07/18/2026
Here is something I wrote recently
A friend of mine has been traveling through Europe for several months on a trip of a lifetime. Yet, she remains unhappy, disappointed and depressed. She has mistakenly thought that because she knows she is unhappy, she is practicing Sati/mindfulness.
This is a copy of the email I sent to her recently.
I hope you all find it helpful.
“May I please make a suggestion about how you might better deal with these thoughts and emotions which are certainly troubling and disruptive to your sense of well-being.
The practice of mindfulness is not simply the practice of knowing that we are miserable or unhappy, dissatisfied, frustrated, etc.
Everyone in the world has some awareness of their emotions and feelings but that is not yet the practice of mindfulness.
The practice of mindfulness is the establishment of an objective, unbiased watcher which we call “the one who knows” and this “one who knows” is watching every event that enters into consciousness simply as an outside observer. It just knows.
These thoughts that arise which we do not like and wish would go away, arise without our permission, they are uninvited guests and we have little or no control of them. They come and go throughout our lifetime and are driven by their own laws of nature. Even a fully enlightened individual has thoughts that arise which can be characterized as negative or unwanted or unhelpful but the difference between them and the rest of us is they do not claim those thoughts as belonging to them. They clearly understand that there is no one, or I, or my, or me, or mine that owns these thoughts. They have been able to successfully separate events that occur in consciousness from the sense of “me”or “mine.”
Anatta/non self, is the most difficult teaching of our Lord Buddha. But it is the essential core of His teachings; the idea that there is no such thing as a person, there is no such thing as a soul or an ego or any other idea of “self.” Until we have begun to understand this fact, this law of nature, we will always be inclined to identify with whatever comes into contact with consciousness as happening to “me!!!!”
So, the the real practice of mindfulness requires that: first we do recognize, as an objective outside observer, that something has come into contact with consciousness and then we must just “let it go.” All suffering arises as a result of our inability to “not let go” of what ever arises in consciousness moment by moment. Mindfulness has been popularized in our Western culture but it has not been understood or practiced in a way that results in the dissolution of the sense of “self” which is, by definition, our liberation, our enlightenment, our freedom from the sense of suffering.
Letting go can be characterized as the practice of renunciation which is the third of the 10 parami that we are encouraged to develop and perfect as the essential form of practice which we call the “purification of mind.”
Identifying with any event that arises in consciousness as belonging to “me” or as happening to “me” is the cause of suffering. That is, it’s the first cause of suffering which then becomes more intense as our refusal or inability to just “let it go.” This results in a sense of clinging which just complicates the experience.
So, our liberation is dependent on our gradual ability to separate whatever is happening as not happening to “me.” The practice of: no I, no me, no mine can be very helpful, even critical, to developing this essential awareness that our suffering arises because of this false sense of “self” and then clinging to it.”
I hope this has been helpful and I wish you all success in your continued efforts to recognize what is the truth and what is a lie and thereby free yourself forevermore from any sense of unhappiness or lack of well-being, and in so doing find complete and total liberation.
Luang Jay
