Life Works Best As an Offering

Meditation practice requires the bodily, conceptual, and heart-based intelligences to work together.

As a standard, the advice is to simplify the activity of conceptual intelligence to that of placing a thoughtful listening onto an aspect of body or heart. And to then sense how that feels, or what response arises.

Some details to consider are:

With what attitude and energy do you place your attention?
Where do you place it [your attention]?
How carefully do you linger and listen?
What do you do with the feeling or response that arises?

These points, if carefully addressed, will lead to the wisdom of realization, the liberation of heart.

Meanwhile, they instigate the development of wisdom in terms of practice: you get insight through reviewing what these questions are pointing to.

These two aspects of wisdom work together: every insight furthers or reveals the Path.

We need right attitude and energy in order to direct and sustain wisdom.

Here, the attitude is to attend deeply to how things are with no aim other than that; no ‘How do I get this?’ or ‘And next’. If those attitudes arise, attend deeply to how they feel and affect you. No judgment; just let your awareness cover and settle into the energies of these attitudes.

In order to do this, energy has to be sustained but not intense. That is, any mental drive has to be moderated by the steadying effect of the breathing body.

This process also increases the listening skill of the heart, and gives it time to learn and integrate.

This reflection by Ajahn Sucitto is from the book, On Your Own Two Feet, “Acquire, Learn, and Integrate,” (pdf) pp. 84-85.