One way of talking about mindfulness is as developing a mind that is continually referencing both inner and outer reality. In order to do this we place our minds in a particular place at the junction between the inner and outer worlds. One of the functions of meditation is to find this place and learn to hold the mind there. Traditionally we use a point of focus at the tip of the nose. We gently focus our eyes there, gathering our attention. From here we can learn to be aware of both inner and outer, keeping in touch with our feelings as we move our point of focus around. We can tend to over react to things, so clarity also comes from calming the mind, passing the cooling breath through this point.

When the mind is calm we can imagine and place our thoughts at this point and clearly feel them out as we meditate. Then, when the meditation is over, we can reach forward into the outer world with this focus, keeping in touch with the heart and seeing very clearly the heart's response to the world. We can be consciously comparing our inner image or memory of something with the outer reality. This is the function of perception which usually happens outside of our awareness and yet is the most influential function of the mind. If we can gain control over our perceptions we have control over our minds. 






I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

​

​On getting used

It is a sad fact that I feel the need to caution people on the spiritual path against abuse. I will need to be honest, I think, even if it is uninspiring.

Caring for others in any walk of life can be a thankless task. If people read you as a caring person they will quickly come to you with all their problems. Then when they start feeling better they don't want to know you any more because they associate you with the problems. They will often accuse you of being negative even if you have always tried to encourage them. So if we are going to be carers we have to love it for its own sake or sell our services.

This is perhaps even more so these days. There is no doubt in my mind that mankind is becoming more selfish. As a monk I was largely withdrawn from society for many years. Returning to a more engaged life as an Abbot I really notice the difference. It is only in recent years that I have found myself badly used by others. It is a sad fact that the modern 'spiritual shopper' is capable of taking without even thinking of offering anything in return. Even members of a spiritual community can be like this, wanting more and more and wanting to give less and less.

I find this very sad but I have to survive. I find myself more and more cautious in what I offer before I see some sign of return and advise others to do the same. It seems to me that selfishness progresses naturally when someone cannot afford to be generous, knowing that they will receive nothing back for all their efforts, so I keep myself ready and eager to respond to anyone who appears to be an exception to this unfortunate trend. 






I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

Generosity is the beginning of the spiritual life. While we still have worldly, sensuous desires and priorities, we begin by sharing what we have with others. This is the first way we open the mind beyond ourselves. There can be a lot of joy in this. We can go further and start giving things away. We can begin to enjoy clearing things out and wonder why we held on to so much stuff. This can be our first real taste of renunciation.

A life of sharing brings us naturally closer to our fellow human beings. We consequently become more sensitive to how other people feel. We do not want to cause suffering in others and we feel naturally inclined to live a virtuous life. We thus develop a sense of contentment and a mind clear of regret. Rather we develop a mind that cares. This way is now more pleasant than the sensuous life, and our desires begin to naturally fade.

The fading of desire gives us a new set of eyes on the world, especially on the body. The mind free of desire sees the body very differently and we are led toward a life of renunciation, of complete freedom from desire.






I offer this for your reflection,
​
Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

Many people these days look for shortcuts on the spiritual path. They engage in extreme practices of one kind or another to try to get to some kind of special experience. Everyone I have met who goes this way (with my nearly 40 years in spiritual circles, this is a lot of people) ends up simply lost. Let us be charitable and assume for a moment that these shortcuts can take us to the right place (even if in most cases this is highly debatable). Then we can suggest an analogy: Imagine if I told you to run into the forest as fast and as far as you could go, not looking where you are going and without any kind of guide. For sure you would get somewhere quickly but you would not enjoy the journey and you would not know where you were or how you got there. You may not even be able to find your way back.

In contrast if we follow the path step by step, the journey is as pleasant as the destination, and we remain clear. We know where we are and how to find our way forward or back. Moreover the deepest spiritual experiences arise not just out of a particular event but out of a deep, direct understanding of the world and of our mind. And actually, the understanding as such is the most important but also the most pleasant aspect, the source of the highest, most stable bliss.
 
So even the best shortcuts look pretty limited in value to me; and the worst examples can, of course, be highly dangerous.








I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno 
http://www.openthesky.co.uk


​

At one extreme we have materialism, we are our body. On the other extreme we have eternalism, we are like space or light. In the latter case we have gone too far thinking, perhaps, that the body is a mistake. The body is not a mistake. It is the mind clinging to it that is the mistake. Right view, in the middle, is that we are the mind and may become part of the greater Mind, extending beyond the body – first of all as the body in a bright space. The Mind abides in space and is aware of the body rather than abiding in the body and being aware of space. This is the Mind that knows both space and objects within that space, the non-grasping mind. It is a mind that enters and abides in space, not by withdrawing from things, but through maintaining a proper relationship with everything within the space, through the light touch of detachment. 

Ultimate reality thus runs parallel to conventional reality. The Buddha is not in heaven looking down on the suffering of the world. The Buddha brings heaven down to Earth.
                                                     





I offer this for your reflection,
Ajahn Kalyāno
​
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

A good meditation group is one in which there is a sense of group support, like a family. A bit of friendly competition is alright as well, we can see who can sit the longest! It is also a place to ask questions of a teacher and compare notes with our peers. In order to avoid boasting and unhealthy competition, questions within the group should be asked in a general way, not in a personal way. Personal questions are best kept for an individual interview with a teacher. The other aspect to avoid is gossip. We should keep the personal things shared by our spiritual companions to ourselves and only talk to the teacher if we are concerned and worried about something.

Ideally there should be a strict adherence to the five precepts within the group. This is a chance for people to try these out if they are not yet committed to these in their lives. Keeping the precepts is something that creates a stable foundation upon which a committed meditation practice can be built. And moreover, the precepts can keep a group free of unfortunate dramas!

The benefits of a group are underestimated. It can be great to find someone you can call and talk to about your practice, for example, someone with a similar inclination in practise or who is in a similar life situation, especially if you become a contemplative as well as a meditator.




​I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno 
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

Buddhism offers us the hope of finding a safe refuge beyond the body in the emptiness of the mind through letting go. Thus to a Buddhist who has faith the response to the possible end of the world or to the end of our lives is the same. Meditate, meditate before its too late!  For those with less faith in such an outcome but faith enough to meditate, the same practice can still win the refuge of a source of peace and stability of mind through difficult times. 

This path of faith is one way through it all that is like finding a way within our minds to blast off into space. Yet where will we end up? We don't know. 

And what about the world?

If we add wisdom to such faith we can realise that we can find a safe space, a refuge within the world. If the world survives or ends we can then we stay right where we are. Then we know where we will end up. We will end up right here. This emptiness here and now we can get to know and how it relates to any phenomenon that comes within it in a way that it remains empty. We can learn how to relate to all the movement of the world and remain still, at peace, secure. Then, here in this down to earth spirituality, compassion also flowers.

Wisdom takes us to the highest refuge. This is the wisdom that sees the impermanence of all things and lets go. The mind that lets go like this is then not withdrawn but detached. And yet to see and let go the mind must be able to look on from a safe refuge. Building such a refuge is therefore our task. 

 








I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno 
http://www.openthesky.co.uk




      

There have been so many instances throughout history of religion going astray that it is understandable that people turn away from religion toward a freer spirituality. What can be lost in this transition, however, is the sense of something timeless that comes from a long history or tradition and the social cohesion this creates. The prayers, rites and rituals that the modern spiritual seeker tends to shy away from can have their place; and yet for a religion to remain alive, the true meaning of such acts must be borne continually in mind.

This is part of the work of religion that keeps it pure. The temptation these days then is to turn our backs on religion rather than taking our part in maintaining this purity, but then we end up on a lonely journey. Rather than entering in to the positive karmic stream of a group we are isolated. In my own case I vastly under-estimated the potential of such group karma, the karma of a culture or tradition.

I took for granted much of the positive karma of my own culture which created a degree of social justice and welfare. This justice and welfare could be a clear example in the modern society of the power of group karma. The system was so anonymous it was hard for the benevolence of the society to really touch the heart. Religion can serve to make this bridge between the personal and the universal, defining our relationship to the whole in a skilful way.

Then our religion will not be a source of conflict but of peace; not a source of empty solace but a real refuge.







I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno 
http://www.openthesky.co.uk


​

The Buddha's teaching is often understood as describing phenomena not as entities but as an interconnected weave of related things where there is being but no independent self. To see like this is certainly a shift of view in the right direction. But if we can see deeper and view all things as truths or dhammas, then they are things no more. There is no being, only knowing. Things are not then relational in any mechanistic way. They are information or meaning, true or false, right or wrong. They relate more as a dialogue or debate. Taking birth in a human body will naturally generate the same debates within the mind of different people, which form actions and their consequences. They are expressed and feed back into the culture, into a greater mind. The repeating patterns of information constitute a kind of rebirth over and over in different people. Strong perceptions will be formed that dominate thought within any particular culture. Just as the information in our genes can be passed on from one person to another, so can these cultural or religious truths.

If we start to think in these ways it can open up our minds to other possibilities of life after death.

What about the ultimate possibility? When the Buddha is asked about what happens to an arahant after death he says 'existence does not apply, non-existence does not apply.' What could this mean? If the mind finds an abiding in emptiness then it does not exist but is not annihilated either. In another sense this also applies to information or truth. The truth of something is not the substance of it so it does not exist in this way and yet it is real. When the mind sees the truth it can enter and abide in emptiness. This is how the transcendent mind is part of nature – or we might say it is and it isn't. Within the mind there is no knower or known there is only knowing.

When this knowing is raised to the level of wisdom and results in the experience of samādhi this is no different. The space of samādhi is empty, there is nothing there. The brightness of the emptiness can fool us that there is a being there, a Knower, that we have become something or found our true nature or Buddha-nature through samādhi. The Thai forest tradition calls the Buddha the 'One who Knows' but that need not suggest a being. The eternal Buddha is not a being but is the result of an eternal knowing. So whenever this brightness arises in the mind we must not grasp it, either as an experience nor by way of an idea, but shine it on the world. If it arises within the breath we can shine it into the body. This is the way to the ultimate for 'here in this fathom long body lies the beginning and the end of the world' (AN 4.45.).





I offer this for your reflection,

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

The experience of samādhi can be clarifying or deluding. If we can keep our perspective we enter into a more spacious, unified experience of life. Samādhi becomes a space that our experience of ourselves can open into. Our experience of thought or feeling is no longer confined to the body. 

If, however, we grasp at the space in some way we can get lost. We can simply become spaced out. We can be indulging in the sense of space to the point we lose our mindfulness. 

A deeper illusion is that we take the space to be something. When the mind enters space it goes bright. This brightness can seem substantial, when it is actually empty. This is a much bigger mistake than it may seem. It can be very difficult to see anything wrong in our experience, it is so pleasant we fall in love with it. Yet if we thus see samādhi as something arising rather than something ceasing this points us in completely the wrong direction. We will see samādhi as something we generate rather than the result of letting go. We will not be able to open to the experience but instead be grasping and closing down the very space we are looking for. 

If samādhi arises more strongly we experience brightness arising in a particular pattern. This varies from one person to another. What we are seeing is the result of the hindrances lessening or ceasing. The different experiences of samādhi represent the slowing down or stopping of the hindrances – or ultimately their complete reversal.

If, for example our experience of the hindrances is like a darkness rising up through the body then when this slows down then we will experience the opposite, a light coming down to us from above. We might mistake this to mean that we are opening to an energy from above, from heaven, and we end up looking in the wrong place for the source of this brightness, we are led away from it. 

When the hindrances cease we will experience a stable brightness. This we could mistake to be our eternal soul (I describe this illusion in the poem and picture series ‘Rain from heaven’).

When the hindrances are reversed, brightness rises from below in the place of the darkness and we have truly overcome the hindrances and turned the mind over. We are filled with a light where there is no sense of self. We are free of the illusions that get us stuck. This experience arises out of insight or Knowing. So there is both clarity as to the external world and as to the empty nature of the mind. We realise there is no need to be anything and the Knowing mind is free. We have glimpsed the ultimate.








I offer this for your reflection,
Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/