..续本文上一页example: we are sitting here ... This is Dhamma. We don”t think of this body and mind as a personality with all its views and opinions and all the conditioned thoughts and reactions that we have acquired through ignorance. We reflect upon this moment now as: ”This is the way it is. This is Dhamma.” We bring into the mind the understanding that this physical formation is simply Dhamma. It is not self; it is not personal.

　　Also, we see the sensitivity of this physical formation as Dhamma rather than taking it personally: ”I”m sensitive”, or ”I”m not sensitive”; ”You”re not sensitive to me. Who”s the most sensitive

　　” ... ”Why do we feel pain

　　 Why did God create pain; why didn”t he just create pleasure

　　 Why is there so much misery and suffering in the world

　　 It”s unfair. People die and we have to separate from the people we love; the anguish is terrible.”

　　There is no Dhamma in that, is there

　　 It”s all self-view: ”Poor me. I don”t like this, I don”t want it to be this way. I want security, happiness, pleasure and all the best of everything; it”s not fair that I don”t have these things. It”s not fair that my parents were not arahants when I came into the world. It”s not fair that they never elect arahants to be Prime Minister of Britain. If everything were fair, they would elect arahants to be Prime Minister!”

　　I am trying to take this sense of ”It”s not right, it”s not fair” to an absurdity in order to point out how we expect God to create everything for us and to make us happy and secure. That is often what people think even if they don”t say so. But when we reflect, we see ”This is the way it is. Pain is like this and this is what pleasure is like. Consciousness is this way.” We feel. We breathe. We can aspire.

　　When we reflect, we contemplate our own humanity as it is. We don”t take it on a personal level any more or blame anyone because things are not exactly as we like or want. It is the way it is and we are the way we are. You might ask why we can”t all be exactly the same — with the same anger, the same greed and the same ignorance; without all the variations and permutations. However, even though you can trace human experience to basic things, each one of us has our own kamma to deal with — our own obsessions and tendencies, which are always different in quality and quantity to those of someone else.

　　Why can”t we all be exactly equal, have exactly the same of everything and all look alike — one androgynous being

　　 In a world like that, nothing would be unfair, no differences would be allowed, everything would be absolutely perfect and there would be no possibility of inequality. But as we recognise Dhamma, we see that, within the realm of conditions, no two things are identical. They are all quite different, infinitely variable and changing, and the more we try to make conditions conform to our ideas, the more frustrated we get. We try to create each other and a society to fit the ideas we have of how things should be, but we always end up feeling frustrated. With reflection, we realise:”This is the way it is,” this is the way things have to be — they can only be this way.

　　Now that is not a fatalistic or negative reflection. It is not an attitude of: ”That”s the way it is and there”s nothing you can do about it.” It is a very positive response of accepting the flow of life for what it is. Even if it is not what we want, we can accept it and learn from it.

　　* * * *

　　We are conscious, intelligent beings with retentive memory. We have language. Over the past several thousand years, we have developed reason, logic and discriminative intelligence. What we must do is figure out how to use these capacities as tools for realisation of Dhamma rather than as personal acquisitions or personal problems. People who develop their discrimin…

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