..續本文上一頁ly many people who know better than this. I don”t mean to cast aspersions on those who know.
For this reason, I have drawn up this book in line with what I have studied and practiced, If you see that this might be the path you are looking for, give it a good look. My teacher didn”t teach like the examples mentioned above. He taught in line with what was readily available, without requiring that you had to offer five incense sticks or ten candles or a pig”s head or puffed rice or flowers or whatever. All he asked was that you have conviction in the Buddha and a willingness to practice his teachings. If you wanted to make an offering, some candles and incense as an offering to the Triple Gem would do — one candle if you had one, two if you had two; if you didn”t have any, you could dedicate your life instead. Then he would have you repeat the formula for taking refuge in the Triple Gem as in the method given in this book. His approach to teaching in this way has always struck me as conducive to the practice.
I have been practicing for a number of years now, and what I have observed all along has led me to have a sense of pity, both for myself and for my fellow human beings. If we practice along the right lines, we may very likely attain the benefits we hope for quickly. We”ll gain knowledge that will make us marvel at the good that comes from the practice of meditation, or we may even see the paths and fruitions leading to nibbana in this present life — because nibbana is always present. It lacks only the people who will uncover it within themselves. Some people don”t know how; others know, but aren”t interested — and have mistaken assumptions about it to boot: thinking, for example, that nibbana is extinct, doesn”t exist, can”t be attained, is beyond the powers of people in the present day; saying that since we aren”t Noble Disciples, how could we possibly attain it. This last is especially deluded. If we were already good, already Noble Disciples, what purpose would we have in going around trying to attain nibbana
If we don”t despise the Buddha”s teachings, then we can all practice them. But the truth of the matter is that though we worship the Dhamma, we don”t practice the Dhamma, which is the same as despising it. If we feel well-enough situated in the present, we may tell ourselves that we can wait to practice the Dhamma in our next lifetime, or at least anytime by right now. Or we may take our defilements as an excuse, saying that we”ll have to abandon greed, anger, and delusion before we can practice the Buddha”s teachings. Or else we take our work as an excuse, saying that we”ll have to stop working first. Actually, there”s no reason that meditation should get in the way of our work, because it”s strictly an activity of the heart. There”s no need to dismantle our homes or abandon our belongings before practicing it; and if we did throw away our belongings in this way, it would probably end up causing harm.
Even though it”s true that we love ourselves, yet if we don”t work for our own benefit, if we vacillate and hesitate, loading ourselves down with ballast and bricks, we make our days and nights go to waste. So we should develop and perfect the factors that bring about the paths and fruitions leading to nibbana. If you”re interested, then examine the procedures explained in the following sections. Pick out whichever section seems to correspond to your own level and abilities, and take that as your guide.
As for myself, I was first attracted to the Buddha”s teachings by his statement that to lay claim to physical and mental phenomena as our own is suffering. After considering his teaching that the body is anatta — not-self — I began to be struck by a sense of dismay over the nature of the body. I examined it to see in …
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