..續本文上一頁tion becomes liberating insight (vipassana-ñana), the discernment that can stay fixed on knowing the truth of stress without permitting any sense of pleasure or displeasure for its object to arise. Intuitive understanding fathoms the cause of stress, and the awareness of release knows the heart clearly all the way through. When you can know in this way, you can say that you know rightly.

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　　Here I”d like to back up and discuss the question of the mind in a little more detail. The word ”mind” covers three aspects:

　　(1) The primal nature of the mind.

　　(2) Mental states.

　　(3) Mental states in interaction with their objects.

　　All of these aspects, taken together, make up the mind. If you don”t know the mind in this way, you can”t say that you really know it. All you can do is say that the mind arises and falls away, the mind doesn”t rise or fall away; the mind is good, the mind is evil; the mind becomes annihilated, the mind doesn”t become annihilated; the mind is a dhamma, the mind isn”t a dhamma; the mind gains release, the mind doesn”t gain release; the mind is nibbana, the mind isn”t nibbana; the mind is sensory consciousness, the mind isn”t sensory consciousness; the mind is the heart, the mind isn”t the heart...

　　As the Buddha taught, there are only two paths to practice — the body, speech, and heart; and the body, speech, and mind — and in the end both paths reach the same point: Their true goal is release. So if you want to know the truth concerning any of the above issues, you have to follow the path and reach the truth on your own. Otherwise, you”ll have to argue endlessly. These issues — for people who haven”t practiced all the way to clear insight — have been termed by people of wisdom as sedamocana-katha: issues that can only make you break out in a sweat.

　　So I would like to make a short explanation: The primal nature of the mind is a nature that simply knows. The current that thinks and streams out from knowing to various objects is a mental state. When this current connects with its objects and falls for them, it becomes a defilement, darkening the mind: This is a mental state in interaction. Mental states, by themselves and in interaction, whether good or evil, have to arise, have to disband, have to dissolve away by their very nature. The source of both these sorts of mental states is the primal nature of the mind, which neither arises nor disbands. It is a fixed phenomenon (thiti-dhamma), always in place. By the primal nature of the mind — which is termed ”pabhassara,” or radiant — I mean the ordinary, elementary state of knowing in the present. But whoever isn”t able to penetrate in to know it can”t gain any good from it, like the proverbial monkey with the diamond.

　　Thus the name given by the Buddha for this state of affairs is really fitting: avijja — dark knowledge, counterfeit knowledge. This is in line with the terms ”pubbante aññanam” — not knowing the beginning, i.e., the primal nature of the mind; ”parante aññanam” — not knowing the end, i.e., mental states in interaction with their objects; ”majjhantika aññanam” — not knowing the middle, i.e., the current that streams from the primal nature of knowing. When this is the case, the mind becomes a sankhara: a concoctor, a magician, fabricating prolifically in its myriad ways.

　　This ends the discussion of the mind as a frame of reference.

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