Vipassana Meditation Master
Acharavadee Wongsakon
The sweet melody of this beautiful love song from the piano was floating in the air, the despair of bitter love resonating across the music hall. I felt as if my soul was brought down to tears and broken in pieces by those seven music notes. The entire hall was filled with nothing but the sound of piano.
On the outside, I was sitting calming and watching the performance. But inside my heart, I could feel the grievances from lost love, frustration, separation, and all the pain. All I did was silently acknowledging the emotions as well as the feeling of being crushed by emotional pressure.
On the outside, I was sitting calming and watching the performance. But inside my heart, I could feel the grievances from lost love, frustration, separation, and all the pain. All I did was silently acknowledging the emotions as well as the feeling of being crushed by emotional pressure.
When the mind is above worldly emotions, it has no hidden agenda. So, any emotions which come to the mind are like the trace of water made in the water. It appears shortly before disappearing altogether, meaning the mind is in touch with the pain, but it doesn’t feel the pain.
Then, whose feelings is it?
It’s the feelings of this world, where billions of people inhabit. Those feelings were the whirlpool of feelings and emotions of those who are in search of love or denied of it. They just witnessed the true face of love which is also subject to the Law of Impermanence.
Some musical instruments have the power to play with Master’s Blog your emotions. We often see that when a highly celebrated pianist’s body was crouching lower and lower as he was also overwhelmed with avalanche of emotions, which were actually not his own but entering his mind from countless spirits from the other dimension. The music composition was a medium as sound is also a type of energy. In terms of Dhamma, the pianist was opening his senses with the music serving as a bridge connecting his mind to “the outside world”.
This is also how humans allow themselves to cook up feelings which turned into deep emotions, trapping us in the Earth’s gravitational force. When they find something pleasant and enjoyable, they keep wanting for more, instead of acknowledging them and moving on.
When we say a prayer or practice meditation, we train our mind to temporarily stop “going out” to “the outside world”. The more we spend time with ourselves by sitting still and watching our monkey mind, the more we will understand why excessive emotional involvement does more than good to our mental health and well-being in the long run.
This doesn’t mean a regular meditator turns into a robot or become emotionally impaired. If meditation and Dhamma really cause it, how can we learn to be understanding towards the world? The difference between meditators and nonpractitioners is their ability to avoid going to the extreme in their thoughts, words, and actions, allowing them to make a sound decision and judgement. It’s about acknowledging their thoughts and emotions, not suppressing them.
Like the seven musical notes, our life is strongly tied to number 7 in many ways: the seven-day life cycle or the seven-day period to achieve basic spiritual insight. As Buddha said, that is the shortest period to reach the state given the practitioner was determined and committed to discover Dhamma. For some people, it might take seven months or even seven years, depending on their background.
The world consists of invisible energy. What you can’t see does not mean it doesn’t exist, just like the seven musical notes and how it can powerfully push and pull our mind. Since we still have to live in this world, we have to learn how to coexist with the material world without being a victim to it..
