..續本文上一頁rander and brighter. Make it free and independent. Having done a good deed, don”t carry it around in your heart, let it go. Having refrained from doing an evil deed, let it go. The Buddha taught us to live in the immediacy of the present, in the here and now. Don”t lose yourself in the past or the future.
The Teaching that people least understand and which conflicts the most with their own opinions, is this Teaching of "letting go" or "working with an empty mind." This way of talking is called "Dhamma language." When we conceive this in worldly terms, we become confused and think that we can do anything we want. It can be interpreted this way, but its real meaning is closer to this: It”s as if we are carrying a heavy rock. After a while we begin to feel its weight but we don”t know how to let it go. So we endure this heavy burden all the time. If someone tells us to throw it away, we say, "If I throw it away, I won”t have anything left!" If told of all the benefits to be gained from throwing it away, we wouldn”t believe them but would keep thinking, "If I throw it away, I will have nothing!" So we keep on carrying this heavy rock until we become so weak and exhausted that we can no longer endure, then we drop it.
Having dropped it, we suddenly experience the benefits of letting go. We immediately feel better and lighter and we know for ourselves how much of a burden carrying a rock can be. Before we let go of the rock, we couldn”t possibly know the benefits of letting go. So if someone tells us to let go, an unenlightened man wouldn”t see the purpose of it. He would just blindly clutch at the rock and refuse to let go until it became so unbearably heavy that he just had to let go. Then he can feel for himself the lightness and relief and thus know for himself the benefits of letting go. Later on we may start carrying burdens again, but now we know what the results will be, so we can now let go more easily. This understanding that it”s useless to carry burdens around and that letting go brings ease and lightness is an example of knowing ourselves.
Our pride, our sense of self that we depend on, is the same as that heavy rock. Like that rock, if we think about letting go of self-conceit, we are afraid that without it, there would be nothing left. But when we can finally let it go, we realize for ourselves the ease and comfort of not clinging.
In the training of the heart, you mustn”t cling to either praise or blame. To just want praise and not to want blame is the way of the world. The Way of the Buddha is to accept praise when it is appropriate and to accept blame when it is appropriate. For example, in raising a child it”s very good not to just scold all the time. Some people scold too much. A wise person knows the proper time to scold and the proper time to praise. Our heart is the same. Use intelligence to know the heart. Use skill in taking care of your heart. Then you will be one who is clever in the training of the heart. And when the heart is skilled, it can rid us of our suffering. Suffering exists right here in our hearts. It”s always complicating things, creating and making the heart heavy. It”s born here. It also dies here.
The way of the heart is like this. Sometimes there are good thoughts, sometimes there are bad thoughts. The heart is deceitful. Don”t trust it! Instead look straight at the conditions of the heart itself. Accept them as they are. They”re just as they are. Whether it”s good or evil or whatever, that”s the way it is. If you don”t grab hold of these conditions, then they don”t become anything more or less than what they already are. If we grab hold we”ll get bitten and will then suffer.
With "Right View" there”s only peace. Samadhi is born and wisdom takes over. Wherever you may sit or lie down, th…
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