..續本文上一頁, without seeing their good side, and so let them go without putting them to any worthwhile or skillful use, nothing good will come of it. But if we”re intelligent enough to see that the khandhas have their good side as well as their bad, and then put them to good use by meditating to gain discernment into physical and mental phenomena, we”re going to be rich. Once we have the truth -- the Dhamma -- as our wealth, we won”t suffer if we have money, and won”t suffer if we don”t, for our minds will be transcendent. The various forms of rust -- greed, anger, and delusion -- that have been obscuring our senses will all fall away. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body will be entirely clean, clear, and bright, for as the Buddha said, the Dhamma -- discernment -- is like a lamp. Our mind, far distant from all forms of trouble and suffering, will stay in the current flowing on to Liberation.

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　　At the Tip of Your Nose

　　August 26, 1957

　　When feelings of pain or discomfort arise while you”re sitting in meditation, examine them to see what they come from. Don”t let yourself be pained or upset by them. If there are parts of the body that won”t go as you”d like them to, don”t worry about them. Let them be -- because your body is the same as every other body, human or animal, throughout the world: It”s inconstant, stressful, and can”t be forced. So stay with whatever part does go as you”d like it to, and keep it comfortable. This is called dhamma-vicaya: being selective in what”s good.

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　　The body is like a tree: No tree is entirely perfect. At any one time it”ll have new leaves and old leaves, green leaves and yellow, fresh leaves and dry. The dry leaves will fall away first, while those that are fresh will slowly dry out and fall away later. Some of the branches are long, some thick, and some small. The fruits aren”t evenly distributed. The human body isn”t really much different from this. Pleasure and pain aren”t evenly distributed. The parts that ache and those that are comfortable are randomly mixed. You can”t rely on it. So do your best to keep the comfortable parts comfortable. Don”t worry about the parts that you can”t make comfortable.

　　It”s like going into a house where the floorboards are beginning to rot: If you want to sit down, don”t choose a rotten spot. Choose a spot where the boards are still sound. In other words, the heart needn”t concern itself with things that can”t be controlled.

　　Or you can compare the body to a mango: If a mango has a rotten or a wormy spot, take a knife and cut it out. Eat just the good part remaining. If you”re foolish enough to eat the wormy part, you”re in for trouble. Your body is the same, and not just the body -- the mind, too, doesn”t always go as you”d like it to. Sometimes it”s in a good mood, sometimes it”s not. This is where you have to use as much thought and evaluation as possible.

　　Directed thought and evaluation are like doing a job. The job here is concentration: centering the mind in stillness. Focus the mind on a single object and then use your mindfulness and alertness to examine and reflect on it. If you use a meager amount of thought and evaluation, your concentration will give meager results. If you do a crude job, you”ll get crude results. If you do a fine job, you”ll get fine results. Crude results aren”t worth much. Fine results are of high quality and are useful in all sorts of ways -- like atomic radiation, which is so fine that it can penetrate even mountains. Crude things are of low quality and hard to use. Sometimes you can soak them in water all day long and they still don”t soften up. But as for fine things, all they need is a little dampness in the air and they dissolve. …

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