..续本文上一页t is up to me to tell them how it is: ”Ajahn Sumedho, how should I be feeling right now

　　” But we”re not telling anybody how it is; we”re being open and receptive to how it is. There”s no need to tell someone how it is when they can find out for themselves. So this two months of finding out how it is, is a valuable opportunity. Many human beings it seems, are not even aware that such a development of wisdom is possible.

　　What do we mean when we use this word wisdom

　　 From birth to death, this is the way it is. There”s always going to be a certain amount of pain, and discomfort, unpleasantness and ugliness.

　　And if we”re not aware of it as it really is - see it as Dhamma - then we tend to create a problem out of it. The span between birth and death becomes all very personal; it becomes fraught with all kinds of fears and desires and complications.

　　We suffer a lot in our society from loneliness. So much of our life is an attempt to not be lonely: ”Let”s talk to each other; let”s do things together so we won”t be lonely.” And yet inevitably, we are really alone in these human forms. We can pretend; we can entertain each other; but that”s about the best we can do. When it comes to the actual experience of life, we”re very much alone; and to expect anyone else to take away our loneliness is asking too much.

　　When there”s physical birth, notice how it makes us seem separate. We”re not physically joined to each other, are we

　　 With attachment to this body we feel separate and vulnerable; we dread being left alone and we create a world of our own that we can live in. We have all kinds of interesting companions: imaginary friends, physical friends, enemies, but the whole lot of it comes and goes, begins and ends. Everything is born and dies in our own minds. So we reflect that birth conditions death. Birth and death; beginning and ending.

　　During this retreat, this kind of reflection is highly encouraged: contemplate what birth is. Right now we can say: ”This is the result of being born; this body. It”s like this: it”s conscious and it feels, there”s intelligence, there”s memory, there”s emotion.” All these can be contemplated because they are mind objects; they are dhammas. If we attach to the body as a subject, or to opinions and views and feelings as ”me” and ”mine”, then we feel loneliness and despair; there”s always going to be the threat of separation and ending. Attachment to mortality brings fear and desire into our lives. We can feel anxious and worried even when life is quite all right. So long as there”s ignorance - avijja - regarding the true nature of things, fear is always going to dominate consciousness.

　　But anxiety is not ultimately true. It”s something we create. Worry is just that much. Love and joy and all the best in life, if we are attached to them, are going to bring the opposite along also. That”s why in meditation we practise accepting the feeling of these things. When we accept things for what they are, we”re no longer attached to them. They just are what they are; they arise and cease, they”re not a self.

　　Now from the perspective of our cultural background, how does it appear

　　 Our society tends to reinforce the view that everything is ”me” and ”mine”. ”This body is me; I look like this; I am a man; I am an American; I am 54 years old; I am an abbot.” But these are just conventions, aren”t they

　　 We”re not saying I”m not these things; rather we”re observing how we tend to complicate them by believing in the ”I am”. If we attach to them, life becomes so much more than it actually is; it becomes like a sticky web. It gets so complicated; whatever we touch sticks to us. And the longer we live the more complicated we make it. So much fear and desire comes from that commitment to ”I am” - to being somebody. Eventually th…

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