..續本文上一頁icks up where they leave off, they simply form — blip! blip! — and then vanish, vanish. No matter what they form — good thoughts, bad thoughts, crude thoughts, subtle thoughts, neutral thoughts, whatever — they are simply a rippling of the mind. If they occur on their own, when nothing is making contact with the mind, they”re called sankhara. If they occur when something is making contact, they”re called viññana.
Here we”re talking about the sankharas that form on their own, without anything else being involved. They form — blip — and then vanish immediately. Blip — and then vanish immediately. We can see this clearly when the mind converges snugly in the subtle levels of concentration and discernment.
The snugness of the mind”s convergence won”t have anything else involved with it at all. All that remains is simple awareness. When this simple awareness remains stable this way, we will see clearly that it isn”t paired with anything else. When the mind begins to withdraw from this state to return to its awareness of phenomena — returning to its ordinary state of mind that can think and form thoughts — there will be a rippling — blip — that vanishes immediately. It will then be empty as before. In a moment it will ”blip” again. The mind will form just a flash of a thought that doesn”t yet amount to anything, just a rippling that vanishes immediately the instant it”s known. As soon as there”s a rippling, we are alert to it because of the power of mindfulness keeping watch at the moment — or because of the strength of concentration that hasn”t yet dissipated. But after these ripples have formed two or three times, they come more and more frequently, and soon we return to ordinary consciousness, just as when a baby awakens from sleep: At first it fidgets a bit, and then after this happens a number of times, it finally opens its eyes.
The same is true of the mind. It has calm... Here I”m talking about concentration when discernment is there with it. The various ways of investigating I have mentioned are all classed as discernment. When we have investigated enough, the mind enters stillness, free from mental formations and fashionings and from any sort of disturbance. All that appears is awareness. Even just this has the full flavor of a centered mind, which should already be enough to surpass all other flavors. We never tire of delighting in this stillness. We feel a constant attraction to this stillness and calm in the heart. Wherever we go, wherever we stay, the mind has its own foundation. The heart is at ease, quiet and calm, so that now we must use discernment to investigate the elements and khandhas.
The important point to notice is the act of formation in the mind. Once something is formed, sañña immediately labels it — as if sankhara were forming things to hand on to sañña, which takes up where the sankhara leaves off. It then interprets these things from various angles — and this is where we get deluded. We fall for our own assumptions and interpretations, for our own shadows, which paint picture stories that have us engrossed or upset both day and night. Why are we engrossed
Why are we upset
Engrossed or upset, it”s because of the mind”s shadows acting out stories and issues. This story. That story. Future issues. Things yet to come. Things yet to exist — nothing but the mind painting pictures to delude itself. We live in our thought-formations, our picture-painting — engrossed and upset by nothing but our own thought-formations, our own picture-painting. In a single day there”s not a moment when we”re free from painting imaginary pictures to agitate and fool ourselves. Wise people, though, can keep up with the tricks and deceits of the khandhas, which is why they aren”t deluded…
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