..續本文上一頁resent it will manifest later on.

　　People go astray right here. What is blocking them off

　　 The Apparent blocks off the Transcendent, preventing people from seeing things clearly. People study, they learn, they practice, but they practice with ignorance, just like a person who”s lost his bearings. He walks to the west but thinks he”s walking east, or walks to the north thinking he”s walking south. This is how far people have gone astray. This kind of practice is really only the dregs of practice, in fact it”s a disaster. It”s disaster because they turn around and go in the opposite direction, they fall from the objective of true Dhamma practice.

　　This state of affairs causes suffering and yet people think that doing this, memorizing that, studying such-and-such will be a cause for the cessation of suffering. Just like a person who wants a lot of things. He tries to amass as much as possible, thinking if he gets enough his suffering will abate. This is how people think, but their thinking is astray of the true path, just like one person going northward, another going southward, and yet believing they”re going the same way.

　　Most people are still stuck in the mass of suffering, still wandering in samsara, just because they think like this. If illness or pain arise, all they can do is wonder how they can get rid of it. They want it to stop as fast as possible, they”ve got to cure it all costs. They don”t consider that this is the normal way of sankhara. Nobody thinks like this. The body changes and people can”t endure it, they can”t accept it, they”ve got to get rid of it at all costs. However, in the end they can”t win, they can”t beat the truth. It all collapses. This is something people don”t want to look at, they continually reinforce their wrong view.

　　Practicing to realize the Dhamma is the most excellent of things. Why did the Buddha develop all the Perfections

　　 [66] So that he could realize this and enable others to see the Dhamma, know the Dhamma, practice the Dhamma and be the Dhamma -- so that they could let go and not be burdened.

　　"Don”t cling to things." Or to put it another way: "Hold, but don”t hold fast." This is also right. If we see something we pick it up..."Oh, it”s this"... then we lay it down. We see something else, pick it up... one holds, but not fast. Hold it just long enough to consider it, to know it, then to let it go. If you hold without letting go, carry without laying down the burden, then you are going to be heavy. If you pick something up and carry it for a while, then when it gets heavy you should lay it down, throw it off. Don”t make suffering for yourself.

　　This we should know as the cause of suffering. If we know the cause of suffering, suffering cannot arise. For either happiness or suffering to arise there must be the atta, the self. There must be the "I" and "mine," there must be this appearance. If when all these things arise the mind goes straight to the Transcendent, it removes the appearances. It removes the delight, the aversion and the clinging from those things. Just as when something that we value gets lost... when we find it again our worries disappear.

　　Even before we see that object our worries may be relieved. At first we think it”s lost and suffer over it, but there comes a day when we suddenly remember, "Oh, that”s right! I put it over there, now I remember!" As soon as we remember this, as soon as we see the truth, even if we haven”t laid eyes on that object, we feel happy. This is called "seeing within," seeing with the mind”s eye, not seeing with the outer eye. If we see with the mind”s eye then even though we haven”t laid eyes on that object we are already relieved.

　　This is the same, When we cultivate Dhamma practice and attain the Dhamma, see the Dhamma, then wheneve…

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