On Difficulties & Regrets

Student: Yesterday and today I've been sitting and saying, "This is too hard…".

S.N.Goenka: Dhamma is very easy and Dhamma is very hard. It can be both. It is very easy when you practise properly. When you don't practise properly it becomes very hard. So don't allow it to become very hard. Smilingly, make it easy, "I am not to do anything." It is easy not to do anything don't do anything. Let things happen. It is so easy. But when you try to do something, "I must do. I must stop this aversion. I must stop this craving." Then you create difficulty. Let things happen. You are just a silent witness of things happening. And it becomes so easy. Make it easy.

Student: I can feel that I am dealing with sankharas from actions in the past but I find that the great sorrow that I hold and keep with me is for things that I haven't done. Regrets for a kindness that I might have done. A help that I might have given that I was just too thoughtless to do.

S.N.Goenka: But this kind of repenting will not help. You understand of course, "I should have not done that, I should have done that, in future I will do it." that's all. Whatever wrong you have done in the past, you won't do that wrong. Whatever good you did not do in the past, you do it. Enough. But if you keep on repeating that in your mind with guilt, you are multiplying your misery. This makes you more miserable. And every seed that you are sowing now is a seed of misery; the future will bring nothing but misery. So come out of this habit.

Student: Should we try to avoid our ego and try to push it down or should we just let it be?

S.N.Goenka: Never push it down. You cannot push out or suppress the ego. It keeps on multiplying by that. It will naturally get dissolved if you practise. Let it happen naturally and this technique will help. Dhamma will help.