Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself.
Ideally the ultimate retreat is to retreat from the past and the future to always remain in the present.
Meditation is one of the rare occasions when we're not doing anything. Otherwise, we're always doing something, we're always thinking something, we're always occupied. We get lost in millions of obsessions and fixations. But by meditating-by not doing anything- all these fixations are revealed and our obsessions will naturally undo themselves like a snake uncoiling itself.
Don't even think for a moment that you are not going to die.
Renunciation mind has nothing to do with sacrificing. When we talk about renunciation, somwhow we get all scared because we think that we have to give up some goodies, somehing valuable, some important things. But there is nothing that is important; there is nothing that is solidly exisiting. All that you are give up is actually a vague identity . You realize thigs is not true; it's noe the ultimate. This how and why to develop renunciation
An important characteristic of calm abiding meditation is to let go of any goal and simply sit for the sake of sitting. We breathe in and out, and we just watch that. Nothing else.
As long as we are mindful and aware, no one practice is better than another.
Ultimately one must abandon the path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet.
