..續本文上一頁 there it is...- but I”m not going to react to that, I”m not going to follow that one." I button my lip, I don”t say it. Then there”s the joy: "I didn”t do it! I didn”t get sucked in." The heart is freed from that particular habit.

　　Now in all of that there has been no hatred; there has been intention but it hasn”t been bound up with self-view, there has been no activity of desire. I”m not trying to become a person who doesn”t do that. There is no activity of aversion. There is mindfulness, awakeness. That”s training, always working from awakeness and intention: I”m going to be awake - not become anything, just be awake and aware of the way things are.

　　Purification, the third consideration that I find helpful, is probably one of the most difficult parts, because it”s so boring. Of course, I can only speak for monastic life because I never really developed the training as a lay-person. I know that monastic life is not fun, it”s not meant to be. Though I love the brotherhood and find the monks inspiring, there are times when I don”t like the people, or feel annoyed or intimidated or fed up. But I have the freedom to watch that, and this is the purification. This is where we have to have tremendous patience. The line is: `Infinite patience, boundless compassion.” This is the practice. When it all begins to surface - when you start to feel annoyed at the apartment and the marriage, or fed up with the kids - desire manifests as frustration. But then if we can bear with the frustration, not judge it, we go through a purification. So we have to allow this stuff to surface into the mind, we have to allow the rubbish to become conscious.

　　This is why the teaching of anatta and anicca, non-personality and change, is so important - because if we didn”t have that teaching, we would take it personally. But the more we contemplate this teaching and discover that it”s true, the more courage we have to allow these things to come up into consciousness. The more courage we have to let them up into consciousness - the more patience we have to bear with them - the more we realise the underlying peace of the mind.

　　That peace is not something we get by becoming anything but by letting go, allowing things to cease. That”s why we talk so much about cessation. Say, when I”m feeling grumpy, I remember the teaching: "That”s going to change. Don”t make it a problem." So I allow myself to be grumpy, which isn”t an indulgence in being grumpy or laying that mood onto the other monks but neither is it a denial of that grumpiness. It”s just recognising that that which has a nature to arise has a nature to cease; I can awaken to that - and then it does cease. I realise that more and more, it becomes a path of courage and confidence. There is the confidence to allow these things to be there, to make them fully conscious - to allow fear, anger or whatever to be fully conscious.

　　The tendency of repression is powerful. We are panicked by conditions and then they can become a threat; we try to push them away, but they come back. So if we find that conditions keep coming up in our lives, then we have to consider: "Am I really allowing them to be conscious, or am I pushing them away

　　..." This balance between indulgence and repression is hard to find, although actually it”s very simple - it”s just awakening to the way it is right now.

　　It”s a very moment to moment practice, so when the question comes up: "Am I repressing or am I indulging

　　" see that as doubt, just a condition in the mind: "This is the way it is now," "I feel this way now" - awakening, making things conscious. Notice that there is no desire in that, no aversion, it”s not bound up with the desire to become anything or to get rid of anything, or sensual desire. There is no movement away from this moment towards another moment. It”s timeless. It”s immediate. It”s awakening here and now.

　　Ajahn Viradhammo

　　Cittaviveka, July 1st 1989

《Bringing the Teachings Alive》全文閱讀結束。