Right now, do you know what observation is? Are you recognizing your own emotions?
—
When you do something harmful to your health, you now begin to notice it. When an action does not benefit your spiritual evolution, you recognize it sooner and gradually eliminate those old patterns. In anger, awareness disappears. But through meditation, you recognize anger more quickly, and recognition is how anger is transformed. With awareness, we observe, recognize, and become the “master.” We are no longer controlled by anger. We no longer act unconsciously, being controlled and “pulled by strings” without being able to break free.
—
When observing, you see everything more clearly. When you have practiced meditation enough, you recognize the “something” that has governed you and can observe it completely. You return to the truth within yourself – You are the master of all your karmic consequences; you are the master of your destiny.
What is the truth behind it — what made you react to the event?
What you resonate with most is determined by “memory.” The deeper a memory, the more strongly you react to things resembling it. Any unresolved memory will continue to “follow” you.
Someone is born into a family with gender inequality. The father values sons over daughters, and the daughter develops memories of a conservative man who favors men and looks down on women. As she grows, whether in love or work, she encounters a husband or man again…
Why can becoming the observer cleanse memories?
We are continually stimulated through the 5 senses. In Buddhism, we can distinguish body and mind. The body is form (form is composed of the five aggregates), while mind comprises feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.
The mechanism linking body to mind can be understood as a sequence: form to consciousness (awareness), consciousness to feeling (emotion), feeling to perception (interpretation), and perception to volition (action).
For example, you are a boss and see an employee arriving late. Your eyes see the lateness. You think, “I told everyone discipline matters and no one may be late, yet this person is late — clearly disrespecting me.” You become angry. What do you do? Call them over and scold them.
But suppose that when you see an employee arrive late, you think, “Perhaps he has just become a father and stayed up late helping his wife care for their baby. I have been through that myself…” How would you act? You would call him over and say that you understand he may be late for reasons beyond his control, but ask him not to let it happen more than 3 times.
Why Do Results Change When Responses Change?
These 2 responses lead to different results. Either you lose the employee, or you retain their respect while maintaining company discipline.
Therefore, what you need to do is master the mind’s responses (mental formations). All past memories create interpretations (perception) within you. As you observe, you recognize memories, become free of “perception,” and thereby free of “karmic results,” gaining mastery over your life.
Without practice, you can become more prejudiced and your ego can grow larger. Ultimately, everything you read about spirituality will be unable to help you become enlightened.
During meditation, you descend deeply into the unconscious, touching memories accumulated over many lifetimes. When touched, those memories awaken and surface. In meditation, you have peaceful energy, a state of bliss, and the capacity to face the memory fully. As it emerges, continue meditating and remain its observer.
During meditation, you can observe memories in the mind, because body and mind are deeply related. Corresponding to those memories, sensations such as itching, heat, or cold may appear in the body. If you keep reacting and fighting the memory, you go further astray. Neither avoidance nor struggle helps transform it. Reacting creates new memories and karma, continuing a vicious cycle. You will never truly cleanse the memory that way.
How do memories gain or lose “power”?
If you stop feeding a memory, it will die. You feed it in many ways, but the most important nourishment for memory is nourishment for the mind. The mind's favorite “food” is reacting in ignorance.
When a person cleanses memories, they return to zero, become “a Buddha,” and become enlightened. It is a path and a process. Along the way, we encounter many illusions. Illusions are educational, and passing through them helps us evolve. Once you have worked through a lesson, you can cleanse that karma and memory. Having passed through it, you are no longer attached to those lessons.
Imagine…
You are walking along a road and step on a nail. In a state of ignorance, you continue along that road. And you keep stepping on the nail. That is karma, because you have not recognized its lesson.
The lessons in your life are not as easy to recognize as the example above. Life lessons can be extremely subtle. Meditation can therefore help us recognize them, however subtle they may be.
The observer can recognize lessons and has the capacity to be free from memories and karma, free to choose the “mind's response.” Choosing outcomes lets you choose destiny, because destiny consists of many outcomes.
Ask: “What lesson do I need to learn at what time to evolve further?”
Every day, every day, every day, repeat that question to yourself.
For enlightenment – is not something distant; you always have the ability to awaken the inner “Buddha” within you!
