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Noticing Space
by Ajahn Sumedho
in 11 Dec 2006
(...previous) Before, you'd think, 'devil!'. Now trying to get rid of the devil, or trying to grasp hold of the angels is dukkha. But if we take up this cool position of Buddha (§)-knowing knowing the ways things are -- then everything becomes the truth of the way it is. So we see that the good, the bad, the skilful, unskilful, or neither skilful or unskilful dhammas are all qualities that arise and cease.
This is what we mean by reflections, beginning to notice the way it is. Rather than assuming that it should be any way at all, you are simply noticing. So what I am saying now is to encourage you to notice rather than telling you how it is. Don't go around saying, 'Venerable Sumedho told us the way it is.' I am not trying to convince you of this, but just trying to present a way for you to consider, a way of reflecting on your own experiences, on your own mind. Sometimes if these things are pointed out we begin to notice them, like the sound of silence you never notice it until somebody points it out. It is there all the time, but something that you've never really noticed. Because it doesn't have any particular quality to it, it doesn't stick in the mind as a memory until it is pointed out, and then you think, 'Oh yes!'
(Newsletter, January-March 1994, Buddhist Society of Western Australia)
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