27) Heaven or Hell?

Control of the ripplings of the mind is yoga.

The brain moves quickly. But between receiving messages from our senses, to the resultant like or dislike created, there is a world of pain.

For example, the delicious smell of freshly baked bread reaches our nose.

First we sniff the air. Then we realise it is the smell of  bread baking. Then we want to eat some of that bread. We suddenly feel hungry. We imagine the bread to be delicious and we crave the taste of it on our tongue. We become irritated because we have no cash on us to buy the bread. We see someone else buying it and become jealous. And so on.

If we had felt happy that some other lucky individual was buying the bread and would soon be enjoying it, we would feel liberated and at peace.

In fact, our world around us, and everything, and everyone in it, is our own interpretation.

We interpret the messages our senses send us, then we project our own ideas, our interpretation, or misinterpretation, back onto the world.

If we interpret a hell, we suffer.

If we interpret a heaven, we are happy.

We control our mind. There is nothing in the world to bind our interpretation. We choose how to interpret the world.

See the heaven all around you, appreciate your life, and be happy.

26) Bliss

We can see that ultimate reality in everything is pure, clear and empty.

Our core is pure, clear and empty.

We continue to practice and travel nearer to our goal. We remove all negative seeds and thoughts like jealousy, anger, craving.

We finally stop misinterpreting the world, which was once our habit.

We no longer see the world the wrong way.

Once complete and total purity is reached, advanced souls can blissfully see both realities through all of their senses, at the same time.

At this stage, a person is beyond fear. He experiences complete bliss constantly. 

He can really, genuinely, completely be happy.

25) True Meditation

We can see the ultimate reality in everything is pure, clear and empty.

We have started removing the negative seeds in our minds.

When we are meditating and we feel a series of experiences, usually calming, pleasant, blissful, they are still just experiences. 

We now see they are happening because of conditions.

The real Self is that core which is always clear and bright and pure, unchanging, free from all conditionings.

Real meditation is free of any input from our mind,  thoughts  or emotions.

In meditation, absorption on this clear, pure core, we start to remove the seeds in our minds forever, and we can start to really be happy, in the deepest most enduring way possible.

24) Emptiness

Conditioned, dependant arising is the fact that everything and everyone is here as a result of something else. The table is here because a tree grew, was cut down, was made into a table and was transported here.

The same is true for our thoughts and emotions. They occur because of stimuli, because of seeds of thought generated by other things.

Take anger. It originates from something else. An unpleasant thought creates a perception, an idea in your mind. Maybe you have a feeling that someone doesn’t like you. From that idea there is a lot of thinking which goes on. Then the thinking becomes unbalanced, and turns into anger.

The anger comes from perceptions (usually misinterpreted and therefore wrong), which may have become habits, and in this way it can continue on and on.

So everything is dependent on the conditions. When there is one thing present it is only there because of another thing being present.

The experience you are having is an interplay between your senses and your thoughts, perceptions, emotions. The experience is empty of any origin itself, it is happening because of other things.

This is emptiness, or conditioned, dependent arising.

Our self, our personality is something that is put together, arranged, made.

You may decide to act in a certain way towards a friend. You may do the same thing again and again, creating a habit. It can seem that your personality is this habit, that this is you. In fact, the personality is a result of conditioned arising.

At your core you are really empty of habit.

Go back to your core, and you see that in fact you are clear and bright and pure.

Condition gives rise to seeds.

Seeds give rise to thoughts.

Thoughts give rise to actions.

Actions give rise to habit.

Habit produces destiny.

When the truth of this hits us, like a train, and we start to watch ourselves, the way our thoughts run, and we learn, we can truly learn to be happy.

23) Ultimate Reality

Ultimate reality is like a diamond.

To begin, we can’t see ultimate reality unless we are in meditation, clear and balanced. Then we are unaware of ourselves and absorbed completely, like water poured into water.

Being absorbed in this way, means we are well on the way towards the goal, to be happy, fulfilled, at peace.

When we are not in meditation, we cannot see ultimate reality, even though it is all around us, everywhere.

We go back to seeing the world as we always have, misinterpreting all we see. We go back to self-grasping, to delusion, to fiction… the source of all our problems.

We fail to appreciate the “emptiness” of all things. Emptiness is not nothingness.

Emptiness at our core is the clear pure light of Self, only That.

This is when we can say “I Am That.”

22) Positive Seeds

The world each of us sees is simply a product of our own seeds, our own thoughts.

Wanting to help one person find happiness changes these seeds in our mind.

Wanting to help all beings find happiness changes these seeds in our mind massively.

Even if the wish is a feeble one at first, the seeds in our mind change. So the thoughts in our mind change drastically too.

Everything, everywhere is altered, because our world is a product of our own seeds and thoughts.

The seeds in our mind are altered in all states of wakefulness. 

Even in the dream state, we become more lucid, and we try to improve.

Thinking the four thoughts creates bliss deep inside us. We can be doing the housework, or making a cuppa, or …. anything, anywhere. Just wanting to help others makes us blissfully happy.

Focusing on the four thoughts, is hugely empowering. We start to find that we become very good at everything we do. Our natural abilities improve.

We feel that in some crazy way, we are being carried along on a tidal wave of positive energy.

We can be happy.

21) Ultimate Love

The four thoughts of kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity ultimately produce a feeling of infinite love for all beings.

They trigger total freedom from selfishness, which is the ultimate liberation.

When we have total liberation from selfishness, ultimate love explodes.

Ultimate love is total selfless.

Ultimate love, once ignited, is there for the rest of your life.

Ultimate love is being completely focused on helping every living being achieve happiness, and wishing for nothing else.

The most precious thing we can do in life is help everyone to be happy.