..續本文上一頁ind, one should deny them attention. One should not think about them or dwell on them in any way, but pert one”s attention to any other thoughts or activity suitable to bind one”s interest. This is the method of perting the mind by non-attention. Here the simile is that of closing one”s eyes before a disagreeable sight or turning the glance in another direction. This approach, too, can prepare the mind for the application of the first method.

　　The fourth method is to go back to the thought-source from which those undesirable thoughts started and to remove them from one”s mind. This might be easier than to cope directly with the resulting undesirable thought. Such tracing back to the cause will also help to pert the mind and thus reduce the strength of the undesirable thoughts. In view of the latter fact, the simile in the discourse speaks of reducing coarser movements of the body by calmer ones: a man who is running asks himself, "Why should I run

　　", and he now goes slowly. He then continues the process of calming, by successively standing still, sitting and lying down. The commentary explains this method as referring to a tracing of the cause, or of the starting point of the undesirable thoughts.[13] The simile, however, seems to admit an interpretation of this method as one of sublimation or gradual refinement.

　　The fifth and last method is vigorous suppression, the last resort when undesirable thoughts, e.g., extremely passionate ones, threaten to become unmanageable. This method, likened to a strong man pressing or forcing down a weaker person, shows the realistic and undogmatic approach of the Buddha, which does not exclude a method of suppression where the situation demands it, lest a serious worsening of that situation or a deterioration of one”s character may occur.

　　By applying these methods, says the discourse, one may become a "master of the paths taken by one”s thought processes. The thought he then wants to think, that he will think; and the thought he does not want to think, that he will not think. Thus, having cut down craving, removed the fetter (binding to existence), and fully mastered pride, he has made an end to suffering."

　　Hence the perfect mastery of defiled thoughts — their entire burning out, as our verse calls it — is identical with perfect holiness (arahatta), in which all the here and beyond has been transcended.

　　 8. He who neither goes too far nor lags behind,

　　entirely transcending the diffuseness of the world,

　　— such a monk gives up the here and the beyond,

　　just as a serpent sheds its worn-out skin.

　　The first line of this stanza recurs five more times in the following verses 9-13. This sixfold repetition indicates the importance given to these few words by the creator of this poem, the Buddha, who "sees the deep meaning" (nipunatthadassi, Sutta Nipata, v.377) and "clads it in beautiful speech" (vaggu-vado, v.955).

　　The first two lines of the stanza, if viewed closely, are variations of the last two lines which speak of the transcending of "both sides" — taking the meaning of the Pali words ora-param in their wider sense as explained above.

　　The range of meaning of these first few words is as wide as the "world entire," the world of diffuseness or plurality (papañca). In this context, it is significant that the Pali word papañca has also the connotation of "lagging behind" or "procrastination."[14] Its over-active partner within that pair, providing the extreme of excessive movement, is craving, which tends to go far beyond what the retarding force of objectified samsara, or papañca, will allow. Craving produces again and again the disillusioning experience of its own futility; and yet again and again it seeks "ever-new enjoyment, now here, now there" (tatra tatr”abhinandini). The…

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