 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Em Especiais encontrarão temas que pela sua profundidade, merecem distinção e como tal são jóias preciosas para se guardar religiosamente no coração.
|
|
|
Considering the great percentage of visitors coming from all countries in the world, we consider of importance that some texts should be in English.
Tendo em conta a grande percentagem de visitas originárias de todos os países do mundo, consideramos importante haver artigos na língua inglesa.
|
|
|
|
page 1 of 3
Noticing Space
by Ajahn Sumedho
in 11 Dec 2006
 In meditation we can be alert, attentive; it's like listening, being with the moment as it is - just listening. Now see if you can hear the primordial sound. It is like a high pitch it is quite difficult to describe really. Even if you plug your ears, put your fingers against your ears, or if you are underwater in a swimming pool or under the sea, you can hear it. It is a background sound, not dependent upon the ears, because when they are bunged up there is still this high-pitched, vibrating sound.
 Noticing space
(Taken from a talk given during a retreat held at Amaravati in August I985 and printed in "The Middle Way", U.K.)
We can use this in meditation, because what we are doing now is learning how to observe the way it is; that which we can experience which we can notice and be aware of even bad thoughts and bad moods can be used, rather than just rejected.
What we are doing is bringing into awareness the way it is, noticing space and form, emptiness and form; the unconditioned and the conditioned. We can see this as the archetypal symbol: the male the female; the space the form.
For example, we begin to notice the space in this room. Most people probably wouldn't notice the space, they would notice the things; they would notice the people, the walls, the floor, the shrine, the furniture. But to notice the space, what do you do? You withdraw your attention from the things, and bring your attention just to the space. This is not getting rid of the things, nor denying the things in the room their right to be here; it is merely not concentrating on them, not going from one thing to another.
Beginning to notice the space around people is a very different way of looking at somebody, isn't it? We look at the space around them rather than looking at them. This is a way of beginning to open oneself. When one has a spacious mind, then there is room for everything. When one has a narrow mind, then there is only room for a few things; everything has to be manipulated and controlled, so that you have only what you think is right what you want is there and everything else has to be pushed out. Now life on that level is always suppressed and constricted; it is always a struggle there is always tension to keep every thing in order all the time. If you have got just a very narrow view of life, the disorder of life always has to be ordered for you, so you are always busy, manipulating the mind, pushing things out or holding on to things. This is the dukkha of ignorance, which comes from not understanding things.
Now the spacious mind has room for everything. It is like the space in this room, which is never harmed by what goes in and out of this room. In fact, we say 'the space in this room', but actually the room is in the space; the building is in the space. When the building has gone the space will still be here. So we can have a perspective, we have the actual walls and the shape of the room, and the space. Right now we can see the limit of this room, and the space of this room is contained by the limits of this building.
Space is something that we tend not to notice, because it doesn't grasp our attention, does it? It is not like a beautiful flower something really beautiful, or something really horrible which pulls your attention right to it. You can be completely mesmerised in an instant by something exciting, fascinating, horrible or terrible; but you can't do that with space, can you? To notice space you have to calm down you have to contemplate it.
This is because spaciousness is not extreme, it has no extreme qualities. It is just spacious, whereas flowers can be extremely beautiful, with beautiful bright reds and oranges and purples, beautiful shapes extremely beautiful shapes that are just so dazzling to our minds. Our something else can be really ugly and disgusting.
But space is not dazzling, it is not disgusting, and yet without space there would not be anything else; we couldn't see. If you had just this room, and filled it up with things so it became solid, or filled it up with cement a big cement block - there'd be no space left in this room. Then, of course, you couldn't have beautiful flowers or anything else; it would just be a big block. It would be useless, wouldn't it? So we need both; we need to appreciate the form and the space, because they are the perfect couple, the true marriage, perfect harmony space and form. We contemplate this, we reflect, and from this comes wisdom.
(... next) |
top |
|
|
