“Most nimittas are bad for your development of meditation because they can be a distraction, misleading you out of the middle path.”
Question: Are nimittas essentials for Awakening?
Than Ajahn: Most nimittas are bad for your development of meditation because they can be a distraction, misleading you out of the middle path. The middle-path when you meditate is to enter into emptiness, into calm and peace. But when you start to sit and see all sorts of nimittas, and you start to go after them, then you will forget to meditate. And you will never be able to enter into full concentration, into the peace and happiness that arises from being fully concentrated. So when you meditate, should you have any nimitta, you should disregard them. Just concentrate on your meditation object. And if you do this, eventually this nimitta will disappear and your mind will then enter into full concentration. When it does that, you will have nothing left except emptiness, peace and upekkhā. And you can see the mind in its pure form, the one who knows, the knower. Then you will know the mind and the body are two separate things. During that time the body will disappear from the mind’s awareness. Then it will give you the capital or the strength, when you come out of the meditation, to let go of everything, because you know that the mind can be by itself and be happy. It doesn’t need to have anything. - Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
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