The password to unlock the wisdom within

I am not sure about other people, but for myself to get into deep meditation (a complete quiet mind) is not easy. If I can keep my mind silent for more than 30 minutes, I will be over joy. I have asked many people who have practised meditation for at least more than three years. They all said their mind is still chattering inside. I attended a 10 days meditation retreat in 2014. It took me three to four days to calm my mind down to a minimum level of noise. If you have never tried meditating then you won’t know how nosy it is inside our mind. We are constantly talking to ourselves without us knowing it. That is why we are tired; we are stressed; one minute we are happy; next minute we are sad. We spend a vast amount of energy in self-chattering. We constantly torture ourselves with all the past events; we grasp on the present moments and we dream the future. It is quite interesting to observe these thoughts arise and pass away in our mind. Although during the retreat we have taught not to react to these thoughts but at the end of the day we are still exhausted.

In my recent Thien Bat Nha I course, I have learnt a technique to use two words: “Don’t talk”. These two words are similar to an order. When I said “Don’t talk” in my mind, I could get a complete silence quicker than I use the breathing technique. After I practised for couple of days, I have improved the time to keep my mind silence. If I continuously practise in this way then I have the ability to order my brain when I need it to be silence. It is like a trigger. When I want it to be silence then it ought to be silence.

These two words are as the password to open our purest awareness (the wordless cognitive awareness area) in our brain. Why do we want to achieve this? This helps us to reach the realization of Nibbana (Atakkāvacara).