..续本文上一页sion that there is in reality nothing that we can grasp at and cling to. Everyone will come to realize that all things are impermanent, unsatisfactory and devoid of any self-entity, that none of them are worth becoming infatuated with. It is up to us to have the sense to give them up, to have right views, in keeping with the Buddha”s teaching. A person who has done this is fit to be called a true Buddhist. Though he may never have been ordained nor even taken the precepts, he will have truly penetrated to Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. His mind will be identical with that of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. It will be uncontaminated, enlightened and tranquil, simply by virtue of not grasping at anything as worth getting or worth being. So a person can readily become a genuine, full-fledged Buddhist simply by means of this technique of being observant, perceiving impermanence, unsatisfactoriness selfhood until he comes to realize that there is nothing worth getting or being.

　　The lowest forms of evil originate in and are powered by desire to get and to be; milder forms of evil consist of actions less strongly motivated by desire; and all goodness consists of action based on the finest, most tenuous sort of desire, the desire to get or to be, on a good level. Even in its highest forms, good is based on desire which, however, is so fine and tenuous that people don”t consider it in any way a bad thing. The fact is, however, that good action can never bring complete freedom from suffering. A person who has become free from desire, that is to say an Arahant, is one who has ceased acting on desire and has become incapable of doing evil. His actions lie outside the categories of good and evil. His mind is free and has transcended the limitations of good and evil. Thus he is completely free of suffering. This is a fundamental principle of Buddhism. Whether or not we are able to do it or wish to do it, this is the way to liberation from suffering. Today we may not yet want it; some day we are bound to want it. When we have completely given up evil and have done good to our utmost, the mind will still be weighed down with various kinds of attenuated desire, and there is no known way of getting rid of them other than by striving to go beyond the power of desire, to go beyond the desire to get or be anything, bad or good. If there is to be Nirvana, freedom from suffering of every kind, there has to be absolute and complete absence of desire.

　　In short, to know what is what in the ultimate sense is to see everything as impermanent, unsatisfactory and devoid of selfhood. When we really know this, the mind comes to see things in such a way that it does not cling to get or to be anything. But if we have to become involved in things in the ways known as "having" and "being," then we become involved intelligently, motivated by insight, and not by desire. Acting thus, we remain free from suffering.

《Three Universal Characteristics》全文阅读结束。