..續本文上一頁when you go off into physical seclusion.

　　When you go live in the wilderness, don”t get stuck on the wilderness. If you get stuck on the wilderness, you become a monkey. When you see the trees, you miss the trees. You start jumping around just like the monkey you were before. The Buddha never taught us to be this or be that. When you live in a peaceful place, the mind becomes peaceful. "Mmm. Peace at last. The mind is at peace." But when you leave the wilderness, is the mind at peace

　　 Not any more. So what do you do then

　　The Buddha didn”t have us stay in the wilderness. He had us use the wilderness as a place to train. You go to the wilderness to find some peace so that your meditation will develop, so that you”ll develop discernment. That”s so that when you go into the city and deal with people, with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations, you”ll have strength, you”ll have your strategies. You”ll have your firm foundation for contemplating things, to see how they”re not for sure. Going to the wilderness in this way is something that can really help give you strength. If you think that you can live anywhere, that you can live with lots of people, it”s like a knife with a double-edged blade. If you don”t have inner strength, you can create difficulties for yourself.

　　It”s like monks who study the Abhidhamma. They say that when you study the Abhidhamma you don”t have to cling to anything, don”t have to fixate on anything. It”s nice and easy. You don”t have to observe the precepts. You just focus right on the mind. That”s what monks who study the Abhidhamma say.

　　"As for women, what”s the matter with getting near them

　　 Women are just like our mothers. We ourselves were born right out of that spot." That”s bragging too much. They ordained just yesterday and yet they refuse to be careful around women. That”s not the real Abhidhamma. That”s not what the Abhidhamma says.

　　But they say that the Abhidhamma is on a level higher than the human level. "When you”re that high, it doesn”t matter whether you”re near someone or not. There”s no near, no far. There”s nothing to be afraid of. Women are people just like us. Just pretend that they”re men. That way you can get near them, touch them, feel them. Just pretend that they”re men."

　　But is that the sort of thing you can pretend

　　 It”s a double-edged blade. If we were talking genuine Abhidhamma, there wouldn”t be a problem. But this Abhidhamma is fake.

　　The Buddha taught us to live in the wilderness. The proper way, when a monk goes into the wilderness, is to stay in a quiet place; to wander in the quiet wilderness; not to be entangled with friends and companions and other sorts of things. That”s the right way to do it. But most of us don”t follow the right way. We live in a quiet place and get attached to the quiet. As soon as we see a form, it gives rise to defilement. In our ears there”s nothing but defilement. That”s going too far. It lacks discernment.

　　If you bring things together, they come together at the path — the right path, or right view. That”s where things come together. If you have right view, you can live with a large group of people and there”s no problem. You can live with a small group of people and there”s no problem. You can live in the forest or in a cave and there”s no problem. But this is something you can”t just attain without any effort. You have to get so that”s the way the mind really is.

　　Make the mind know the Dhamma. When it knows the Dhamma, make it see the Dhamma. Practice the Dhamma so that the mind is Dhamma. You don”t want to be able just to speak about the Dhamma. It”s something very different. The Buddha taught all the way to the truth, but we only go halfway, in half measures. That”s why progress is difficult.

　　If we come to live in the wi…

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