..续本文上一页t to the beauty parlour, they take it to the hair dressers, they wash it, they preen it, they try hard to make it look nice. "This is important, this is me. It”s my selfimage." Such people think that it”s very important what they look like. They think that it creates their happiness. Other (wiser) people say how stupid they are. Other people tell the truth. The point is that if you take the body to be you, you will want to control it. Some people get upset when they start to get old and ugly and smelly. They start to get upset when they get sick, because they realise they can”t control this body.

　　Some people who I”ve seen dying try and control their body to the very end. To be with someone when they are dying, and to see them struggling for the last breath, and trying to control everything, this is one of the saddest things to see in life. This is real suffering. Then you see those other people, who have more wisdom, those who can let go and not struggle at death. Realising that this body is not theirs any more, they don”t care about it any more, and they don”t try to control it. The ”controller” has gone. When this controlling has gone, then so much peace, ease and freedom naturally arises in the mind.

　　Achievements are Not Yours

　　Even deeper than the body is the stuff of the mind. First of all, let us consider the objects of the mind. So often people identify themselves with their thoughts, or with the perceptions or objects, which come up in their minds. For example, it”s so easy to actually take one”s achievements to be ”me”, or to be ”mine”. If one takes any achievements to be ”me”, or to be ”mine”, the inevitable result of that is pride, and the attachment to praise. How much suffering results from pride

　　 Every time one does something wrong, one will feel that there is some problem there. Very often because of pride, when one does something wrong, one may even break the precepts[5] and lie, just out of taking one”s abilities to be ”me”, or to be ”mine”. That”s why in the world when someone makes a mistake they usually say, "I wasn”t feeling my self today". "When I do something right, that”s the real me."

　　People often say that speaking in public is one of the most terrifying things that one can do. This kind of fear is always because of some attachment. One then needs to ask the question: "Fear of what

　　" "Fear of losing what

　　" It”s always fear of losing what is called ”reputation”. That is to say, the delusions about what one takes oneself to be. All of these things are just conditioned. If I give good talks, it”s just because I”ve had a lot of practice that”s all. If I give bad talks, that has nothing to do with me either. Maybe it is because the tea isn”t strong enough. It has nothing to do with me. Isn”t that marvellous, to take away the sense of self from whatever one does

　　 Then there”s no sense of guilt, no sense of fear, of remorse. One doesn”t go back afterwards and say, "What I did today was really rotten and horrible". It”s just conditioning, that”s all.

　　If one takes any success in meditation to be because of one”s own abilities, then one misunderstands the law of causality, the law of cause and effect. For example, any skill in meditation that I have is nothing to do with me, it”s just because of causes. It”s not one”s abilities or inabilities that stop success in meditation. Never think, "I can" or "I can”t", that is just coming from a sense of self. Create the causes. Once the causes are there, then one will be able to experience jhanas[6], one will be able to get Enlightened. When one gets to be skilled in creating the causes for deep meditation, creating the causes for insight, and creating the causes for liberation, then one will understand what bhavana (development of the mind) really means.

　　Thoughts are N…

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