..續本文上一頁en destroyed it, these formations no longer play any role in giving rise to defilement again. Their only function is to serve the purposes of the Dhamma. We use them to formulate Dhamma for the benefit of the world. In teaching Dhamma we have to use thought-formations, and so formations of this sort become tools of the Dhamma.

　　Now that we have given the khandhas a new ruler, the thought-formations which were forced into service by unawareness have now become tools of the Dhamma — tools of a pure heart. The Buddha used these thought-formations to teach the world, to formulate various expressions of the Dhamma.

　　The Dhamma we have mentioned here doesn”t exist solely in the past, in the time of the Buddha, or solely in the future in a way that would deny hope to whose who practice rightly and properly. It lies among our own khandhas and mind, in our body and mind. It doesn”t lie anywhere else other than in the bodies and minds of human beings, women and men. The defilements, the path, and purity all lie right here in the heart. They don”t lie in that time or period way back when, or with that person or this. They lie with the person who practices, who is using mindfulness and discernment to investigate right now.

　　Why

　　 Because we are all aiming at the Dhamma. We are aiming at the truth, just like the Dhamma, the truth, that the Buddha taught then and that always holds to the principle of being ”majjhima” — in the center — not leaning toward that time or this, not leaning toward that period or this place. It”s a Dhamma always keeping to an even keel because it lies in the center of our elements and khandhas. Majjhima: in the center, or always just right for curing defilement.

　　So please practice correctly in line with this Dhamma. You will see the results of ”majjhima” — a Dhamma just right, always and everywhere — appearing as I have said. Nibbana, the ultimate ease, will not in any way lie beyond this knowing heart.

　　And so I”ll ask to stop here.

《Straight from the Heart - The Conventional Mind, The Mind Released》全文閱讀結束。