..續本文上一頁 one little leaf that you see so much of what”s going on, on that little leaf. It”s not just a green leaf, it”s a whole world in there! Then you”ll understand the power of mindfulness. When you can sustain mindfulness on one thing, you will know how it illuminates and releases a lot of the beauty in that object. It becomes fascinating just how much you can see! How much interest, how much wonder, how much awe there is in just a tiny leaf! That”s where you start to play with mindfulness. You start to play with this power of mindfulness that is blissful and can see so deeply into things. But when you”re looking at a leaf, if you start wondering about what you”re going to have for dinner; then you can”t see very clearly into it. Or if you start looking into a leaf and you start getting dull, sinking into sloth and torpor, or if you”re wondering -- "Are people looking at me

　　 Do they think I”m somehow strange

　　" -- then all those distracting thoughts will obviously break the spell and break the sustained attention. However, if you can sustain your attention on one thing, which is what you”re learning with this practice of mindfulness and meditation, then it”s amazing what you will see in the world. The world will start to open up and become very beautiful and very fascinating and very wonderful. And that”s just the world outside!

　　If one develops the ability to sustain mindfulness, to sustain attention on one thing for long periods of time, then one generates the ability to bore into something with insight and to see deeply into its nature. If you”re one of those persons who wants to discover some of the deep truths of existence, if you don”t want to just take it on faith from the books or from the teachers, if you want to find out for yourself, then this is how you find out. This is how to get enlightenment experiences. You develop this powerful mindfulness and point it at some interesting and rich sources of wisdom -- especially at the mind. If you can sustain attention on your mind, "bore into it" as it were, then you will find a whole treasure chest of priceless jewels of deep insight.

　　So to summarise so far, this is the way of mindfulness: what it actually is, how to develop it and, in particular, how to set up mindfulness at every stage of your meditation. Give yourself clear instructions, know what you”re supposed to be doing. When you give yourself clear instructions and just sit back and watch the mind do its job, keeping you at your work, it becomes fascinating. That”s all you need to do.

　　Letting Go of the "Doer"

　　At times I”ve described this type of quiet meditation as letting go of the "doer" and sometimes that”s been quite confusing to some people. What do you mean "letting go of the doer"

　　 This is what I mean. We do a little bit of doing at the right time, and then we let go and allow the doing to happen. Little by little we can let go of the "doer". We can let go of all that chatter, all that ordering (which is ninety percent of the thinking mind), of always giving ourselves instructions, telling ourselves what to do, getting on our backs when we fail. Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking! That”s one of the biggest problems for meditators, and this is how to overcome it. There”s time to think at the very beginning of each stage by giving ourselves clear instructions. Then we can let go because we see the mind doing all the work. We understand, we realise, we don”t need to say anything any more. We can be quiet.

　　The Different Levels of Mindfulness Revisited

　　As our meditation develops not only does the area which mindfulness covers get less and less and less, but mindfulness increases and gets sharper and sharper. One of the marvelous things about meditation is that, as we sharpen the mindfulness we find it …

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