..續本文上一頁ever-changing play of senses. Of elements-hot, cold, bright. dark. soft. hard. heavy, light, and so on.

　　Examine the aggregates of feeling pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant-changing each moment. Notice the play of perception, of memory and thought, of reactions and volition, of consciousness, the quality each of these experiences brings anew in each moment. See how life is a dynamic interplay of these aggregates arising, changing, passing away. Sense objects, feeling, recognition, reaction, volition, the same process again and again. Notice what experience is like when desire or expectation arises. Notice the causes of suffering. Notice the stillness when the mind is not caught by desire.

　　Is there any part of experience that does not share the characteristics of constant change and fleeting instability, any part that gives lasting satisfaction and is not empty of a self, of an I, of an ego

　　 Where is the self in all this

　　 Examine and you will see how absolutely everything is changing. No me exists, no fixed self. Only this process.

　　To learn to see deeply into experience and its characteristics is not limited to sitting meditation. Walk and watch. Do the walking meditation back and forth at a natural pace; do it for many hours, if possible. Learn to pay attention, and there is nothing you will not understand. This is the heart of the practice.

　　In many monasteries, daily interviews with the teacher are an integral part of the practice, but Achaan Chah discourages this. Although he is always available to answer questions, he does not conduct formal interviews. Learning to answer your own question is better, he says. Learn about doubting in the mind, how it arises and how it passes. No one and nothing can free You but your own understanding. Still the mind, the heart, and learn to watch. You will find the whole Dharma of the Buddha is revealing itself in every moment.

　　Mindfulness

　　Just as animal life can be classified into two groups, creatures of the land and creatures of the sea, subjects of meditation can be pided into two categories, concentration and insight. Concentration meditations are those that are used to make the mind calm and one pointed. Insight, on the one hand, is the growing perception of impermanence, suffering, and emptiness of self and, on the other, our bridge over those waters.

　　No matter how we may feel about our existence, our business is not to try to change it in any way. Rather, we just have to see it and let it be. Where suffering is, there too is the way out of suffering. Seeing that which is born and dies and is subject to suffering, Buddha knew there must also be something beyond birth and death, free of suffering.

　　Methods of meditation all have value in helping to develop mindfulness. The point is to use mindfulness to see the underlying truth. With this mindfulness, we watch all desires, likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains that arise in the mind. Realizing they are impermanent, suffering, and empty of self, we let go of them. In this way, wisdom replaces ignorance, knowledge replaces doubt.

　　As for singling out one object of meditation, you yourself must discover what fits your character. Wherever you choose to be mindful, it will bring wisdom to the mind. Mindfulness is knowing what is here, noticing, being aware. Clear comprehension knows the context in which the present is occurring. When mindfulness and clear comprehension act together, their companion, wisdom, always appears to help them complete any task.

　　Watch the mind, watch the process of experience arising and ceasing. At first the movement is constant as soon as one thing passes, another arises, and we seem to see more arising than ceasing. As time goes by we see more clearly, understanding how things arise so fast, until we rea…

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