Trust the boat…
heading out to sea
the parting advice
of the father’s bye
a hand held high
waving farewell
let go for good
it is what it is
always all new
a moment now
come and gone
impermanence
sooner or later
every tree trunk
will make room
for new growth
nature’s renewal
sound of silence
a sweet refuge
this wide ocean
at times so calm
and then it wakes
waves and storms
challenging what is
to dare sail way out
to an all new shore
where you started
long ago right now
so trust the boat!
“Trust the boat” — on the high seas
Trust the boat, the way it is
“Things arise out of the Unconditioned and return to the to the Unconditioned. It is through letting go rather than through adopting any other attitude that we no longer attach to mortal conditions.”
The raft
“The Buddha referred to his teaching as a raft which you can make out of the things around you. You don’t have to have a special motor boat or submarine or luxury liner. A raft is something you make from the things around just to cross to the other shore. We’re not trying to make a super-duper vehicle; we can use what’s around us for enlightenment. The raft is to carry us across the sea of ignorance and when we get to the other shore, we can let it go — which doesn’t mean you have to throw it away.
“This ‘other shore’ can also be a delusion, because ‘the other shore’ and this shore are really the same. It’s merely an allegory. We have never really left the other shore, we’ve always been on the other shore anyway; and the raft is something we use to remind us that we don’t really need a raft. So there’s absolutely nothing to do, except to be mindful, to sit, stand, walk, lie down, eat your food, breathe — all the opportunities as humans to do good. We have this lovely opportunity in the human realm to be good, to be kind, to be generous, to love others, to serve and help others. This is one of the loveliest qualities of being human.”
A natural rhythm
“Learn to take the time to be silent and listen to yourself. Use the breathing and the body, its natural rhythm, and the way your body feels now. Put attention onto the body, because the body is a condition in Nature. It’s not really you. It’s not ‘my’ breathing any more, it’s not personal; you breathe even if you’re crazy, or sick — and if you’re asleep you’re still breathing. The body breathes. From birth to death it will be breathing. So breath is something that we use as an object to focus on, to turn to. If we think too much, our thoughts get very convoluted and complicated; but if we bring attention just to the ordinary breathing of the body at this moment, at that moment we’re actually not thinking — we’re attentive to a natural rhythm.”
The sound of silence
“As you calm down, you can experience the sound of silence in the mind. You hear it as a kind of high frequency sound, a ringing sound that’s always there. It is just normally never noticed. Now when you begin to hear that sound of silence, it’s a sign of emptiness — of silence of the mind. It’s something you can always turn to. As you concentrate on it and turn to it, it can make you quite peaceful and blissful. Meditating on that, you have a way of letting the conditions of the mind cease without suppressing them with another condition. Otherwise you just end up putting one condition over another.
Kamma or karma
“This process of putting one condition on top of another is what is meant by making ‘kamma’. … But if you have a way of turning from conditioned phenomena to the unconditioned, then there is no kind of kamma being made, and the conditioned habits can fade away and cease. … So your kammic formations… have an exit, a way of flowing away instead of re-creating themselves.”
Conditions and the unconditioned
“We keep with what is, recognizing conditions as conditions and the unconditioned as the unconditioned. It’s as simple as that.”
— The Way It Is, Ajahn Sumedho, pp. 38, 56, 71, 75 & 76
Trust the boat on top of the hill
EN
DE
FR
IT