..續本文上一頁pendent on being a monk, a novice, or a layman; it depends on straightening out your understanding. If our understanding is correct, we arrive at peace. Whether you are ordained or not it”s the same, every person has the chance to practice Dhamma, to contemplate it. We all contemplate the same thing. If you attain peace, it”s all the same peace; it”s the same Path, with the same methods.

　　Therefore the Buddha didn”t discriminate between laymen and monks, he taught all people to practice to know the truth of the sankharas. When we know this truth, we let them go. If we know the truth there will be no more becoming or birth. How is there no more birth

　　 There is no way for birth to take place because we fully know the truth of sankharas. If we fully know the truth, then there is peace. Having or not having, it”s all the same. Gain and loss are one. The Buddha taught us to know this. This is peace; peace from happiness, unhappiness, gladness and sorrow.

　　We must see that there is no reason to be born. Born in what way

　　 Born into gladness: When we get something we like we are glad over it. If there is no clinging to that gladness there is no birth; if there is clinging, this is called "birth." So if we get something, we aren”t born (into gladness). If we lose, then we aren”t born (into sorrow). This is the birthless and the deathless. Birth and death are both founded in clinging to and cherishing the sankharas.

　　So the Buddha said. "There is no more becoming for me, finished is the holy life, this is my last birth." There! He knew the birthless and the deathless! This is what the Buddha constantly exhorted his disciples to know. This is the right practice. If you don”t reach it, if you don”t reach the Middle Way, then you won”t transcend suffering.

　　"...Meditation means to make the mind peaceful in order to let wisdom arise... To put it shortly, it”s just a matter of happiness and unhappiness. Happiness is pleasant feeling in the mind, unhappiness is just unpleasant feeling. The Buddha taught to separate this happiness and unhappiness from the mind..."

　　The Peace Beyond

　　It”s of great importance that we practice the Dhamma. If we don”t practice, then all our knowledge is only superficial knowledge, just the outer shell of it. It”s as if we have some sort of fruit but we haven”t eaten it yet. Even though we have that fruit in our hand we get no benefit from it. Only through the actual eating of the fruit we really know its taste.

　　The Buddha didn”t praise those who merely believe others, he praised the person who knows within himself. Just as with that fruit, if we have tasted it already, we don”t have to ask anyone else if it”s sweet or sour. Our problems are over. Why are they over

　　 Because we see according to the truth. One who has realized the Dhamma is like one who has realized the sweetness or sourness of the fruit. All doubts are ended right here.

　　When we talk about Dhamma, although we may say a lot, it can usually be brought down to four things. They are simply to know suffering, to know the cause of suffering, to know the end of suffering and to know the path of practice leading to the end of suffering. This is all there is. All that we have experienced on the path of practice so far comes down to these four things. When we know these things, our problems are over.

　　Where are these four things born

　　 They are born just within the body and the mind, nowhere else. So why is the Dhamma of the Buddha so broad and expansive

　　 This is so in order to explain these things in a more refined way, to help us to see them.

　　When Siddhattha Gotama was born into the world, before he saw the Dhamma, he was an ordinary person just like us. When he knew what he had to know, that is the truth of suffering, the cause, the end and the way leading …

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