..續本文上一頁ains is simple awareness, utterly pure.

　　We can”t say at what point in our body this simple awareness is centered. Before, it was a prominent point that we could know and see clearly. For example, in concentration we knew that it was centered in the middle of the chest. Our awareness was pronounced right there. The stillness was pronounced right there. The brightness, the radiance of the mind was pronounced right there. We could see it clearly without having to ask anyone. All those whose minds have centered into the foundation of concentration find that the center of ”what knows” is really pronounced right here in the middle of the chest. They won”t argue that it”s in the brain or whatever, as those who have never experienced the practice of concentration are always saying.

　　But when the mind becomes a pure mind, that center disappears, and so we can”t say that the mind is above or below or in any particular spot, because it”s an awareness that is pure, an awareness that is subtle and profound above and beyond any and all conventions. Even so, we are still veering off into conventions when we say that it”s ”extremely refined,” which doesn”t really fit the truth, because of course the notion of extreme refinement is a convention. We can”t say that this awareness lies high or low, or where it has a point or a center — because it doesn”t have one at all. All there is, is awareness with nothing else infiltrating it. Even though it”s in the midst of the elements and khandhas with which it used to be mixed, it”s not that way any more. It now lies world apart.

　　We now can know clearly that the khandhas are khandhas, the mind is the mind, the body is the body; vedana, sañña, sankhara, and viññana are each separate khandhas. But as for feelings in that mind, they no longer exist, ever since the mind gained release from all defilement. Therefore the three characteristics, which are convention incarnate, don”t exist in that mind. The mind doesn”t partake of feeling, apart from the ultimate ease (paramam sukham) that is its own nature — and the ultimate ease here is not a feeling of ease.

　　When the Buddha teaches that nibbana is the ultimate ease, the term ”ultimate ease” is not a feeling of ease like the feelings or moods of the mind still defiled, or the feelings of the body that are constantly appearing as stress and ease. The ultimate ease is not a feeling like that. Those who practice should take this point to heart and practice so as to know it for themselves. That will be the end of the question, in line with the Dhamma that the Buddha says is sanditthiko — to be seen for oneself — and on which he lays no exclusive claims.

　　Thus we cannot say that the mind absolutely pure has any feeling. This mind has no feeling. The term ”ultimate ease” refers to an ease by the very nature of purity, and so there can”t be anything inconstant, stressful, or not-self found infiltrating that ultimate ease at all.

　　Nibbana is constant. The ultimate ease is constant. They are one and the same. The Buddha says that nibbana is constant, the ultimate ease is constant, the ultimate void is constant. They”re all the same thing — but the void of nibbana lies beyond convention. It”s not void in the way the world supposes it to be.

　　If we know clearly, we can describe and analyze anything at all. If we don”t understand, we can talk from morning till night and be wrong from morning till night. There is no way we can be right, because the mind isn”t right. No matter how much we may speak in line with what we understand to be right in accordance with the Dhamma, if the mind that is acting isn”t right, how can we be right

　　 It”s as if we were to say, ”Nibbana is the ultimate ease; nibbana is the ultimate void,” to the point where the words…

《Straight from the Heart - The Conventional Mind, The Mind Released》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…