..續本文上一頁ion arises naturally, no matter what activity you are engaged in.

　　Drugs can bring about meaningful experiences, but the one who takes a drug has not made causes for such effects. He has just temporarily altered nature, like injecting a monkey with hormones that send him shooting up a tree to pick coconuts. Such experiences may be true but not good or good but not true, whereas Dharma is always both good and true.

　　Sometimes we want to force the mind to be quiet, and this effort just makes it all the more disturbed. Then we stop pushing and some concentration arises. But in the state of calm and quiet, we begin to wonder, ”What”s going on

　　 What”s happening now

　　" and we are agitated again.

　　The day before the first monastic council, one of the Buddha”s disciples went to tell Ananda, "Tomorrow is the Sangha Council. Others who attend are fully enlightened." Since Ananda was at this time still incompletely enlightened, he determined to practice strenuously all through the night, seeking full awakening. But in the end, he just made himself tired. He was not making any progress for all his efforts, so he decided to let go and rest a bit. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he became enlightened. In the end, we must learn to let go every last desire, even the desire for enlightenment. Only then can we be free.

　　Contemplate Everything

　　As you proceed with your practice, you must be willing to carefully examine every experience, every sense door. For example, practice with a sense object such as a sound. Listen. Your hearing is one thing, the sound is another. You are aware, and that is all there is to it. There is no one, nothing else. Learn to pay careful attention. Rely on nature in this way, and contemplate to find the truth. You will see how things separate themselves. When the mind does not grasp or take a vested interest, does not get caught up, things become clear.

　　When the ear hears, observe the mind. Does it get caught up and make a story out of the sound

　　 Is it disturbed

　　 You can know this, stay with it, be aware. At times you may want to escape from the sound, but that is not the way out. You must escape through awareness.

　　Sometimes we like the Dharma, sometimes we do not, but the problem is never the Dharma”s. We can not expect to have tranquility as soon as we start to practice. We should let the mind think, let it do as it will, just watch it and not react to it. Then, as things contact the senses, we should practice equanimity. See all sense impressions as the same. See how they come and go. Keep the mind in the present. Do not think about what has passed, do not think, "Tomorrow I”m going to do it." If we see the true characteristics of things in the present moment, at all times, then everything is Dharma revealing itself.

　　Train the heart until it is firm, until it lays down all experiences. Then things will come and you will perceive them without becoming attached. You do not have to force the mind and sense objects apart. As you practice, they separate by themselves, showing the simple elements of body and mind.

　　As you learn about sights, sounds, smells, and tastes according to the truth, you will see that they all have a common nature-impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self. Whenever you hear a sound, it registers in your mind as this common nature. Having heard is the same as not having heard. Mindfulness is constantly with you, protecting the heart. If your heart can reach this state wherever you go, there will be a growing understanding within you. which is called investigation, one of the seven factors of enlightenment. It revolves, it spins, it converses with itself, it solves,. it detaches from feelings, perceptions, thoughts, consciousness. Nothing can come near it. It has its own work to do. This …

《A Still Forest Pool》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…