..續本文上一頁ple, suppose you wanted this tape recorder. As long as this desire was unfulfilled you would feel dissatisfaction. However, once you had gone out looking and found one for yourself, you would feel content and satisfied, wouldn”t you

　　 However, if you attached to the feeling of contentment that arose because you managed to get your own tape recorder, you would actually be creating the conditions for future suffering. You would be creating the conditions for future suffering, without being aware of it. This is because your sense of satisfaction would be dependent on you gaining a tape recorder, so as long as you still didn”t possess one, you would experience suffering. Once you acquired a tape recorder you would feel content and satisfied. But then if, perhaps, a thief were to steal it, that sense of satisfaction would disappear with it and you would fall back into a state of suffering again. This is the way it is. Without a tape recorder you suffer; with one you”re happy, but when for some reason you lose it, you become miserable again. It goes on like this the whole time. This is what is meant by samadhi that is dependent on peaceful conditions. It”s uncertain, like the happiness you experience when you get what you want. When you finally get the tape recorder you have been looking for, you feel great. But what”s the true cause of that pleasant feeling

　　 It arises because your desire has been satisfied. That”s all. That”s as deep as that kind of happiness can reach. It”s happiness conditioned by the defilements that control your mind. You aren”t even aware of this. At any time somebody could come along and steal that tape recorder causing you to fall right back into suffering again.

　　So that kind of samadhi only provides a temporary experience of calm. You have to contemplate the nature of the calm that arises out of serenity (samatha) meditation to see the whole truth of the matter. That tape recorder you obtain, or anything else you possess is bound to deteriorate, break up and disappear in the end. You have something to lose because you gained a tape recorder. If you don”t own a tape recorder you don”t have one to lose. Birth and death are the same. Because there has been a birth, there has to be the experience of death. If nothing gets born, there is nothing to die. All those people who die had to be born at some time; those who don”t get born don”t have to die. This is the way things are. Being able to reflect in this way, means that as soon as you acquire that tape recorder, you are mindful of its impermanence -- that one day it will break down or get stolen, and that in the end it must inevitably fall apart and completely disintegrate. You see the truth with wisdom, and understand that the tape recorder”s very nature is impermanent. Whether the tape recorder actually breaks or gets stolen, these are all just manifestations of impermanence. If you can view things in the correct way, you will be able to use the tape recorder without suffering.

　　You can compare this with setting up some kind of business in the lay life. If at first you needed to get a loan from the bank to set up the business operations, immediately you would begin to experience stress. You would suffer because you wanted somebody else”s money. Looking for money is both difficult and tiring, and as long as you were unsuccessful in trying to raise some, it would causes you suffering. Of course, the day you successfully managed to get a loan from the bank you would feel over the moon, but that elation wouldn”t last more than a few hours, because in no time at all the interest payments on the loan would start to eat up all your profits. You wouldn”t have to do so much as raise one finger and already your money would be draining away to the bank in interest paymen…

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