Perfect sitting.

Darjeeling. November 2013.

For the past twelve mornings I have been privileged to sit alone on the flat roof of our hotel here in Darjeeling and face the rising sun as it climbs from behind the distant mountains to reveal the power of the mighty Himalayas.

To my left is the great snow covered Kanchenjunga, simply being magnificent without any intention. To my right is the small private Tibetan temple of the owners of the hotel. All around there is the sound of Darjeeling waking.

The dogs bark, the monkeys run heavily across the corrugated roofs of the buildings close to me, people in the street below talk, laugh and spit, temple bells ring, and all of it is beyond my control.

This style of surrender fits me very well, and having let go of the habit of indulging foolish fantasies of how sitting practice or life itself should be, all is well, and all is as it should be.

Meditation, once we understand it properly, is never about getting something, for whatever we get can be lost, forgotten or, by some misunderstanding of the mind, even considered to have been taken away from us.

This meditation is to see the mind and its endless desires to control everyone and everything so we can feel secure, so we can feel happy.

Once seen these endless mental movements lose their power and so peace descends.

This peace is not created, it is the natural state of being once we let go of our insidious attachment to the mind as being who and what we are, and our desire to control everyone and everything in every moment.

This understanding stays with us in every aspect of our life, for when we know, we know. We cannot then not know what we have intuitively understood.

So our whole Dhamma practice is to know the mind, and by knowing it be free from the conditions that take us only ever into more unhappiness in life.

This morning for the first time in twelve days I was met by a young Korean woman who came to the roof to take photographs.

She politely asked if she disturbed me. I politely answered "not at all."

This is not my roof. This is not my setting moon. This is not my rising sun. Everything is arising and passing away, and none of it belongs to me. This is the flow we call life.

The universe, from the smallest insect to the greatest mountain is existing in harmony and I am only a part of that. Not more and not less.

When 'self' is seen and understood, all frustration and difficulties fall away.

This is the gift we can bring to our own life, and then share with all beings. Awakening is what the world is waiting for. But as always, it is ourselves who must make the effort.

Tomorrow we leave for Kolkata, and I put my hands together in Anjali to Darjeeling for its smiling, friendly people, its wonderful scenery and its fabulous tea.

May all here be well and happy.

May all beings everywhere be well and happy.