Do you really want to be free?
Acknowledge, Forgive and Let Go (AFL).
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For those of you who have difficulty meditating, it's because you haven't learned to let go yet in the meditation. Why can't we let go of simple things like past and future? Why are we so concerned with what someone else did to us or said to us today? The more you think about it, the more stupid it is. You know the old saying, "When someone calls you an idiot, the more times you remember it, the more times they've called you an idiot!" If you let it go immediately, you will never think about it again. They only called you an idiot at most once. It's gone! It's finished. You're free.
Why is it that we imprison ourselves with our past? Why can't we even let that go? Do you really want to be free? Then acknowledge, forgive and let go, what I call in Australia the "AFL Code" [2] - Acknowledge, forgive, and let go of whatever has hurt you, whether it's something that somebody has done or said, or whether it's what life has done. For instance, someone has died in your family and you argue with yourself that they shouldn't have died. Or you've lost your job and you think without stop that that shouldn't have happened. Or simply something has gone wrong and you are obsessed that it's not fair. You can crucify yourself on a cross of your own making for the rest of your life if you want to; but no one is forcing you to. Instead you can acknowledge forgive and learn in the forgiving. The letting go is in the learning. The letting go gives the future a freedom to flow easily, unchained to the past.
I was talking to some people recently about the Cambodian community here in Perth and, being a Buddhist community, I have had much to do with them. Like any traditional Buddhists, when they have a problem they come and speak to the monks. This is what they have done for centuries. The monastery and the monks are the social centre, the religious centre, and the counselling centre of the community. When men have arguments with their wives they come to the monastery.
Once when I was a young monk in Thailand, a man came into the monastery and asked me "Can I stay in the monastery for a few days?". I thought he wanted to meditate, so I said "Oh you want to meditate?" "Oh no", he said "the reason I want to come to the monastery is because I've had an argument with my wife." So he stayed in the monastery. Three or four days later he came up to me and said, "I feel better now, can I go home". What a wise thing that was. Instead of going to the bar and getting drunk, instead of going to his mates and telling them all the rotten things that he thought his wife had done thereby reinforcing his ill will and resentment, he went to stay with a group of monks who didn't say anything about his wife, who were just kind and peaceful. He thought about what he had been doing in that peaceful, supportive environment, and after a while he felt much better. This is what a monastery sometimes is: it's the counselling centre, the refuge, the place where people come to let go of their problems. Isn't that better than lingering on the past, especially when we are angry at something that has happened? When we reinforce the resentment, are we really seeing what's going on? Or are we seeing through the perverted glasses of our anger, looking at the faults in the other person, focussing only on the terrible things they have done to us, never really seeing the full picture?
One of the things I noticed about the Cambodian community was that these were all people who had suffered through the Pol Pot years. I know of a Cambodian man whose wife had been shot by the Khmer Rouge in front of him, for stealing a mango. She was hungry so she took a mango from a tree. One of the Khmer Rouge cadres saw her and, without any trial, he pulled out his gun in front of her husband and shot her dead. When this man was telling me this, I was looking at his face, looking at his bodily movements, and it was amazing to see that there was no anger, there was no resentment, there was not even grief there. There was a peaceful acceptance about what had happened. It shouldn't have happened but it did.
Letting go of the past is so we can enjoy the present, so the future can be free. Why is it that we always carry around the past? Attachment to the past is not a theory, it is an attitude. We can say, "Oh I'm not attached". Or we can say, "I'm so detached I'm not even attached to detachment," which is very clever, and sounds very good, but is a lot of old rubbish. You know if you're attached if you can't let go of those important things that cause you to suffer, that stop you being free. Attachment is a ball and chain, which you tie around your own legs. No one else ties it around you. You've got the key to free yourselves, but you don't use it. Why do we limit ourselves so and why can't we let go of the future, all the concerns and the worries? Do you worry about what's going to happen next, tomorrow, next week, next year? Why do you do that? How many times have you worried about some exam or some test, or a visit to the Doctors, or a visit to the Dentist? You can worry yourself sick and when you get ready to go to the dentist you find they have cancelled your appointment, and you didn't have to go anyway!
Things never work out as you expect them to. Haven't we learnt yet that the future is so uncertain that it doesn't bear worrying about? We never know what's going to happen next. When we let go of the past and the future, isn't that being on the path to deep meditation? Aren't we actually learning about how to be at peace, how to be free, how to be content.
These are indications of what enlightenment means. It means seeing that many of our attachments are based on sheer stupidity. We just don't need this. As we develop this meditation deeper, we let go more and more. The more we let go the more happiness and peace it gives us. This is why the Buddha called this whole path of Buddhism a gradual training. It's the path that leads one on, one step at a time, and at every step you get a prize. That's why it's a very delightful path and the prizes get more delightful and more valuable the further you go. But even on the first step you get a prize.
I still remember the first time I meditated. I remember the room. It was at Cambridge University, in the Wordsworth Room at Kings College. I'd never done any meditation before, so I just sat down there for five or ten minutes with a few of my mates. It was only ten minutes but I thought "Oh that was nice", I still remember that feeling. There was something that was resonating inside of me, telling me that this was a path which was leading somewhere wonderful. I'd discussed over coffee and over beer with my friends all types of philosophy, but the "discussions" had always ended in arguments and they never made me happier. Even the great professors at the university, who you get to know very well, didn't seem happy. That was one of the reasons why I didn't continue an academic career. They were brilliant in their field but in other ways they were as stupid as ordinary people. They would have arguments, worry and stress just like everyone else. And that really struck me. Why in such a famous university, where people are so intelligent, are they not happy? What's the point of being clever if it doesn't give you happiness? I mean real happiness, real contentment, and real peace.
Meditation: The Heart of Buddhism
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