Evolution of love

MY CHOICE

From the moment I made my resolve, I kept my mind from straying from the repetition of buddho (the name of Buddha). From the moment I awoke in the morning until I slept at night, I forced myself to think only of buddho. At the same time, I ceased to be preoccupied with thoughts of progress and decline: If my meditation made progress, it would do so with buddho; if it declined, it would go down with buddho. In either case, buddho was my sole preoccupation. All other concerns were irrelevant.
Maintaining such single-minded concentration is not an easy task. I had to literally force my mind to remain entwined with buddho each and every moment without interruption. Regard- less of whether I was seated in meditation, walking meditation or simply doing my daily chores, the word buddho resonated deeply within my mind at all times. By nature and temperament, I was always extremely resolute and uncompromising. This tendency worked to my advantage. In the end, I became so earnestly com- mitted to the task that nothing could shake my resolve; no errant thought could separate the mind from buddho.
Working at this practice day after day, I always made certain that buddho resonated in close harmony with my present-moment awareness. Soon, I began to see the results of calm and concentration arise clearly within the citta, the mind’s essential knowing nature. At that stage, I began to see the very subtle and refined nature of the citta. The longer I internalized buddho, the more subtle the citta became, until eventually the subtlety of buddho and the subtlety of the citta melded into one another and became one and the same essence of knowing. I could not separate buddho from the citta’s subtle nature. Try as I might, I could not make the word buddho appear in my mind. Through diligence and perseverance, buddho had become so closely unified with the
citta that buddho itself no longer appeared within my awareness. The mind had become so calm and still, so profoundly subtle, that nothing, not even buddho, resonated there. This meditative state is analogous to the disappearance of the breath, as mentioned above.