..續本文上一頁d — everything is wrong! And on the other hand the path of right practice is born in this same place. When there is right then the wrong disappears.

　　The Buddha practiced enduring many hardships and torturing himself with fasting and so on, but he investigated deeply into his mind until finally he uprooted ignorance. All the Buddhas were enlightened in mind, because the body knows nothing. You can let it eat or not, it doesn”t matter, it can die at any time. The Buddhas all practiced with the mind. They were enlightened in mind.

　　The Buddha, having contemplated his mind, gave up the two extremes of practice — indulgence in pleasure and indulgence in pain — and in his first discourse expounded the Middle Way between these two. But we hear his teaching and it grates against our desires. We”re infatuated with pleasure and comfort, infatuated with happiness, thinking we are good, we are fine — this is indulgence in pleasure. It”s not the right path. Dissatisfaction, displeasure, dislike and anger — this is indulgence in pain. These are the extreme ways which one on the path of practice should avoid.

　　These "ways" are simply the happiness and unhappiness which arise. The "one on the path" is this very mind, the ”One who knows”. If a good mood arises we cling to it as good, this is indulgence in pleasure. If an unpleasant mood arises we cling to it through dislike- this is indulgence in pain. These are the wrong paths, they aren”t the ways of a meditator. They”re the ways of the worldly, those who look for fun and happiness and shun unpleasantness and suffering.

　　The wise know the wrong paths but they relinquish them, they give them up. They are unmoved by pleasure and displeasure, happiness and unhappiness. These things arise but those who know don”t cling to them, they let them go according to their nature. This is right view. When one knows this fully there is liberation. Happiness and unhappiness have no meaning for an Enlightened One.

　　The Buddha said that the Enlightened Ones were far from defilements. This doesn”t mean that they ran away from defilements, they didn”t run away anywhere. Defilements were there. He compared it to a lotus leaf in a pond of water. The leaf and the water exist together, they are in contact, but the leaf doesn”t become damp. The water is like defilements and the lotus leaf is the Enlightened Mind.

　　The mind of one who practices is the same; it doesn”t run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness, and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don”t enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer. To say he simply experiences is our common language. In the language of Dhamma we say he lets his mind follow the Middle Way.

　　These activities of happiness, unhappiness and so on are constantly arising because they are characteristics of the world. The Buddha was enlightened in the world, he contemplated the world. If he hadn”t contemplated the world, if he hadn”t seen the world, he couldn”t have risen above it. The Buddha”s Enlightenment was simply enlightenment of this very world. The world was still there: gain and loss, praise and criticism, fame and disrepute, happiness and unhappiness were still there. If there weren”t these things there would be nothing to become enlightened to! What he knew was just the world, that which surrounds the hearts of people. If people follow these things, seeking praise and fame, gain and happiness, and trying to avoid their opposites, they sink under the weight of the world.

　　Gain and loss, praise and criticism, fame and disrepute, happiness and unhappiness — this is the world. The person who is lost in the world has no path of escape, the world overwhelms him. This world follo…

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