..續本文上一頁the Venerable Ajahn”s use of them.

　　Venerable Ajahn Chah always gave his talks in simple, everyday language. His objective was to clarify the Dhamma, not to confuse his listeners with an overlog of information. Consequently the talks presented here have been rendered into correspondingly simple English. The aim has been to present Ajahn Chah”s teaching in both the spirit and the letter.

　　In this third printing of A Taste of Freedom, a number of corrections have been made to clumsily worded passages, of which there are now hopefully less than in the first editions. For such inadequacies the translator must also take responsibility, and hopes the reader will bear with any literary shortcomings in order to receive the full benefit of the teachings contained herein.

　　The translator

　　About This Mind...

　　About this mind... In truth there is nothing really wrong with it. It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it”s already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods. The real mind doesn”t have anything to it, it is simply (an aspect of) Nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness and sorrow, but the mind”s true nature is none of those things. That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself. Then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever.

　　But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful... really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind — the "fluttering" is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn”t follow them, it doesn”t "flutter." If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions we will be unmoved.

　　Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. So we must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them. To make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through.

　　"... That which "looks over" the various factors which arise in meditation is ”sati”, mindfulness. Sati is life. Whenever we don”t have sati, when we are heedless, it”s as if we are dead... This sati is simply presence of mind. It”s cause for the arising of self-awareness and wisdom... Even when we are no longer in samadhi, sati should be present throughout..."

　　On Meditation

　　To calm the mind means to find the right balance. If you try to force your mind too much it goes too far; if you don”t try enough it doesn”t get there, it misses the point of balance.

　　Normally the mind isn”t still, it”s moving all the time, it lacks strength. Making the mind strong and making the body strong are not the same. To make the body strong we have to exercise it, to push it, in order to make it strong, but to make the mind strong means to make it peaceful, not to go thinking of this and that. For most of us the mind has never been peaceful, it has never had the energy of samadhi, 1 so we establish it within a boundary. We sit in meditation, staying with the One who knows.

　　If we force our breath to be too long or too short we”re not balanced, the mind won”t become peaceful. It”s like when we first start to use a pedal sewing machine. At first we just practice pedaling the machine to get our co-ordination right, before we actually sew anything. Following the breath is similar. We don”t get concerned over how long or short, weak or strong it is, we just note it. We simply let it be, following the natural breathing.

　　When it”s balanced, we take the breathing as our meditation object. When we breathe in, the …

《A Taste of Freedom》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…