“A Self-Adjusting Universe” with Benjamin This Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

This Sunday, we’ll explore the theme “A Self-Adjusting Universe,” based on the following passage from Ajahn Amaro’s The Breakthrough (2017, Chapter 11), freely available from Abhayagiri Monastery:

Practising the way of Dhamma is attuning the heart to its own present reality, letting it be awake, open; not pushing things away, but not grasping at them either. Letting the flow of changes come through, we allow our responses to arise from that attunement. In this way, what makes our decisions is not the habit of self-view, usurping centrality of control; rather, the source of our choice is sati-paññā, mindfulness and wisdom guiding what to do in each moment.

This is a self-adjusting universe. If you get out of the way, the ‘universe’, also known as your citta, your own mind, adjusts accordingly. Self-view and conceit are dropped and our life, our actions, our words naturally attune themselves to what is appropriate and beneficial in the present moment.

It’s important in this respect to recollect that your intentions, actions and choices are all part of the way things are. As T.S. Eliot put it, we don’t disturb the universe by the choices that we make. Our choices are part of the universe, part of the way things are. The more often those choices and decisions come from mindfulness and wisdom, from attunement to the present reality, the more often they will lead to clarity, peacefulness, fearlessness; to a heart which is free of anxiety and compulsions, a heart which understands like and dislike, sweetness and bitterness. That achievement is most complete when there is no adherence to the patterns of the changing world, the changing mind. When there is no grasping at that which is arising and passing away, there is peacefulness. But when the attention is caught on that which is born and dying, coming and going, naturally we are ‘born’; the mind is dragged along, carried along on by that cycle, just like a burr from the grass becoming caught in our socks. We become snagged and tangled.

The wisdom of open awareness provides no traction, no footing, no source of adherence to sights and sounds, smells and tastes, sweet or bitter, nor to approval and disapproval, gain and loss. This is the great peace. This is the great beauty of life, the establishing of that heart which is free of compulsions, free of reactions. Rather than being pulled by wanting, hating and fearing, it understands the nature of like and dislike. It is not fooled by the stories and lies which it is told. This is a heart which truly understands that when you get what you want, you don’t want it any more. Just as Marilyn Monroe sang, ‘If I gave you the moon, you’d get bored with it soon.’

All are welcome to join us on Sunday! Zoom information is available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight

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