..續本文上一頁You”re awake, you”re alive. If, however, you think," Oh, I don”t really need to put energy into this sit," then you get dull. You don”t enjoy it so much.

　　Even put energy into eating your food when eating. See how much you can notice of what you are doing. Then you”ll enjoy it more! What”s the danger to mindfulness when you are eating food

　　 Usually it”s thinking about something else. Then you don”t even know what you are putting into your mouth. No wonder so many people suffer from indigestion! Whatever it is that you are doing, know what you are supposed to be doing. Put full effort into it. Know the dangers and avoid those dangers.

　　Turning Up the Lights

　　As one builds up mindfulness and it gets very sharp, one realizes that one has been living in a world which has been very dim, with not many lights. As one gets more and more mindful, it”s like someone turns on the lights in the room, like the sun comes out and the surroundings become illuminated. That”s why being mindful becomes a very joyful experience. It”s very pleasant to be mindful because you see so much more of what”s around you. It”s like "spotlighting" reality. Reality really starts to open out to you. You not only see the colours; you see the shapes and the textures. You see everything there. It appears very beautiful and wonderful. That”s why when mindfulness really starts to get strong it generates a lot of happiness and bliss.

　　People who aren”t very mindful, who are dull, who cultivate dullness, who sleep a lot, develop depression. They live in a grey world. I went to England some years ago. Every time I go there, it”s in November, December, or January, and it”s so miserable then because it”s just so grey there. The sun is far in the south because it is wintertime. Only about nine or ten in the morning does it start to get light. By three or four in the afternoon it”s dusk again. Everything starts to get very dull, and often the clouds are all grey, and you”re in this drizzle, and all the buildings look grey. The street is grey. You look up at the sky, it”s grey. It”s grey from the top to the bottom. You look at the people there. What do they wear

　　 They wear grey suits and overcoats. You look at the expressions on their faces, they”re grey too. You know what tea they drink

　　 Earl Grey! Ha! Ha! It”s all grey. It”s very grey and miserable and depressing. That”s what a person with very little mindfulness is like. It”s like living in a sort of London in a perpetual winter. It”s just grey and miserable in the mind. There”s no sort of light. There”s no energy there. One doesn”t see very much.

　　Again when one has a lot of mindfulness it”s like going out into a garden in the brilliant sunshine. It”s energising, it”s beautiful. There”s a lot of energy and happiness there. If one can develop that mindfulness, that brightness of the mind, and then focus it on a small part of the world, then one sees deeply into the nature of that. The experience of bright and focused awareness is wonderful and amazing! You see much more beauty than you ever imagined.

　　So this is a useful simile for mindfulness: turning up the lights of the mind. One becomes more deeply aware because one actually starts to sustain mindfulness on one thing instead of letting mindfulness go all over the place. When that happens, mindfulness illuminates that object and builds up its own energy. One really starts to "see" into something very deeply and wonderfully!

　　Building Up the "Muscles of Insight"

　　This practice builds up the "muscles of insight". Just take any object. It doesn”t matter if it”s a little fly walking on your robe or whether it”s a leaf on the bushes outside or whatever. Just stand there, or sit there, and watch that one leaf. Let mindfulness illuminate it until awareness gets so strong on that…

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