..續本文上一頁eloping and modifying the heart are very appropriate for helping us as meditators to escape from all the things in our hearts that exert a pull on us or weigh us down. These things are hard to remove, hard to remedy, hard to sever, which is why we need a Teacher to guide us. If we had no Teacher, the living beings in the three realms of the cosmos -- no matter how many thousands or millions of forms and levels there are -- would all be as if deaf and blind. Not one of them would be able to escape from this darkness and blindness. This is why we should have a heartfelt sense of the awesomeness of the arising of a Buddha, who leads living beings to escape from this gravitational pull, from this oppressiveness, safely and in large numbers -- to the point where no one else can compare -- beginning with each Buddha”s foremost disciples and on to the end of his dispensation, when his teachings no longer exist in the hearts of living beings, which is the final point in his work of ferrying living beings from all sorts of blindness, darkness, suffering, and stress.

　　Our present Buddha performed these duties with the full mindfulness and discernment of his great mercy and compassion, beginning with the day of his Awakening. It”s as if he took a large ship and cast anchor in the middle of the ocean in order to gather the living beings of various kinds and strengths adrift in the water on the verge of death and bring them on board stage by stage. Those who take an interest in the Dhamma are like beings who struggle to get on board the Buddha”s ship that has cast anchor in the middle of the sea. They keep climbing on board, climbing on board, until the day when the beings of the world have no more belief in the teachings of the religion. That”s when the ship will no longer have any function. Those who are still left in the sea will have to stay there adrift, with no more way of escape. They are the ones who are to become food for the fishes and turtles.

　　Those who have come on board, though, are the various stages of those who have been able to escape, as mentioned in the four types of inpiduals, beginning with the ugghatitaññu, vipacitaññu and neyya. These are the ones who have come on board. How high or low they are able to go depends on their inpidual capabilities. There are those who escape completely -- those free of defilement; there are those on the verge of escape -- the non-returners (anagami); those in the middle -- the once-returners (sakidagami); and then the stream-winners (sotapanna); and finally ordinary good people. Here we”re referring to the Buddha”s ship in its general sense. He uses it to salvage living beings, beginning from the day of his Awakening until the point when the teachings of the religion have no more meaning in the world”s sensibilities. That”s the final point. Those who remain are the diseased who can find no medicine or physician to treat their illnesses and are simply awaiting their day to die.

　　So now we are swimming and struggling toward the Buddha”s large ship by making the effort of the practice. In particular, now that we have ordained in the Buddha”s religion and have developed a feel for his teaching, this makes us even more moved, even more convinced of all the truths that he taught rightly about good and evil, right and wrong, hell, heaven, the Brahma worlds, and nibbana, all of which are realities that actually exist.

　　We have followed the principles of the Buddha”s Dhamma, and in particular the practice of meditation. Try to build up your strength and ability without flagging, so as to resist and remove all the things that coerce or exert a gravitational pull on the heart. Don”t let yourself become accustomed to their pull. They pull you to disaster, not to anythin…

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