..续本文上一页. The mind simply knows it clearly.

　　If we separate unhappiness from the mind, does that mean there is no suffering, that we don”t experience it

　　 Yes, we experience it, but we know mind as mind, feeling as feeling. We don”t cling to that feeling or carry it around. The Buddha separated these things through knowledge. Did he have suffering

　　 He knew the state of suffering but he didn”t cling to it, so we say that he cut suffering off. And there was happiness too, but he knew that happiness, if it”s not known, is like a poison. He didn”t hold it to be himself. Happiness was there through knowledge, but it didn”t exist in his mind. Thus we say that he separated happiness and unhappiness from his mind.

　　When we say that the Buddha and the Enlightened Ones killed defilements, 11 it”s not that they really killed them. If they had killed all defilements then we probably wouldn”t have any! They didn”t kill defilements; when they knew them for what they are, they let them go. Someone who”s stupid will grab them, but the Enlightened Ones knew the defilements in their own minds as a poison, so they swept them out. They swept out the things which caused them to suffer, they didn”t kill them. One who doesn”t know this will see some things, such as happiness, as good, and then grab them, but the Buddha just knew them and simply brushed them away.

　　But when feeling arises for us we indulge in it, that is, the mind carries that happiness and unhappiness around. In fact they are two different things. The activities of mind, pleasant feeling, unpleasant feeling and so on, are mental impressions, they are the world. If the mind knows this it can equally do work involving happiness or unhappiness. Why

　　 Because it knows the truth of these things. Someone who doesn”t know them sees them as equal. If you cling to happiness it will be the birth-place of unhappiness later on, because happiness is unstable, it changes all the time. When happiness disappears, unhappiness arises.

　　The Buddha knew that because both happiness and unhappiness are unsatisfactory, they have the same value. When happiness arose he let it go. He had right practice, seeing that both these things have equal values and drawbacks. They come under the Law of Dhamma, that is, they are unstable and unsatisfactory. Once born, they die. When he saw this, right view arose, the right way of practice became clear. No matter what sort of feeling or thinking arose in his mind, he knew it as simply the continuous play of happiness and unhappiness. He didn”t cling to them.

　　When the Buddha was newly enlightened he gave a sermon about indulgence in Pleasure and Indulgence in Pain. "Monks! Indulgence in Pleasure is the loose way, Indulgence in Pain is the tense way." These were the two things that disturbed his practice until the day he was enlightened, because at first he didn”t let go of them. When he knew them, he let them go, and so was able to give his first sermon.

　　So we say that a meditator should not walk the way of happiness or unhappiness, rather he should know them. Knowing the truth of suffering, he will know the cause of suffering, the end of suffering and the way leading to the end of suffering. And the way out of suffering is meditation itself. To put it simply, we must be mindful.

　　Mindfulness is knowing, or presence of mind. Right now what are we thinking, what are we doing

　　 What do we have with us right now

　　 We observe like this, we are aware of how we are living. When we practice like this wisdom can arise. We consider and investigate at all times, in all postures. When a mental impression arises that we like to know it as such, we don”t hold it to be anything substantial. It”s just happiness. When unhappiness arises we know that it”s Indulgence in Pain, it”s not the path of a med…

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