..續本文上一頁n the past. Do not continue to carry the coffins of dead moments on your head! If you do, then you are weighing yourself down with heavy burdens which do not really belong to you. Let all of the past go and you have the ability to be free in the present moment.

　　As for the future, the anticipations, fears, plans, and expectations-let all of that go too. The Lord Buddha once said about the future ”whatever you think it will be, it will always be something different” ! This future is known to the wise as uncertain, unknown and so unpredictable. It is often complete stupidity to anticipate the future, and always a great waste of your time to think of the future in meditation.

　　When you work with your mind, you find that the mind is so strange. It can do some wonderful and unexpected things. It is very common for meditators who are having a difficult time, who are not getting very peaceful, to sit there thinking ”Here we go again, another hour of frustration”. Even though they begin thinking like that, anticipating failure, something strange happens and they get into a very peaceful meditation.

　　Recently I heard of one man on his first ten-day retreat. After the first day his body was hurting so much he asked to go home. The teacher said, ”Stay one more day and the pain will disappear, I promise” . So he stayed another day, the pain got worse so he wanted to go home again. The teacher repeated ”just one more day, the pain will go”. He stayed for a third day and the pain was even worse. For each of nine days, in the evening he would go to the teacher and, in great pain, ask to go home and the teacher would say, ”Just one more day and the pain will disappear”. It was completely beyond his expectations, that on the final day when he started the first sit of the morning, the pain did disappear! It did not come back. He could sit for long periods with no pain at all! He was amazed at how wonderful is this mind and how it can produce such unexpected results. So, you don”t know about the future. It can be so strange, even weird, completely beyond whatever you expect. Experiences like this give you the wisdom and courage to abandon all thoughts about the future, and all expectation as well.

　　When you”re meditating and thinking, ”How many more minutes are there to go

　　 How much longer have I to endure all of this

　　”, then that is just wandering off into the future again. The pain could just disappear in a moment. The next moment might be the tree one. You just cannot anticipate what is going to happen.

　　When on retreat, after you have been meditating for many sessions, you may sometimes think that none of those meditations have been any good. In the next meditation session you sit down and everything becomes so peaceful and easy. You think ”Wow! Now I can meditate!”, but the next meditation is again awful. What”s going on here

　　The first meditation teacher I had told me something that then sounded quite strange. He said that there is no such thing as a bad meditation! He was right. All those meditations which you call bad, frustrating and not meeting your expectations, all those meditations are where you do the hard work for your ”pay cheque” ...

　　It is like a person who goes to work all day Monday and gets no money at the end of the day. ”What am I doing this for

　　”, he thinks. He works all day Tuesday and still gets nothing. Another bad day. All day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and still nothing to show for all the hard work. That”s four bad days in a row. Then along comes Friday, he does exactly the same work as before and at the end of the day the boss gives him a pay cheque. ”Wow! Why can”t every day be a pay day

　　!”

　　Why can”t every meditation be ”pay day”

　　 Now, do you understand the simile

　　 It is in the difficult meditations that you …

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