..續本文上一頁ll then have to gain release from these things that coerce and oppress you without a doubt. The important points are persistence, mindfulness, discernment, and endurance. So. Keep enduring. What”s wrong with endurance for the sake of making your way

　　 Other things you can endure. Physical pain to the brink of death: No one else can endure it for you. You have to endure it for yourself. Haven”t you already endured it before

　　 So why can”t you endure the pains and deprivations that come with the effort of the practice

　　 After all, you endure them for the sake of the effort to extricate yourself from suffering. So why can”t you endure them

　　 Make it strong, your heart as a monk, your heart as a meditator. Once you”ve seen the dangers pointed out by the Dhamma, you”ll see the benefits arising through your efforts.

　　In the beginning, you have to grapple a great deal with the body as your meditation theme. Once you”ve opened your way and seen causes and results as your starting capital, then the four mental khandhas -- vedana, sañña, sankhara, and viññana -- have already gotten into the act. There are feelings in the body as well as in the mind, so when you”re investigating the body, how can these things not rush in to connect

　　 They”re related phenomena. It”s not the case that you finish investigating the body before you start investigating vedana, sañña, sankhara, and viññana. Don”t plan on things being that way, because it”s wrong. In the truth of the practice, that”s not the way things are. Once your work is focused on any one point, it has an impact on everything else, but these things become prominent only after the body has lost its meaning and value for us through the Dhamma. Before, we saw it as having a great deal of meaning and value, but once the Dhamma -- the truth -- has demolished the falsity of this sort of defilement and craving, these things lose their meaning and worth. The Dhamma now clearly has a value above and beyond them. This is when vedana, sañña, sankhara, and viññana become prominent, because they”ve already opened the way from the stage of the physical body.

　　What is there to feelings

　　 For the most part, they converge in on feelings of the mind. As for physical feelings, I”ve already explained them to you before. If you analyze them when you”re sick or have been sitting in meditation for a long time, you”ll know them. If you want to know them, focus on them today, using mindfulness and discernment, and you”ll understand them. You”re sure to understand them clearly if you use discernment. Don”t simply endure them. To contend with pain, you have to use discernment. Simply fighting it, simply enduring it, doesn”t count as the path. The path is mindfulness and discernment. The greater the pain, the more these things spin into work. You can”t let mindfulness and discernment leave the point of the pain. As for the body, each part will be seen clearly as a reality in line with its nature, within the mind, because in accordance with the principles of nature that”s what they already are.

　　No matter how much pain arises in the body, it”s its own separate reality. Only the mind is what labels and interprets it. Once the mind has used discernment to investigate the pain to the point of being abreast of it, it will extricate itself from the pain to be its own separate reality on this level, so that each is a separate reality. When each is a separate reality, what harm can they do to each other

　　 What impact can they have on each other

　　 None at all. The body is the body, the pain is a pain, the heart is the heart, i.e., the mind is the mind. Each is a separate reality, with no impact on the others. Even if the pain doesn”t subside, it has no …

《Things as They Are - The Savor of the Dhamma》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…