..續本文上一頁ng as long as our minds still have worries and concerns. Being a slave to our concerns is like being in debt to them. When we”re in debt, we have no real freedom in our hearts. Only when we can find the money to pay off our debts can we be happy, free, and at ease. The more we pay off our debts, the more light-hearted we”ll feel. In the same way, if we can let go of our various worries and cares, peace will arise in our hearts. We”ll be released from our slavery to craving and defilement, and will find happiness because peace is what brings release from suffering. This is why the Buddha taught us to center our hearts in concentration so as to give rise to stillness, peace, and the inner wealth with which we”ll be able to pay off all of our debts. That”s when we”ll attain happiness and ease. All our burdens and sufferings will fall away from our hearts, and we”ll enter full freedom.
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The mind has two kinds of thoughts, skillful and unskillful. Unskillful thoughts are when the mind thinks in ways that are bad — with greed, anger, or delusion — about things either past or future. When this happens, the mind is said to be a slave to defilement. As for skillful thoughts, they deal in good and worthwhile ways with things future or past. We have to try to let go of both these kinds of thoughts so that they don”t exist in the mind if we want to gain release from our slavery.
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If we want to buy ourselves completely out of slavery, we have to farm our four acres so that they bear abundant fruit. In other words, we have to develop the body”s four properties — earth, water, fire, and wind — to a point of fullness by practicing meditation and using pure breath sensations to soothe and nourish every part of the body. When the mind is pure and the body soothed, it”s like our farm”s having plenty of rain and ground water to nourish our crops. In other words, our concentration is solid and enters the first stage of absorption, with its five factors: directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure, and singleness-of-preoccupation. Directed thought is like harrowing our soil. Evaluation is like plowing and scattering the seed. Rapture is when our crops begin to bud, pleasure is when their flowers bloom, and singleness-of-preoccupation is when the fruits develop until they”re ripened and sweet — and at the same time, their seeds contain all their ancestry. What this means is that in each seed is another plant complete with branches, flowers, and leaves. If anyone plants the seed, it”ll break out into another plant just like the one it came from.
In the same way, when we center the mind to the point of absorption, we can gain insight into our past — maybe even back through many lifetimes — good and bad, happy and sad. This insight will cause us to feel dismay and dispassion, and to lose taste for all states of being and birth. The mind will let go of its attachments to self, to mental and physical phenomena, and to all thoughts and concepts — past and future, good and bad. It”ll enter a state of neutral equanimity. If we then work at developing it further, we”ll be able to cut away more and more of our states of being and birth. When the mind gains change-of-lineage knowledge, which passes from the mundane over into the transcendent, it will see what dies and what doesn”t. It will blossom as buddho — the awareness that knows no cessation — bright in its seclusion from thoughts and burdens, from mental fermentations and preoccupations. When we practice in this way, we”ll come to the reality of birthlessness and deathlessness — the highest happiness — and on into Liberation.
This is how we repay all our debts without the least bit remaining. As the texts say, "In release, there is the knowledge, ”Released. Birth is no more, the holy life is fulfilled, the task done.”"
For this reason, we should be intent on cleansing and polishing our hearts so that they can gain release from their worries and preoccupations, which are the source of pain and discontent. Peace, coolness, and a bright happiness will arise within us, in the same way as when we unshackle ourselves from our encumbering burdens and debts. We”ll be free — beyond the reach of all suffering and stress.
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Sabbe satta sada hontu
avera sukha-jivino
katam puñña-phalam mayham
sabbe bhagi bhavantu te
May all beings always live happily,
free from animosity.
May all share in the blessings
springing from the good I have done.
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