Life,
That thing that's happening to you right now,
Runs smoothly,
Doesn't it?
No?
You have problems?
Of course you do.
Life is problematic.
There's a line from a tricky song I've always loved.
The first hundred years on this bubble are the toughest.
Life is just one bloody thing after another.
And it often feels true.
We fix one problem,
Feel a brief moment of relief,
And then here comes the next one.
But does it really work like that?
It's worth pausing here.
Because while problems certainly arise,
Not all problems are equal.
And some of them aren't actually problems at all.
At least not until we turn them into one.
Let me give you an example.
About twenty years ago,
I remember being out of work.
Absolutely no money at all.
And then the brakes on my car started screaming.
A horrendous squealing sound.
The smell of burning.
Every stop felt like a warning from the universe.
That evening,
I rang around garages for quotes.
On new brakes.
Several hundred pounds.
Oh dear,
That night was long.
I lay there worrying.
About money I didn't have.
About how I'd cope.
About how all of this was going to get worse.
The next morning,
I got into the car,
Mentally preparing myself.
For a bill I had no means of paying.
I turned the key and drove off.
At the first junction,
I braked.
Silence.
No squeal.
No smell.
Nothing.
Later,
I discovered that sometimes brakes stick and release themselves.
Sometimes a small stone gets caught,
But then grinds away.
The problem had solved itself.
And I'd suffered.
All night.
For nothing.
Not because I was foolish.
But because I'd been living in a future that hadn't yet arrived.
And it never arrived.
Most of our problems aren't actually here,
Are they?
Some live in the past.
Most live in the future.
And even when something is happening right now.
What really gets us is the thought,
It's going to get worse.
I can't handle this.
What if?
What if?
What if?
Round and round it goes.
And before we know it,
We're weighed down by scenarios.
Predictions.
Catastrophes that exist only in the mind.
Many years ago,
I was on a retreat with a wonderful nun.
Ajantanya.
She had a way of speaking that went straight to my heart.
During one guided meditation,
She moved me to tears.
Not with anything dramatic.
Just with simple,
Truthful words.
That night,
I went to sleep feeling held.
Safe.
Like being tucked in as a child.
She offered a phrase that left an image I've never forgotten.
She said,
It's as if we're all walking around with a heavy rucksack on our backs.
And what's in it?
Imagined problems.
Future fears.
Stories about what might go wrong.
We keep adding to it day after day.
Until it becomes unbearable.
And then she said,
Very simply,
Drop the rucksack.
Mindfulness meditation teaches us how.
We begin to notice the mind at work.
We catch it whispering,
This sensation means something terrible.
We catch it rehearsing rejection,
Failure,
Humiliation.
We see how fear sneaks in quietly,
Dropping another weight into the bag.
And when we see it,
Really see it,
We see too that we don't have to carry it.
This is the training,
Not to stop thoughts,
Not to fix life.
But to recognise what doesn't belong and to gently put it down.
What's left is this,
What's happening now.
And then,
Surprisingly often,
It's all manageable.
Even liveable.
Even quietly joyful.
As Ajahn Chah once said,
Everything is teaching us.
And perhaps that's why it's said that meditation doesn't solve our problems,
It dissolves them.
Not all at once,
But steadily,
Stone by stone,
The rucksack becomes lighter.
Until the day comes when we can walk in complete freedom.
Tomorrow we'll explore one of the most powerful ways this happens.
Tomorrow we'll explore one of the most powerful ways into mindfulness.
One that's often overlooked.
And this is the mindfulness of seeing.
