..續本文上一頁s not a rape, we both consented. What is wrong with that

　　 Or again you say, I took only a little glass of wine and I didn”t get intoxicated. What was wrong with that

　　 After all, when I”m in society somebody offers me a glass of wine and by accepting it I am not disturbing the peace and harmony of society, I am helping it. Everybody”s happy.

　　A Buddha will smile and say, "Mad fellows." They are happy with the layer of ash covering the truth. They don”t know that they are burning deep inside and that they keep giving fuel to this burning. Every time you break any silā you are giving more and more fuel to this fire and you become more and more miserable. This cannot be understood by arguments or discussions. Only when you go deeper can you realize that every vocal or physical action that breaks the law of nature simultaneously causes harm to yourself.

　　When you go deeper you also see that as you start performing wholesome actions, either physical or vocal, the fire burning inside dies down and you start feeling peaceful. The Buddha said, Idha nandati, pecca nandati, katapuñño ubhayattha nandati. Because you are cultivating a mental habit pattern of generating peace, harmony, and real happiness, this mental state continues. All actions, either physical or vocal, made with the base of a pure mind cause happiness-not the happiness of that small layer of ash covering a burning ember, but happiness at the depth of the mind.

　　Samādhi is concentration. How should you concentrate

　　 And why should you concentrate in this particular way

　　 This was the enlightenment of the Buddha: Sammā-samādhi must be a samādhi that leads us to paññā. and its object must be the reality pertaining to your own body and mind.

　　What is known in the West as the conscious mind is actually a tiny part of the mind. The part of the mind called the unconscious or the half-conscious keeps feeling the sensations on the body and reacting to them. The surface part of the mind is like the layer of ash covering the burning ember: You can play with this and put some ice there so that you feel as if the burning has ceased and that you are perfectly happy. If you meditate using verbalization, it is only the conscious mind that is verbalizing; the deep unconscious has nothing to do with it. Likewise it is the tiny part of the mind, the conscious mind that visualizes, or imagines, or gives some suggestion, or plays some intellectual or emotional games. The mind deep inside has nothing to do with all this, and yet you feel as if you are peaceful.

　　When you go to a cinema, bar or theatre, you pert your agitated conscious mind and enjoy sensual pleasures. When you intoxicate your conscious mind with alcohol or drugs, again you forget your misery for some time. In the same way, when you intoxicate your mind with different kinds of meditation, you forget your misery. You forget the red-hot charcoal that is burning deep inside.

　　The enlightenment of the Buddha was to go to the depth and understand the law of cause and effect. He understood that whenever one reacts with craving or aversion, misery follows; this is the law of nature. He investigated why one reacts in this way.

　　At the apparent level it feels as if you react to things outside. Whatever you see, hear, smell, taste, touch or think that is pleasant, it seems that you react to that sensory contact with craving. Similarly whatever unpleasant contact you have at any of the sense doors, it seems that you react to it with aversion. That is true, but only at the surface level. There is a missing link that you cannot understand without practising Vipassana. You do not react to the external objects coming in contact with the respective sense doors; you react to the sensations within your body caused by the c…

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