The goal of meditation is to free ourselves from suffering of the affliction we experience in our life. To see clearly what life is, we have to polish the lens that we look through.  Understanding comes from insight rather than studying or intellectual reflection.  The eightfold noble path leads to liberation through insight.  As soon as you see what this is, you free yourself.  The liberation is in the seeing. In order to see, we have to pay wise attention 

What did the Buddha say was the cause of suffering? You might think that attachment is the cause of our suffering, but attachment itself is caused by ignorance. If we saw what life truly is, we would not suffer.  Our ignorance is the illusion of self.   When we are absorbed in what we are doing, our sense of self fades. The arising of the sense of me in the middle of my experience is what creates the sense of separation.  

You don’t know what you are going to get in life – good luck or bad luck, who knows?  Sometimes life goes your way and sometimes it does not.  It does not matter what you get, it matters how you meet each experience with a clear mind.  Burgs goes onto to discuss karma and consciousness and asks what do you know to be true?  The views we cling to are highly predictable on account of the way our mind works and our conditioning.  The “wisdom of the idiot” acknowledges that we know nothing and are open to life as it is – rather than rigidly clinging to our views.  

Sometimes the conditions are not present for us to be flourishing and we are either struggling or coping.  The maturing of our insight ensures we can make more skilful life decisions, so that our expectations are realistic and in tune with the karmic forces that are underpinning our lives.  There will be times when we are supported karmically, and times when we are challenged.  If you get a sense of what is going on in the background, you can time your decisions appropriately, and act when the energy is right.  

What causes disturbances in our meditation once we have established serenity and are not throwing any more pebbles into the pond of our mind?  It’s our old stock of unwholesome mental states which shake our heart base. This happens because our field of perception opens and negative mental states reveal themselves which are below the threshold of our normal awareness. We know these mental states are just below the surface but usually distract ourselves from feeling them - maintaining a more limited level of consciousness.  

Are you looking to learn to meditate or realise the path out of suffering?  Your welfare in the here and now is dependent on the accumulation of merit in the past.  If you are practicing to enhance your welfare for now and in the future, this is realised through virtue and how you conduct yourself.  The Buddha taught the path of the causal cessation of suffering which might not be everyone’s aspirations.  Whatever your aspirations, it is clear that we need to change significantly the way we live our lives and take full accountability for our choices.  

Following on from the last episode, Burgs explores the themes of vitality, karma and stress.  The quality of your mind has a very significant impact on the quality of your life – much more so than what you eat, for example.  When you are meditating, it is the attitude you bring to it which can bring the most coherence and transformation.  When its not going well, rather than worrying, it is an opportunity to find a strength of character that you would not normally bring to the things that you do.   

What is the mechanism by which the state of our mind impacts our health?  There are four causes for the arising of material states; temperature, nutriment, consciousness and karma / action energy.  It is the subtle materiality (consciousness and karma) which allows life to be expressed through us in all its extraordinary ways.  In meditation, we can refine our karma and what prompts us to act. In doing so, we refine the quality of the way we function.  By developing our physical and mental constitution, we can develop our capacity to take on challenges without being destabilised.  

We have tendency in a materialistic culture to take the Dharma into our mind at an intellectual level but we have to put the Buddha’s teachings into the context of the deeply spiritual culture within which he taught.  There was an inherent sense of being connected to something sacred in his day and this was woven into the architecture of people’s minds. Through practice, we recognise that this is a profoundly conscious universe and we are all deeply connected to each other. Meditation helps us to connect to the sacred nature of life beyond an intellectual understanding.

Happiness arises when you chose to accept yourself to be what you are without any judgement.  It’s important to find a sense of loving kindness for yourself.  This is what will help you to let go.   It is a loving surrender, free from aversion, and finding forgiveness for yourself and others. On the path, love and insight need to mature in equal measure; generating a wholesome quality to our mind.