Mind is restless, resistant, and ever caught in a web of delusion. This is the first of many humbling discoveries awaiting the new meditator. We need to be encouraged: ‘don’t be afraid, don’t give up letting go.’ Seeing my own mind for what it is, is step one. Meditation makes us daily more aware of the ego-mind’s stratagems for survival and its repertoire of tricks. Then, one day when you sit to meditate and the curtains of the mind are drawn open, you find a clear skyconsciousness, with no cloud-thoughts: except the thin, wispy thought whispering ‘O, this is great. Success, finally! Cling to it.’ After being caught like this many times, you learn that the only thing not to let go of is letting go, until there is no more to let go of. Mind is thought. Until we are mindless, we are not free.
( WCCM Newsletter, February 2023 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
