When you go back to meditate, I hope you can reflect on a few questions. Meditation does not mean emptying the mind until there are no thoughts—no, it’s not like that. During meditation, there are certain steps of observation to be aware of. Within meditation itself lies both pausing and observing and this is the true path that can lead us to inner awakening.
When you begin to see the obstacles within you that have not yet been penetrated, you will start to feel grateful toward the person who troubles you. Without that disturbance, you would not have learned.
There is something in our habitual nature that needs to be stimulated—and this stimulation pushes us forward. In the beginning, our inertia is very strong, so we often need such events or challenges to drive us onward. This becomes a force of transformation.
We must put down the person or the event that seems to block us, that stirs up our irritation or problems. These are merely external factors. Through these external triggers, we are given a chance to turn inward and learn.
If your attention always remains fixed on the other person or the situation, you will never break free. This is crucial.
Our eyes should not keep looking outward—at others, at events, at the world—but should instead turn inward. That is the right direction.
For example, you might still feel, “You don’t want me,” or “You abandoned me.”
You might stay attached to that sense of being rejected or denied, thinking, “You ruined my life; it’s because of you that I suffer.”
If your thoughts linger there, then in meditation, that is exactly where your observation should begin. You must look at it directly and then let it go—only then can awakening occur. If you try to suppress those thoughts through various methods, they will inevitably return.
Whenever we are deeply attached to something and cannot transcend it, that is where our karma lies. It doesn’t appear without cause. And since it is our karma, only through our own awareness can we penetrate it—and then letting go will naturally happen.
This is a crucial point in learning: Whatever you cannot move beyond, whatever keeps repeating in your life—that is your karma. Your karma is also my karma; it is part of the collective karma we all share.
Do not think karma is something bad. Without karma, none of us would have come here. Karma simply points to what we need to learn. The goal is not for the external person or event to change. If we keep waiting for outer circumstances to improve, we remain shallow.
By Suzhen Liu
If you enjoy Suzhen Liu’s writings, please check out her new book “Discover Love Within—Release Your Suffering” available on Amazon.
