..续本文上一页f passionate impulses and the pretended motives of our prejudices. Fearlessly it questions old habits often grown meaningless. It uncovers their roots, and thus helps abolish all that is seen to be harmful. In brief, bare attention lays open the minute crevices in the seemingly impenetrable structure of unquestioned mental processes. Then the sword of wisdom wielded by the strong arm of constant meditative practice will be able to penetrate these crevices, and finally to break up that structure where required. If the inner connection between the single parts of a seemingly compact whole become intelligible, they then cease to be inaccessible.

　　When the facts and details of the mind”s conditioned nature are uncovered by meditative practice, there is an increased chance to effect fundamental changes in the mind. In that way, not only those hitherto unquestioned habits of the mind, its twilight regions and its normal processes as well, but even those seemingly solid, indisputable facts of the world of matter — all will become "questionable" and lose much of their self-assurance. Many people are so impressed and intimidated by that bland self-assurance of assumed "solid facts," that they hesitate to take up any spiritual training, doubting that it can effect anything worthwhile. The application of bare attention to the task of tidying and regulating the mind will bring perceptible results — results which will dispel their doubts and encourage them to enter more fully a spiritual path.

　　The tidying or regulating function of bare attention, we should note, is of fundamental importance for the "purification of beings" mentioned by the Buddha as the first aim of satipatthana. This phrase refers, of course, to the purification of their minds, and here the very first step is to bring initial order into the functioning of the mental processes. We have seen how this is done by bare attention. In that sense, the commentary to the "Discourse on the Foundation of Mindfulness" explains the words "for the purification of beings" as follows:

　　"It is said: ”Mental taints defile beings; mental clarity purifies them.” That mental clarity comes to be by this way of mindfulness (satipatthana magga).

　　NAMING

　　We said before that bare attention "tidies up" or regulates the mind by sorting out and identifying the various confused strands of the mental process. That identifying function, like any other mental activity, is connected with a verbal formulation. In other words, "identifying" proceeds by way of expressly "naming" the respective mental processes.

　　Primitive man believed that words could exercise a magical power: "things that could be named had lost their secret power over man, the horror of the unknown. To know the name of a force, a being or an object was (to primitive man) identical with the mastery over it."[3] That ancient belief in the magical potency of names appears also in many fairy tales and myths, where the power of a demon is broken just by facing him courageously and pronouncing his name.

　　There is an element of truth in the "word-magic" of primitive man, and in the practice of bare attention we will find the power of naming confirmed. The "twilight demons" of the mind — our passionate impulses and obscure thoughts — cannot bear the simple but clarifying questions about their "names," much less the knowledge of these names. Hence, this is often alone sufficient to diminish their strength. The calmly observant glance of mindfulness discovers the demons in their hiding-places. The practice of calling them by their names drives them out into the open, into the daylight of consciousness. There they will feel embarrassed and obliged to justify themselves, although at this stage of bare attention they have not yet even been subjected to an…

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