..續本文上一頁nd insight will bring relief. Insight will liberate you from that pain. Insight is the flower that grows on the tree of looking deeply, when you bring mindfulness into the realm of perceptions. That is the focus of the last set of four exercises offered by the Buddha, so that we can know how to look deeply into the nature of reality and get emancipated from the suffering, the illusions, the wrong perceptions that are at the base of your suffering.
This is the last Foundation of Mindfulness: contemplation of perceptions in the perceptions, or contemplation of the objects of mind in the objects of mind. You may ask the question: "Where is the fifth
" because last time we have seen that our person is made of five elements, yet here there are only four. Here is the answer: (Thay draws on the board.) We reproduce the orange of the day before yesterday, and the five sections of the orange: form (body), feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. Form is here, the first foundation of mindfulness. Feeling is here, the second foundation of mindfulness. Mental formations are here, as the third foundation of mindfulness. Perception is here, the fourth foundation of mindfulness. How about consciousness
The answer is that consciousness is the ground of all mental formations. Feelings is one mental formation, perception is another mental formation, there is forty-nine other mental formations. And all of these mental formations are a manifestation of consciousness. When you contemplate all of these fifty-one mental formations, you are already contemplating consciousness, because the consciousness is like the water, and all these things are the waves. If you look deeply into the wave, you are already touching the water, you are already seeing the water. That is why feelings, perceptions and mental formations are manifestations of consciousness. And that is why all five sections of the orange, the five elements that make up our persons, are entirely covered by the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. The process is very scientific, and this is to serve as instrument for you to begin the practice.
The thirteenth exercise: "Contemplating impermanence, I breathe in." The essence of Buddhist meditation is Vipashyana (Vipassana in Pali). That means looking deeply into the nature of things in order to understand the true nature of reality, the true nature of your joy and suffering. What does it mean to look deeply
Looking deeply is to use all your mindfulness, all your concentration to inquire about the reality that is in front of you, the object of your inquiry. The Buddha has provided us many keys, many instruments to enable us to succeed in the work of looking deeply. The first instrument is called impermanence. You look in such a way that you can discover the impermanent nature of everything that is.
Intellectually, we all know that everything is impermanent, that everything is changing, but that is only the intellect. I am to grow old. The person with whom I live, tomorrow will be old, or may go away. That is part of impermanence. We know it intellectually, but practically we live as if we don”t know that things are impermanent. If you really had the insight of impermanence, you would not live like that. You would be much wiser. You speak as if that person is going to be like that for one thousand years, and you speak as if you are going to be like this for another one thousand years, but this is not true. We are not the same in two consecutive moments. If you really have the insight of impermanence, you will be able to release everything that is not essential, and you will be able to live deeply every moment of your daily life. We are caught by many, many things that are not essential, and we lose our lives just because of that…
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