So we should investigate the body within the body. Whatever”s in the body, go ahead and look at it. If we just see the outside it”s not clear. We see hair, nails and so on and they are just pretty things which entice us, so the Buddha taught to see the inside of the body, to see the body within the body. What is in the body
Look closely within! We will see many things inside to surprise us, because even though they are within us, we”ve never seen them. Wherever we walk we carry them with us, sitting in a car we carry them with us, but we still don”t know them at all!
It”s as if we visit some relatives at their house and they give us a present. We take it and put it in our bag and then leave without opening it to see what is inside. When at last we open it — full of poisonous snakes! Our body is like this. If we just see the shell of it we say it”s fine and beautiful. We forget ourselves. We forget impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and not-self. If we look within this body it”s really repulsive. If we look according to reality, without trying to sugar things over, we”ll see that it”s really pitiful and wearisome. Dispassion will arise. This feeling of "disinterest" is not that we feel aversion for the world or anything; it”s simply our mind clearing up, our mind letting go. We see things are naturally established just as they are. However we want them to be, they just go their own way regardless. Whether we laugh or cry, they simply are the way they are. Things which are unstable are unstable; things which are not beautiful are not beautiful.
So the Buddha said that when we experience sights, sounds, tastes, smells, bodily feelings or mental states, we should release them. When the ear hears sounds, let them go. When the nose smells an odor, let it go... just leave it at the nose! When the bodily feelings arise, let go of the like or dislike that follow, let them go back to their birth-place. The same for mental states. All these things, just let them go their way. This is knowing. Whether it”s happiness or unhappiness, it”s all the same. This is called meditation.
Meditation means to make the mind peaceful in order to let wisdom arise. This requires that we practice with body and mind in order to see and know the sense impressions of form, sound, taste, smell, touch and mental formations. 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 mind is that which knows. Feeling 10 is the characteristic of happiness or unhappiness, like or dislike. When the mind indulges in these things we say that it clings to or takes that happiness and unhappiness to be worthy of holding. That clinging is an action of mind, that happiness or unhappiness is feeling.
When we say the Buddha told us to separate the mind from the feeling, he didn”t literally mean to throw them to different places. He meant that the mind must know happiness and know unhappiness. When sitting in samadhi, for example, and peace fills the mind, then happiness comes but it doesn”t reach us, unhappiness comes but doesn”t reach us. This is to separate the feeling from the mind. We can compare it to oil and water in a bottle. They don”t combine. Even if you try to mix them, the oil remains oil and the water remains water. Why is this so
Because they are of different density.
The natural state of the mind is neither happiness nor unhappiness. When feeling enters the mind then happiness or unhappiness is born. If we have mindfulness then we know pleasant feeling as pleasant feeling. The mind which knows will not pick it up. Happiness is there but it”s "outside" the mind, not buried within the mind…
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