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trust your experience
Can
you
measure what you hear or read against the experience of your own
life? Are you able to look clearly at how your meditation is affecting
you and your life?
The Buddha put great emphasis on enquiry, on looking deeply into one’s own experience.
He was once asked by some villagers about the teachers
who regularly passed through their village, advising them to follow
this practice and that
teaching. The Buddha told them to listen carefully and consider the
meaning of what they heard. Did the teachings make sense? Could the
villagers apply them? Would the
practices help them? If applying a certain method made the villagers
more skilful and wise, they should continue to practice it. If the
results of a method were negative, they
should discontinue it. The most important thing was to measure any
teaching against the experience of their own lives. And this is what
enquiry is about: considering one’s own experience.
Is
meditation helping you to become quieter and clearer? Is it helping
you to be wiser and more compassionate?
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