in poverty or hardship, you can still be free. If you’re with a job or without a job, with friends that you love or with people that seem to bring you down, at a job that you love, or at a job that you hate, no matter what your circumstances, you can still be happy and at peace. Think about it. This happiness and peace that passes all understanding is so deep; it is so close to you that nothing can destroy it.
Ok, what about your physical condition, such as old age, disease, and death? Your happiness is greater than your body, isn’t it. You cannot always control what happens to your body, but you can remain at peace.
You might ask, “What if my physical pain gets too great?” This would certainly affect where you put your attention. Your whole attention would be consumed with trying to get rid of the awful pain. This is one of the marvels of discovering the place of happiness and freedom. With all of the pain, with all of the reactions to the pain, you can still remain at peace. I know you will discover this. Then you will know for sure that your happiness and peace lie beyond the condition of the body and the focus of the mind. A bad headache will never again have the power to pull you out of your freedom. For more on this see the chapter, “Finding Peace When I’m in Pain.”
And finally what about your thoughts and emotions? Can they pull you out of this peace and freedom? In the next chapters we will show you in more detail how to eliminate the suffering caused by conceptual frameworks in the mind. Now that you know that you can be free no matter what the circumstances, environmental, physical or mental, keep your radar tuned to find even the least suffering. If you don’t assume that suffering is normal, you will now be able to turn this suffering into freedom. You will then discover a peace and joy that has no conditions and lasts forever.
Now here’s a question that many people ask, “How should I concentrate my mind when I meditate?” In the next chapter, “Should I concentrate my mind?” we will look into just this.
Should I concentrate my mind?
People, in their meditation practice, can spend many years trying to focus and concentrate their minds. Sometimes they attempt to concentrate on one thought, such as a mantra, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. Sometimes they focus on their breath or a mandala, sacred shape, to the exclusion of all else.
We are not criticizing these meditation techniques. They can give you a sense of calm and, at the highest level, the mind, body and world can disappear altogether in high states of Samadhi.
However, an intense physical pain, or a shift in your environment such as a war, or an argument with your spouse can shatter this type of concentration. Some unwanted thoughts drifting through could also bring this type of concentration to an abrupt halt.
This type of concentration comes to an end. There is no way to keep it forever. The nature of the mind is to think about many different things. In your attempt to concentrate, if you try to control your thoughts by promoting the ‘good ones’ or eliminating the ‘bad ones,’ you are setting up a battle in your mind. Which side will win the, ‘good thoughts’ or the ‘bad thoughts?’ Getting rid of ‘bad thoughts,’ is like putting your hand out to stop the ripples in a pond; the more you try to stop them, the more they seem to increase.
Similarly, when you try to hold on to the ‘good thoughts,’ it is like trying to hold on to ripples in water; the more you grasp, the more they seem to slip away.
Fortunately, you are aware if your mind is concentrated or not, aren’t you? You will see that you are the light that shines on the mind no matter what state it is in. You are aware if it is dull or sharp. Remain as the light that shines on the mind and let the thoughts take care of themselves.
While we are on the topic of concentration, we should mention that some people meditate by trying to always be aware of their mind. They split their mind in two. One part they call ‘I’ and the other part they call ‘thoughts.’
How can you ever do anything in life if half of your mind is always trying to be aware of the other half; or if half of your mind is trying to think about being aware, while the other half is trying to write or read this book.
Here’s some good news. There is no need to split up your mind. You can concentrate fully on writing your book or doing your job. Doesn’t that feel natural? Awareness is not a thought, so even without thinking about it, you are still aware. After an intense job that takes all of your concentration, reflect on this for a few minutes. You will find that even without thinking about it, you were aware the whole time.
Now I would like to talk about Love. Do you really have to concentrate your mind on Love? Often times what you call love is an emotion which is the opposite of hate — today I love you, tomorrow I hate you. The Love that we are talking about has no opposites. This Love is the Peace that passes all understanding. It is the Peace that pervades the whole universe. It was there before you were. Now it permeates your mind. When your body passes away, it will remain. This is the Peace and fulfillment that people struggle to obtain their whole life.
Some people try to concentrate their mind to find this Peace. However this Peace cannot be manufactured. It cannot be captured by a thought or a state of mind. Whether your attention is riveted on this deep Love or not, you can know it directly. Do you know where this Love is hidden? It is your true identity; it is just who you are. So let the mind put full attention on the tasks at hand; as for you, remain at Peace.
And as far as concentration, you are the light that illumines the mind, Awareness. Remain as that and let the mind be. Giving up your attempts to control thoughts will allow the mind to return to its natural state where it is your friend.
In the next chapter we are going to talk about the thought, “I can’t.” I love this thought because it was one of my teachers. It taught me that thoughts do not have intrinsic power. We give them our power, and that’s what makes them seem real. Then we complain about our limitation. More in the next chapter.
I Can’t
Now, as promised, I will give an example from my own life to illustrate the workings of this meditation. How can I see through the thought patterns that just seem to be me? In this first example, I just took my thoughts to be true. On the first day of math class my teacher was going over many theorems and proofs and my first thought was, “How can I ever understand what she is talking about? I can’t do math.”
Then in an instant I noticed that ‘I can’t’ was just a thought. I still didn’t know if I could do math or not. So without believing in the thought, ‘I can’t,’ and without trying to counter it, I just left an open space to find out. “I’ll see,” I said to myself.
If I attempted to replace ‘I can’t,’ with the thought ‘I can,’ I would just have created an internal battle that would take lots of energy. Who knows if the ‘I can’t,’ or, ‘I can,’ would have won. As it turned out I studied the theorems closely and was able to understand them.
But I know even good students who suffer through school because of this little idea, ‘I can’t.’ And even worse I have known people who failed in their attempts to meditate just because of this one thought pattern.
So, in order to step free of the thought, ‘I can’t,’ you just recognize that when you see this thought you are intrinsically free of it. That means that you are the one who sees the thought, not the one bound by its contents. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t replace it with better thoughts, or attempt to breathe or chant to get rid of it. That is the beauty of the path of Self-Knowledge.
Now lets look at the guises: ‘I can’t’ is a definition of myself; this is just
