..續本文上一頁st even those slight shiftings of its inner center of gravity called for by the human or psychological environment.
All manifestations of "lagging behind" show a lack of reciprocity and of exchange with the outside world. We may even call it "weak mental metabolism," since mental activity is also a process of nutrition. While the opposite tendency towards excessive expansion may run the risk of being invaded by an excess of "foreign bodies," there is here a deficiency of them; and this will make for poor adaptability and lack of stimulation for new developments. This may finally lead to such a degree of isolation and inbreeding that here, too, the neglected counterpart will rise in self-defense. If its counter-move succeeds, it may produce a harmonious balance of character, unless it starts on a one-sided development of its own. But if such a corrective is absent or remains unsuccessful, that particular life-process, by seriously "lagging behind," will "sink," that is, deteriorate, and may reach a point of complete stagnation.
Thus the strands of life”s texture meet crosswise in their upward and downward path. In that way they weave the intricate net of the world”s diffuseness (papañca), to which the interplay of these paired opposites adds uncountable meshes.
It is through balanced view and balanced effort that one can transcend all these extremes. If one has thus found the harmonizing center in one”s life and thought — the Noble Eightfold Path, the Middle Way — then the outer manifestations of the inner opposites and conflicts will also fall away, like the worn-out skin of the snake, never to be renewed again. Then there will be rebirth no more, neither in the lower nor in the higher realms, neither here nor beyond: both sides have been left behind. For the Liberated One, world migration, world creation, have utterly ceased.
9. He who neither goes too far nor lags behind
and knows about the world: "This is all unreal,"
10. greedless he knows: "This is all unreal,"
11. lust-free he knows: "This is all unreal,"
12. hate-free he knows: "This is all unreal,"
13. delusion-free he knows: "This is all unreal,"
— such a monk gives up the here and the beyond,
just as a serpent sheds its worn-out skin.
The world is unreal in the sense of presenting a deceptive appearance, being quite different in actuality from the way it appears to a greedy, lustful, hating and ignorant mind. The Pali word vitatha, here rendered by "unreal," has both in Pali and Sanskrit the meaning of "untrue" or "false." These verses, however, are not meant to convey the idea that the world is mere illusion, a play of the imagination. What underlies its deceptive appearance, the flux of mental and physical processes, is real enough in the sense that it is effect-producing. The unreality lies in what we attribute to the world, and not in the world itself.
What, now, is this "world" (loka) and this "all" (sabba), which should be seen as unreal, in the sense of being deceptive
When the Enlightened One was questioned about these two words, he gave the same answer for both:
1. "One speaks of ”the world,” Lord. In how far is there a world or the designation ”world”
"
"When there is the eye and visible forms, visual consciousness and things cognizable by visual consciousness; when there is the ear and sounds... ; nose and smells... ; tongue and flavors... ; body and tangibles... ; mind and ideas, mind-consciousness and things cognizable by mind-consciousness — then there is a world and the designation ”world”."
Samyutta Nikaya, 35:68
2. "”All” will I show you, O monks. And what is ”all”
The eye and visible forms, ear and sounds, nose and smells, tongue and flavors, body and tangibles, mind and ideas — this, O monks, is what is called ”all”."
Samyutta N…
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