So it is with the quality of your concentration. If your thinking and evaluation are subtle, thorough, and circumspect, your "concentration work" will result in more and more stillness of mind. If your thinking and evaluation are slipshod and crude, you won”t get much stillness. Your body will ache, and you”ll feel restless and irritable. Once the mind can become very still, though, the body will be comfortable and at ease. Your heart will feel open and clear. Pains will disappear. The elements of the body will feel normal: The warmth in your body will be just right, neither too hot nor too cold. As soon as your work is finished, it”ll result in the highest form of happiness and ease: nibbana -- Liberation. But as long as you still have work to do, your heart won”t get its full measure of peace. Wherever you go, there will always be something nagging at the back of your mind. Once your work is done, though, you can be carefree wherever you go.
If you haven”t finished your job, it”s because (1) you haven”t set your mind on it and (2) you haven”t actually done the work. You”ve shirked your duties and played truant. But if you really set your mind on doing the job, there”s no doubt but that you”ll finish it.
Once you”ve realized that the body is inconstant, stressful, and can”t be forced, you should keep your mind on an even keel with regard to it. "Inconstant" means that it changes. "Stressful" doesn”t refer solely to aches and pains. It refers to pleasure as well -- because pleasure is inconstant and undependable, too. A little pleasure can turn into a lot of pleasure, or into pain. Pain can turn back into pleasure, and so on. (If we had nothing but pain we would die.) So we shouldn”t be all that concerned about pleasure and pain. Think of the body as having two parts, like the mango. If you focus your attention on the comfortable part, your mind can be at peace. Let the pains be in the other part. Once you have an object of meditation, you have a comfortable place for your mind to stay. You don”t have to dwell on your pains. You have a comfortable house to live in: Why go sleep in the dirt
We all want nothing but goodness, but if you can”t tell what”s good from what”s defiled, you can sit and meditate till your dying day and never find nibbana at all. But if you”re knowledgeable and intent on what you”re doing, it”s not all that hard. Nibbana is really a simple matter because it”s always there. It never changes. The affairs of the world are what”s hard because they”re always changing and uncertain. Today they”re one way, tomorrow another. Once you”ve done something, you have to keep looking after it. But you don”t have to look after nibbana at all. Once you”ve realized it, you can let it go. Keep on realizing, keep on letting go -- like a person eating rice who, after he”s put the rice in his mouth, keeps spitting it out rather than letting it become feces in his intestines.
What this means is that you keep on doing good but don”t claim it as your own. Do good and then spit it out. This is viraga-dhamma: disengagement. Most people in the world, once they”ve done something, latch onto it as theirs -- and so they have to keep looking after it. If they”re not careful, it”ll either get stolen or else wear out on its own. They”re headed for disappointment. Like a person who swallows his rice: After he”s eaten, he”ll have to defecate. After he”s defecated he”ll be hungry again, so he”ll have to eat again and defecate again. The day will never come when he”s had enough. But with nibbana you don”t have to swallow. You can eat your rice and then spit it out. You can do good and let it go. It”s like plowing a field: The dirt falls off the plow on its own. You don”t need to scoop it up and put it in a bag tied to your water buffal…
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