Liberation on Arising: The Secret of Mental Stillness

"Self-liberation on arising" describes the natural dissolution of thoughts, feelings, and sensations when the mind refrains from grasping, elaborating, or fixating on them. Mental appearances arise and pass naturally, but fixation extends their lifespan, leading to suffering and distraction. This cycle detaches us from present experience and immerses us in past stories. By observing mental activity without entanglement, we allow these fleeting appearances to dissolve like writing on water—momentary and transient. True mental stillness arises not from suppressing thoughts but through understanding their ephemeral nature, fostering lasting peace, clarity, and freedom.

Transcript

                                           Liberation on Arising

For most individuals – beginner’s, intermediate, or even advanced – stilling and maintaining a stable still mind is a challenging aspect of meditation. Initial efforts at maintaining a focal point, reciting a repetitive mantra, and guided meditation among other approaches offer temporary relief, but dissipate after the effort comes to an end. We discover that the most certain and long-term approach to stilling the mind is a wise understanding of how the mind works rather than a short-term technique or method.

The phrase “liberation on arising” describes the natural life-cycle of mental activity. What is liberated and what from what? Ordinary mental appearances – thoughts, feelings, visual imagery, and sensory experiences – are liberated from the mind’s tendency to grasp onto, objectify. elaborate, and extend over time the ebb and flow of routine mental activity.

Close your eyes for a moment. Allow the ongoing appearance of mental activity. Notice the seductive energy of random thoughts, feelings, and sensations, Observe how they pull your mind towards them. Notice how you get enmeshed with mental activity. Your capacity observe your mind is lost as you identify with and merge into mental activity. Your enmeshment causes mental activity to extend its lifespan from a brief moment to minutes, hours, and sometimes longer. This is called fixation and reification.

We then, drawing upon memory, elaborate this mental activity with a story drawn from past experience. “Oh, this reminds me when …” This is then further elaborated with an associated emotion. What was simply a mental bleep now becomes an extended story line that only resembles the initial mental activity. We are now lost in our mind, missing other experiences that are actually occurring, now. Sound familiar? It is easy to verify this from your own experience. 

Immersed in a conditioned story that occupies our mind and attention, we are quite distant from the initial mental appearance. And, while absorbed in this story we miss what is actually happening in the moment. We live in the past, not in the present. We suffer a concocted story rather than experience what is actually happening in the now.

Let’s return to the phrase “liberation on arising” and our question “what is liberated from what.” The natural life span of a mental appearance – thought, feeling, mental image, or sensory experience –is in the range of 200 milliseconds, a mere blip. The moment our attention catches and works with it the appearance is stuck in place and fixated in time. What would likely be unnoticeable becomes our life and indirectly our bodily experience for an artificially extended time. 

What is liberated is the simple mental appearance.  What it’s liberated from is the entrapment in our mind, the result of our grasping and elaborating it. When we cease engaging, identifying, fixing, and elaborating mental appearances they natural come and go on their own. When we cease our desire to unravel every though and feeling they leave on their own. Mental appearances are liberated from the conditioned reactivity of the mind and our mind is liberated from its preoccupation with transient mental activity. The result is mental stability and stillness is.

It is not that appearances cease occurring. As long as we occupy a human mind and body, memory and our sensory system will function. But when we cease to entangle ourselves with every passing mental movement, they will come and go without leaving a trace. In the East they say that we usually deal with mental appearances as if our finger was writing our name in concrete, it lasts. Or perhaps, if we hold on less, it’s like writing on sand so that impression lasts for less time. However, if we understand the transient and meaningless nature of mental experiences, its like writing with one’s finger on water. The moment you stroke the water the impression arises, abides, and dissipates in essentially the same moment.

Neither distraction, suppression nor other methods, or techniques can result in a stable still mind. When we understand how the mind works, mental appearances, good and bad, come and go and that is perfectly OK. We remain underneath in our natural and unchanging stillness. It is that simple, that effortless, and that profound. And, that stable stillness is the source of a deep unchanging serenity, truth, wisdom, love, and freedom. That is “self-liberation on arising.” That is meditation