..续本文上一页er people or about our teachers. It”s not our business to judge them as good or bad. And that”s a relief. But what we can always do is to listen and be aware of our own conditioned reactions to anything that we are experiencing.

　　Now the five precepts provide a moral standard for the establishment of mindfulness. We can use them as standards or guidelines for actions and speech. They will help us to be mindful. Whereas, the idea of being free and doing whatever we want so long as we are mindful is just an ideal, isn”t it

　　 A ”right but not

　　true” problem: it”s right, but not necessarily true all the time. If we grasp such an idea, we can condone anything. For example, we might think that one can be very mindful while robbing a bank or performing the perfect murder! But, without a moral standard to reflect upon, it is simply the attentiveness of an animal in danger of being caught. The situation itself demands mindfulness, alertness and awareness.

　　This is also true in situations where we are right on the edge of death - like mountain climbing. We forget about ourselves and our problems, we are automatically right with the moment. There is a kind of exhilaration in that state of mind because we are far from the dreariness and greyness of daily life. Our perception becomes very concentrated and one-pointed. But we can”t always live life on the edge. Most of our life is not particularly exciting. It just is what it is. We do ordinary things. We eat food, we take baths, we get dressed, undressed, we have to cook, wash the dishes, hoover the carpets, wash the car, feed the cat, go to work, and get along with our spouse, our children, our fellow workers. Then, on a special day like a holiday, we may do something exciting like rock climbing.

　　Meditation is not an extreme experience, not something really dangerous, that forces us to be mindful. We usually meditate in places that are safe. We sit, stand, walk or lie down, and we contemplate the breathing of the body. The aim is simply to observe our habitual tendencies as conditions that arise and cease. In this state, the repressed fears and emotional states can rise up, reach the surface; but rather than going off and doing some distracting thing to avoid them, we begin to allow them into consciousness. We”re more and more willing to allow what we do not like or want into consciousness and, through that willingness to see it, we let go of it. We abandon it, relinquishing that state - not suppressing it, but leaving it alone.

　　The

　　personality, the self-consciousness, the fears and the desires of the mind are what they are; we are not trying to dismiss them or add to them, or make any problems or difficulties around them. We are willing to let them be what they are. They feel this way, they have this quality; they arise and cease. In that cessation there”s the realisation of the peace, the bliss or the serenity of being, and there”s no self in it. Everyone has that potential, that ability to realise this. We describe it as seeing the Dhamma, the way it is - it”s not a matter of becoming anything at all.

　　Sometimes in meditation we experience a moment, or several moments, of complete calm and peacefulness in the mind, and we think, "I want this" but of course it goes! Then the next day when we go to meditate, we try to get it back - but we can”t, because we”re trying to get something we remember, rather than trusting and letting things fall away according to their true nature. It”s not that we”ve got to do something, or become anything at all. So then, without that pressure, without that compulsiveness of the mind, we can learn from life itself; the Truth is revealed to us.

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