“Don’t selfishly attach to anything. Trying to hold on only brings pain. Without likes or dislikes you are free, free from frustration, free from fear.” Dhammapada (trans: Ji Haeng)
One of the most serious obstacles to meditation practice is our seemingly constant quest for pleasurable experiences. We want everything to proceed unencumbered and according to our plan. Inevitably, unpleasant experiences appear often producing mental anguish, anxiety, fear, and loneliness. Upon close examination, pleasant and unpleasant are simply two sides of the same coin. The actual experience of pleasurable and un-pleasurable by themselves are neutral. It is our insistence on a pleasurable outcome and our aversion to some un-pleasurable experience that creates blockage.
The dualities of our day to day experience as we perceive them, good / bad – right/ wrong – praise/ blame can manifest as a problem if we are unable to face them with poise and equanimity. In this instance equanimity can be defined as being without attachment, without emotional reaction, without clinging or aversion. When the temptation to follow desires and ego identity is not present, crossing the sometimes turbulent river of life is made easy and accessible. There should be no goals in your practice. Setting up goals makes the river uncrossable. The best possible approach is to seek nothing. With attachments, with a mind predisposed to gain and loss, you will never see clearly. Hui Neng said that originally there is “not one single thing.” Every event is just passing phenomena. Certainly, characteristics exist in life such as hot and cold. To be intelligible is to interact with phenomena while at the same time realizing that everything is always in a state of flux. All phenomena are impermanent and lack any self nature. Causes and conditions arise on a daily basis. Enlightenment or Buddha nature is not gained or lost. When manifested, it appears, when not it is simply Buddha nature covered by our thinking, attaching, wanting something mind.
Ji Haeng Zen Master – Desert Dragon