Some people feel an immediate dislike-irritation-when they hear a child crying, or when they are surrounded by the noise of a crowded market. Sometimes it is only the summer insects, a small carelessness from someone nearby, or the neighbour drilling and renovating, and they find themselves complaining and tensing up all day.

It is genuinely not worth it. We are making ourselves suffer when those "objects" have no intention of targeting us at all. We are the ones creating our own discomfort-because a layer of fear in the unconscious slips in and takes over the day, often without our noticing.

It is the discriminating mind within us that becomes the root of that suffering.

We constantly split the world into two halves: what we like and what we do not like. And when events do not go our way, we resist. The more the mind reacts, the more the energy of suffering swells. Yet if we simply look-acknowledge-and let go, the noise is still there; the only difference is that there is silence inside.

Facing fear is part of the lesson of evolution. For as long as fear remains, we can still be knocked down, or collapse from within. If you carry too many fears, how can you ever touch peace or happiness? In truth there is nothing to fear at all-sometimes, if you switch into a mode of enjoying the sensation of fear, you may even discover something extraordinary.

Someone catches the scent of durian and immediately wants to move away; someone hears cicadas and feels annoyed. When you encounter something you do not like, your body begins to respond-perhaps a wrinkled nose, a furrowed brow, restlessness, irritation.

When these responses repeat over and over, the next time you meet the same situation your body reacts in exactly the same way-an instinct is formed. Try reversing the habit: loosen your thinking, relax the body, soften, and see if you still feel uncomfortable. Or was the discomfort coming largely from the body's reaction itself?

When we begin to see that mechanism, we can smile. The irritation that has just arisen is a mirror reflecting our own mind. Instead of pushing it away, we can sit still, take a deep breath, observe that discomfort moving within us, and then watch it quietly dissolve. When the mind no longer resists, the energy of suffering unties itself.

When there is no longer discrimination, everything is love. Of course, not discriminating at the level of conscious thought and not discriminating at the level of the body are two very different things. For example: if something crawls on your skin, you may instantly jerk away. It is not necessarily because your mind is afraid-this is a defensive reflex left behind from animal lifetimes.

It is simply the body's natural reaction. To dissolve the body's fears, it needs gentle "rehearsal" with those kinds of situations-rather like keeping a gecko as a pet, until the nervous system learns there is no threat.

In time, we can live in the middle of a market with a calm heart; hear a child cry and still feel tenderness; watch a chaotic stream of traffic and still sense the rhythm of countless lives. Because we understand that everything is simply as it is-and everything is worthy of love.

A person who reaches this state has not lost feeling; they have moved beyond the zone of reaction. No longer piding the world into like and dislike, clean and dirty, noise and silence-there is only complete presence in the midst of change.

That is inner freedom: when the mind is no longer led by sounds outside, but becomes a still sea reflecting all things-so we can see that even in the smallest details, the Way is breathing.

Hoàng Nhật Minh
Excerpt from the book: Spiritual Science - A Journey Back To Your True Self

Previous Ebook

Next Ebook