stress very clearly just sitting still anyone that's honest with themselves and tries it for a very long time will discover a kind of stress that they never knew about the stress of not adjusting your posture just do not change your legs that's all just don't change your legs so I do that for a few hours and you'll know all about what stress is

then try doing that and also not adjusting or changing your mental posture keep the mental posture very still so the mind and body are still now still means still it doesn't mean fiting adjusting or having a little mental break and thinking about last night or tomorrow or maybe I should do a different meditation or anything else you abandon the desire for movement you start to discover that movement is stress because it comes even though you don't want it to come so you have some Stillness okay this is Pleasant then the movement of blood and pain

and something colliding the friction of activity creates pain and then the Mind comes and you start thinking about something and it's painful an example for me uh two days ago is somebody that's very dear to me from my past some a loved one so to speak I found out from a third party that they've been saying something very personal to me about me to people that I don't know and inaccurately which is for a moment it arose quite painful like I felt like i' been stabbed by this person who was very important in my life

so the activity of me thinking about what this person had said caused me pain but then I just allow the mind to become still and not think about it not wor about it and just let go and there is no pain the other circumstance didn't change even slightly he's still spreading the same room still saying the same things same people are still listening there's actually no difference the only difference is that I am not under stress there's no do the only time there's doer is when I get caught up in it which means when the

Noah spins around with the activities of the world when the noer just becomes still and goes oh yes he's just doing what he's doing because the way things are in this deluded state that we call existence then it just rests but when the Noah runs off with if but maybe because we call that stress through suffering the world that the flame over and over burning the sun only with Stillness can you find coolness and peace first Stillness in the body even though the path is the path of the mind we here in this body so

to speak you must cultivate the body to become still the reason is if you don't use the body as your vehicle I guarantee you will fall into the path of delusion the non-illness in the microphone is stressful so when the body is still all kinds of pains will arise then you have an honest playing field for practice now you can see how you actually react to pain to stress to but when you run away from Dua subconsciously by making small adjustments in your posture all the time and you think ah it's wonderful I'm so comfortable

oh I'm so free from suffering but you don't know because the conditions aren't there for suffering to arise so we can just gently run away all the time in the body when we go to sleep at night and we adjust and move and turn we're running away from pain in the body where you sit on the couch and you move just you're running away from pain in the body when you come home and you rest and you're empty for a moment and you're distracted and you want to watch TV you're running away from pain in

the mind and now this one's boring I want to change maybe I'll listen to some music maybe I'll play Facebook we're running away all the time this attempt for the mind and body to constantly adjust as a subconscious instinct to escape from suffering we always try to do it you're born trying to escape from suffering and most people do it till the day they die and on and on it's okay it's natural but the problem is it doesn't work wherever you run it's right there waiting for you again you cannot Escape it so the best

test is to sit still just sit still for anybody that's actually serious about meditation I suggest you take the practice home and sit still don't worry about having peace don't worry about entering Samari definitely don't worry about theas just sit still try it be honest with yourself and actually sit still for a long time not on the couch back self supended not resting not sleeping no lying down meditation actually sit and try it and see how you go it's a very raw reality check there's nothing like simple practice in the body to show what the

reality of Dua is otherwise we get caught up in ideas okay I'll spread compassion through the whole world yes I must be a body SATA maybe I have unicorns beside me and it's all peaceful and lovely and awesome but oh hold on I can't even handle my knee hurting so the problem with the spiritual world is the delusion can can creep in in a very powerful way if you actually want to get somewhere with your practice the best thing you can do is keep at Earth in reality and the basic reality of our existence is

our body we are right here in it and you cannot Escape it in the Dharma there is no out of body practice you don't practice astral trouble or escapism from the body you're always in the body even entering jna is not an out of body experience it's a nobody experience very different the awareness never leaves the Buddha says Awakening can only be found in this two fathom long body or something like here in this body here so when you're practicing try not to change just practice that then when you practice Samari you're allowing the mind

to not change that's all it is breath meditation what do you do you rest the mind on the breath when does the when is it a mistake in breath meditation when the Mind changes away from the breath when you change the mental posture whatever meditation you're doing the error is always the same thing the movement rest the mind on the job at hand I use this word rest very carefully do not focus the mind on the J hand in a lot of texts they translate Samar as concentration is truly a disaster it is not concentrating

you do not concentrate in meditation you let go how can letting go and concentrating be the same thing so concentrating is like holding this really hard I'm never going to let go holding holding holding this my meditation is really good it's awesome until you get really tired and it starts shaking and it hurts it doesn't work but if I simply rest the thing on my head I can stay there for a long period of time at peace rest the mind on the object do not concentrate on the object allow the body to rest allow the

mind to rest if you practice in this way you will have progress I practiced concentration for a long time as somebody that's never had a nose bleed in my life the only time I've had a nose bleed is while practicing s and concentrate to your nose beads but it doesn't lead to peace and it doesn't work you have to go the path is entirely in letting go of the busyness letting go of the distraction letting go of the defilement to allow the awareness to be secluded and at ease at ease not disease not e just

let go okay there no little paper questions so ask for physical mechanical ones anybody I know you always got when we become super mundane are there naturally physical changes that happen to us do we all smell like raspberries no uh the super mundana which means above separated from theat from or beyond the world beyond the mundan which means that the knowing quality is no longer caught up with five senses and mind the world it's above them so to speak which really means separate from secluded from Supra detached from liberated from banded from so what you

do get is peace what you do get is insight into the way things are and what you do get is a sensation of suffering even if the attainment is complete you still get a very peaceful existence and basically never suffer smelling like raspberries like L PA that is a separate issue when you develop the Perfections they have signs so the Buddha said that virtue the smell of virtue goes against the wind now I never realized that was literal back in the day but it actually is literal the day the smell of virtue does so I

remember I was waiting for l in a monastery in changai and we were hanging around in the front of the temple and it's like I could smell him okay he's I could smell him but he had pulled in like a kilometer away at the back of the temple it's like that the smell goes against the wind against space it's virtue so that is the Perfections that we cultivate the Merit that we build inside our mind body continual which is very powerful in the practice there is both developing and letting go if you the meta meditation

is developing but the important part is actually applying it so we can sit here and practice meta and feel wonderful in like a really open heart center and saturated with golden light then we walk outside and the first person that you know does something that annoys us we react to his anger rage distaste towards and there's no mat L has to be a function and action it's not just something we imagine or build that's just a key to get the feeling once you get the feeling you have to use that feeling to to react towards

people use that feeling to serve people being kind towards people is incredibly powerful if you do that enough you develop a power a power of kindness which is incredibly powerful if you've ever known anybody that's genuinely kind it's very very hard to think anything ill about them virtually impossible to do anything bad towards them so people that are truly kind in this way become protected by their kindness even just on a conventional psychological plan they also become protected by the kindness because the Davis and the invisible beings protect them and sove them there's many layers

that are unseen to most people so the signs no the signs are not necessary necessar manifest in that way those signs are a result of your Perfections where your attainment or achieving the super Mund gain the sign is the end of suffering the sign is peace that's the sign that everyone that achieves that state will share it's not like everyone will be beautiful or smell good or have good posture or anything else like that because the body just follows its own nature anybody else I've been having like kind of every time that I I'm stress

or anything lately in my meditations I connecting with that like looking to it and in a few occasions I was connected with and just wonder what it is yeah it could be many things is it in the center of your thr or on the side on the side of your neck whenever anything arises in meditation of suffering pain or stress the best thing you can do is this might be what you're doing is look into it don't look at it so you don't look at it or think about it or decode it or why it

or wet it but you look deeply into its Center if you look for long enough honestly enough at the center of something the same thing always happens and that it disappears the reason is at the center of anything there is nothing but emptiness so we begin to see clearly that there's really nothing there the truth of it the essence of everything is emptiness it's only when we see the outer gar the manifestation the change the activity that we think it's something real when you look deeply enough you see emptiness deep in the same if you

take a powerful microscope and you look at the table if it's not very powerful you see a table then if it's a bit more powerful you see granules a bit more powerful you see atoms or whatever but if it's powerful enough you see nothing but emptiness the closer you get the deeper you get the more you see emptiness emptiness is at the essence of everything and the most effective method to get rid of anything is you to look directly at it for a long period of time and with great honesty the trick is to not

judge it not think about it not think about why and try to penetrate it more like a looking at it with the microscope of your refined awareness sham meditation when we steal the mind when we make the Mind empowered by S the purpose of that is so that we have a better microscope and look at things so when we see clearly we're seeing clearly with a powerful l with the crappy lens it's quite important actually so if you just practice trying to see clearly seeing things but your your lens is weak you see a very

superficial level clearly but if your level if your lens is empowered by the practice of sham your microscope is empowered by some then when you look you you penetrate right through past the items all the way to emptiness to not self B and you see this emptiness it just Falls away all in my experience the most Superior method for dealing with anything that arises physical emotional or mental the why there are countless causes the wise could be infinite so it would be unwise for me to guess what it is anybody else okay just one one

question um knowing is observing something like let's say physical stress or mental stress arising and the knowing seems to be very close to the object and that's when stress arises it seems to be very difficult for me to to with the space making the space it's like it's getting sucked into it so fast so easily and so is that do you have any tip on how to well you you know what to do um the reason why we call them clinging Aggregates is because the knowing clings to them so the knowing wants to come close

to the the stress to the bua it's habitualized it's been doing it since the beginning of time that's a long time so it's a really bad habit like if you've ever tried to break a one month habit it's tough this habit is we can't find the beginning of this habit so it's the hardest thing any being can ever do so that's why it's so hard but basically don't try to make space try to recognize the space so even when two things are actually apparently stuck together once again if you look closely enough you'll see they're

not touching there's space so the mistake is to try and make space all the time between the knowing and the the mental quality which is arising cing Dua the correct way is to recognize that there already is space between the knowing and the mental quality which is causing du it's only one degree different but one degree can be a l and if you can get into that space the nature of space is that it's non it's only when there's an object that you can measure a distance yeah you need the two objects to measure the

distance if you're only aware of the space you can't measure distance so it can't be close or far this is how we start connecting to the Nal aspect of it is that you don't just worry about the emptiness rest on The Emptiness not on the problem yeah like we can fight the cacias too much see them and then Rest In The Emptiness they they end all on their own rather than fighting trying to push them away makes measuring as soon as we measure we're we're not satisfied with the way things are it's aversion it just

leads to Aion you have to accept the way it is recognize emptiness and then let go and chill out then do it again o arises the Mind becomes stressed you see it you see the object the awareness is gone oh it's really close I need to make it far away now just see the emptiness let go and chill out over and over Okay um it's a kind of simple question I guess I'm here not because I want to be free from suffering but because meditation helps me to achieve more more pleasant states of mind let's

say in normal everyday life my mind is extremely scattered or yeah whatever so through practiceing meditation it's it's all a bit more calm a bit more nice relaxed so I do have a reason to to meditate but in a way I don't agree with I don't see life as suffering that's normal yeah and of course probably because I haven't looked close enough that's normal but if I'm fine with it why should I look so close I mean I can accept that there's kind of a neutral state to have and there is temporary happiness there's temporary

pain that's absolutely normal that's why the Buddha didn't want to teach because most people think that life is just fine that's normal that's fine but I feel the peaceful state that you describe that you like from meditation is a partial escape from suffering it's the same thing it's just matter of degrees with it's a natural you can't force yourself to want n or to think that life is suffering but the more you look the more you will realize it that's normal too the only time we don't realize it and actually 99.99% almost everybody doesn't realize

it it's normal if we realize it that we wouldn't say we were deluded if you didn't you know we were all deluded to a certain extent so we're all thinking that life isn't suffering to a certain extent it's only somebody with enlightened site pure clear seeing that can see the nature of D and everything very diff it's completely natural it's not it's not a a belief system or something you need to take on not at all the path is and the practice is to ccate yourself to look very scientific in that way you don't need

any preconceived idea about what you're going to find you don't need to think I'm going to see life is suffering no at all you don't need to think it's good bad ugly or anything else all you do is watch that's all when you still the mind like you do in basic which brings you to the camera the lens of Consciousness becomes more still that's why it's at EAS now when it's more still it's like putting it on a tripod it starts to see things more clearly but when it's not still and it's stressed and it's

shaking around it can't see anything the footage is blurry so with time with stilling the Mind you'll start to see things naturally no one needs to force it no one needs to tape on any belief system or anything else it's the most natural thing natural in just a reality the more you become still the more you start to see suffering even with the pleasant parts of life is the real changing point is when we start to see the unsatisfactory part of the pleasant parts of life it's quite easy to see that you know having your

arms and legs so off is suffering or the death of your loved ones or whatever that it's suffering but when you start to see the things that we think are happiness are suffering with you it's a deeper level in other words might microscope is more powerful then need to force it meditation makes your microscope more powerful then inside Rises this is actually too good it's better than the opposite when people have read a lot of Dharma or they really into it and they think oh life is suffering and this and that and it's all just

a mental construct but really that none of its experience is it's counterfeit much more healthy to have a natural view than a counter it painted on spiritual View nothing worse than that and nothing will stop you from attaining quicker than that nothing you get nowhere you must be honest naked it's a path of being sincere with yourself being very honest it seems obvious but most people that practice are not honest with themselves they're they're often like very land it's just a delusion you must be honest look at yourself nakedly all the time all the time

the more honest you can become the more real your achievements will be real practices honest honest and bitter as people are up for it okay thank you