..續本文上一頁ly pleasure and singleness of object are left is the third skill. To focus in until only equanimity and singleness of object are left is the fourth. When you”ve reached this point, you”ve mastered all the skills offered in that particular school, i.e., you”ve mastered the body; you”ve seen that it”s just a matter of physical properties, unclean and repulsive, inconstant, stressful, and not-self. Some people, on reaching this point, don”t continue their studies, but set themselves up in dubious professions, claiming to have special powers, to be fortune tellers or to know magical incantations, using their skills to make a living under the sway of delusion.

　　Those, however, who have the necessary funds — namely, conviction in the paths and fruitions leading to nibbana — will go on to study in another school, arupa jhana, focusing directly in on the mind. For example: Right now, what are you thinking

　　 Good thoughts or bad

　　 When you have the alertness to know that a thought is bad, stare it down until it disappears, leaving only good thoughts. When a good thought arises, there”s a sense of ease and well-being. Focus in on that sense of well-being. Don”t withdraw. If you”re going to think, think only of that sense of well-being. Keep focusing until you are skilled at staying with that sense of well-being, to the point where, when you withdraw, you can focus right back in on it. This very sense of well-being is the basis for all four levels of arupa jhana. They differ only in their viewpoints on it. Once you”ve focused on this same sense of well-being firmly enough and long enough to go through the first, second, third, and fourth levels of arupa jhana, you should then go back and review all the skills you”ve mastered from the very beginning, back and forth, until they become appana jhana, fixed absorption, firm and fully mastered.

　　Rupa jhana, once mastered is like being a government official who works and earns a salary. Arupa jhana, once mastered, is like being a retired official receiving a pension from the government. Some people, when they”ve finished government service, simply curl up and live off their pensions without using their skills to provide themselves with any further benefits. This is like people who master rupa jhana and arupa jhana and then don”t use their skills to gain the further benefits of the transcendent.

　　If you do want to gain those benefits, though, here”s how it”s done: Focus your powers of investigation back on your primal sense of the body and mind until liberating insight arises. The insight that acts as a stairway to the transcendent level is based on jhana at the level of fixed penetration, focusing the mind resolutely to reach the first level of rupa jhana. Those people who have a good deal of discernment will — once the mind has attained concentration for only a short while — focus directly in on mental phenomena. I.e., they”ll focus on the mind and investigate its preoccupation until they clearly see the true nature of physical and mental phenomena. The state of mind that clings to physical and mental phenomena will vanish, and while it is vanishing the "state of mind changing lineage (gotarabhu citta)" is said to arise. When the mind can know what mundane mental states are like and what transcendent mental states are like, that”s called gotarabhu ñana, change-of-lineage knowledge, i.e., comprehension of nibbana.

　　Here we”re talking about people who are inclined to focus primarily on the mind, who tend to develop insight meditation more than tranquillity meditation. Their Awakening is termed release through discernment (pañña-vimutti). Although they don”t develop all of the mundane skills that come along with concentration — i.e., they don”t master all of the three skills, the e…

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