Over the past month, I’ve been working on a series of daily guided meditations inspired by the teachings in the Buddhist discourse called the Honeyball Sutta. This teaching, sometimes called the “Honeycake Sutta,” explains how we inadvertently create our own suffering through a feedback loop.
It starts by illustrating how consciousness perceives objects through our sense organs, a process called “contact.” This “contact” implies that there’s a self interacting with a world that’s separate from it. The Buddha isn’t claiming this is the actual nature of reality, but rather how we often perceive it.
Once there’s contact, we experience feelings in response to certain perceptions. If the mind detects a potential threat, it generates unpleasant sensations. If it perceives a benefit, it creates pleasant feelings. When something seems neutral, no strong feelings arise.
From there, whatever evokes pleasant or unpleasant feelings grabs our attention. What we focus on, we end up thinking about. Sometimes, these thoughts turn into obsessions. Our obsessions cause us suffering and reinforce our sense of a separate self.
This creates a vicious cycle where the belief in a separate self leads to feelings of being attacked, pushing us to find peace by fixating on things that provoke strong feelings. This cycle continues until we consciously break it.
A friend recently spoke about this sutta, highlighting how mindfulness can reduce this reactivity. By practicing mindfulness, we can observe obsessive thoughts and let them go. Over time, we might experience feelings without turning them into narratives. However, the sutta goes further than just managing thoughts.
It suggests that if there were no sense organs, objects, or consciousness, then there would be no feelings, attention, thoughts, obsessions, or constructed sense of self. This might sound nihilistic, but it’s really about dropping the idea of “self” and “other” and simply being. It’s about resting in an awareness that doesn’t conceptualize a separation between self and world.
This isn’t a one-time fix; it’s something to practice repeatedly until it becomes your natural way of being. You can start this practice right now. Pause and spend a few minutes just being aware without conceptualizing a self that perceives a separate world.
During this practice, you might find your mind wandering or judging it as unproductive, but that’s normal. Notice these reactions and let them go. The goal is to moments where there’s no concept of a separate self perceiving a world. In these moments, feelings aren’t seen as threats, but just are. This leads to a peaceful state where the mind doesn’t obsess, and we aren’t tormented by our thoughts.
Practicing this involves doing it regularly, not just as preparation but as a continuous activity. Letting go of the sense of being a separate self can bring immediate peace and contentment. This sense of peace is available right now. Don’t try to grasp it or resist anything that seems to block it. Just be peace.