..續本文上一頁n you die, you can”t take it with you.

　　But the Buddha said there”s a form of happiness, there”s a form of knowing in the mind, that goes beyond aging, illness, and death, and that can be attained through human effort if you”re skillful enough. So that”s both good news and a challenge. Are you going to let yourself just live an ordinary life frittering your time away

　　 Or are you going to accept the challenge to devote yourself to more important things, devote yourself to this possibility

　　The Buddha was the sort of person who put his life on the line. He didn”t have anyone telling him that this was a possibility, but he thought that the only way life would have any dignity, any honor would be if you could find a happiness that doesn”t age, doesn”t grow ill, doesn”t die. And he ran up against all the things he would have to sacrifice in order to find that happiness. So he made those sacrifices—not because he wanted to sacrifice those things, but because he had to. As a result he was able to find what he was looking for. So the story of his life and his teachings are meant as a challenge for us—how are we going to lead our lives

　　Here we are sitting together meditating. What are you going to do with a still mind, once it”s become still

　　 If you wanted to, you could simply use concentration practice as a method of relaxation or a way of calming the nerves. However, the Buddha says that there”s more to it than that. When the mind is really still, you can dig deep down into the mind and begin to see all the currents that lie underground within it. You can start sorting them out, understanding what drives the mind. Where is the greed

　　 Where is the anger

　　 Where are the delusions that keep you spinning around

　　 How can you cut through them

　　These are the questions, these are the issues that can be tackled in the meditation—as long as you have a sense of their importance, that they”re your real priorities. If you don”t have that sense, you don”t want to touch them because they”re big issues and they snarl at you when you get near. But if you really dig down, you find that they”re just paper tigers. I once saw a meditation manual that contained a drawing of a tiger. The face of a tiger was very realistic—all the details were very scary—but its body was made out of folded paper. And that”s what a lot of issues are in the mind. They come at you, looking really intimidating, but if you face them down they turn into origami.

　　But in order to face them down you”ve got to have a sense that these are the really important issues in life and you”re willing to give up an awful lot for their sake. You”re willing to give up whatever you have to give up. That”s what makes the difference between a practice that goes someplace, that really knocks down the walls in the mind, and a practice that simply rearranges the furniture in the room.

　　So when you practice meditation, you realize there is both the “how” and the “why,” and the “why” is really important. Often the “why” gets pushed off to the side. You simply follow this or that technique, and then what you want to do with it is up to you—which is true in a way, but doesn”t take into account the possibilities. When you put the possibilities into the context of the Buddha”s teachings, you see the values that underlie the practice. You see how deep the practice goes, how much it can accomplish, and what an enormous job you”re taking on. It”s enormous, but the results are enormous as well. And the issues are urgent. Aging, illness, and death can come at any time, and you have to ask yourself, “Are you prepared

　　 Are you ready to die

　　” Ask yourself in all honesty and if you”re not ready, what”s the problem

　　 What are you still lacking

　　 Where are you still holding on

　　 Why do you want to hold on

　　 When the mind settles down and is still, you can start digging into these issues. And the more you dig, the more you uncover within the mind—layers and layers of things that you didn”t suspect, that have been governing your life since who knows when. You dig them out, you see them for what they are, and you”re free from them. You realize all the stupid things that have been running your life, picked up from who knows where. You can”t blame anyone else. You”re the one who picked them up and you played along with them.

　　Now, when you realize that nothing is accomplished by playing along—that it”s better not to play along with these things, and you don”t have to—then you can let them go. And they let you go. What”s left is total freedom. The Buddha said that it”s so total it can”t even be described by words. So that”s the possibility the meditation points to, and it”s up to each of us to decide how far we want to go in that direction, how much we do really care for our true happiness, for our own true wellbeing. You would think that everyone would say, “Of course I care for my happiness and true wellbeing.” But if you look at the way people live their lives, you can see that they really don”t put that much energy or thought into the quest for true happiness. People usually see other people do things in this or that way, so they follow along without looking for themselves, as if true happiness were so unimportant that you could leave it up to other people to make your choices for you. Meditation, though, is a chance to look for yourself at what”s really important in life and then do something about it.

《The How & the Why》全文閱讀結束。