..續本文上一頁back to the cremation ground where he would eat his meal alone, surrounded by the pits where the corpses of those who hadn”t been burned were buried. Every night he would sleep quite alone next to the remains of the dead. After I had been staying nearby for about a week I went along to check and see how he was. On the outside he seemed at ease with himself, so I asked him:
"So you”re not afraid staying here then
"
"No I”m not afraid", he replied.
"How come you”re not frightened
"
"It seems to me unlikely that there”s anything much to be afraid of." All it needed was this one simple reflection for the mind to stop proliferating. That novice didn”t need to think about all sorts of different things that would merely complicate the matter. He was "cured" straight away. His fear vanished. You should try meditating in this way.
I say that whatever you are doing -- whether standing, walking, coming or going -- if you sustain mindfulness without giving up, your samadhi won”t deteriorate. It won”t decline. If there”s too much food you say that it”s suffering and just trouble. What”s all the fuss about
If there is a lot, just take a small amount and leave the rest for everybody else. Why make so much trouble for yourself over this
It”s not peaceful
What”s not peaceful
Just take a small portion and give the rest away. But if you are attached to the food and feel bad about giving it up to others, then of course you will find things difficult. If you are fussy and want to have a taste of this and a taste of that, but not so much of something else, you”ll find that in the end you”ve chosen so much food that you”ve filled the bowl to the point where none of it tastes very delicious anyway. So you end up attaching to the view that being offered lots of food is just distracting and a load of trouble. Why get so distracted and upset
It”s you who are letting yourself get stirred up by the food. Does the food itself ever get distracted and upset
It”s ridiculous. You are getting all worked up over nothing.
When there are a lot of people coming to the monastery, you say it”s disturbing. Where”s the disturbance
Actually, following the daily routine and the ways of training is fairly straightforward. You don”t have to make a big deal out of this: you go on alms round, come back and eat the meal, you do any necessary business and chores training yourself with mindfulness, and just get on with things. You make sure you don”t miss out on the various parts of the monastic routine. When you do the evening chanting does your cultivation of mindfulness really collapse
If simply doing the morning and evening chanting causes your meditation to fall apart, it surely shows that you haven”t really learnt to meditate anyway. In the daily meetings, the bowing, chanting praise to the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha and everything else you do are extremely wholesome activities, so can they really be the cause for your samadhi to degenerate
If you think that it”s distracting going to meetings, look again. It”s not the meetings that are distracting and unpleasant, it”s you. If you let unskilful thinking stir you up, then everything becomes distracting and unpleasant -- even if you don”t go out to the meetings, you end up just as distracted and stirred up.
You have to learn how to reflect wisely and keep your mind in a wholesome state. Everybody gets caught into such states of confusion and agitation, particularly those who are new to the training. What actually happens is that you allow your mind to go out and interfere with all these things and stir itself up. When you come to train with a monastic community determine yourself to just stay there and just keep practising. Whether other people are training in the correct way or wrong way is their business. Keep putti…
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