..续本文上一页 extraordinary, but the peace of the mind, the unconditioned, is so ordinary that nobody ever notices it. It is there all the time, but we don”t ever notice it because we”re attached to the mysterious and the fascinating. We get caught up in the things that arise and pass away, the things that stimulate and depress. We get caught up in the way things seem to be — and forget. But now we”re going back to that source in meditation, to the peace, in that position of knowing. Then the world is understood for what it is, and we are no longer deluded by it.
The realization of samsara is the condition of Nibbana. As we recognize the cycles of habit and are no longer deluded by them or their qualities, we realize Nibbana. The Buddha-knowing is of just two things: the conditioned and the unconditioned. It is an immediate recognition of how things are right now, without grasping or attachment. At this moment we can be aware of the conditions of the mind, feelings in the body, what we”re seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking, and also of the emptiness of the mind. The conditioned and the unconditioned are what we can realize.
So the Buddha”s teaching is a very direct teaching. Our practice is not “to become enlightened”, but to be in the knowing, now.
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HAPPINESS, UNHAPPINESS
AND NIBBANA
The goal of buddhist meditation is Nibbana. We incline towards the peace of Nibbana and away from the complexities of the sensual realm, the endless cycles of habit. Nibbana is a goal that can be realized in this lifetime. We don”t have to wait until we die to know if it”s real.
The senses and the sensual world are the realm of birth and death. Take sight for instance: it”s dependent on so many factors — whether it”s day or night, whether or not the eyes are healthy, and so on. Yet we become very attached to the colours, shapes and forms that we perceive with the eyes, and we identify with them. Then there are the ears and sound: when we hear pleasant sounds we seek to hold onto them, and when we hear unpleasant sounds we try to turn away. With smells: we seek the pleasure of fragrances and pleasant odours, and try to get away from unpleasant ones. Also with flavours: we seek delicious tastes and try to avoid bad ones. And with touch: just how much of our lives is spent trying to escape from physical discomfort and pain, and seeking the delight of physical sensation
Finally there is thought, the discriminative consciousness. It can give us a lot of pleasure or a lot of misery.
These are the senses, the sensual world. It is the compounded world of birth and death. Its very nature is dukkha, it is imperfect and unsatisfying. You”ll never find perfect happiness, contentment or peace in the sensual world; it will always bring despair and death. The sensual world is unsatisfactory, and so we only suffer from it when we expect it to satisfy us.
We suffer from the sensual world when we expect more from it than it can possibly give: things like permanent security and happiness, permanent love and safety, hoping that our life will only be one of pleasure and have no pain in it. “If we could only get rid of sickness and disease and conquer old age.” I remember 20 years ago in the States people had this great hope that modem science would be able to get rid of all illnesses. They”d say, “All mental illnesses are due to chemical imbalances. If we can just find the right chemical combinations and inject them into the body, schizophrenia will disappear.” There would be no more headaches or backaches. We would gradually replace all our internal organs with nice plastic ones. I even read an article in an Australian medical journal about how they hoped to conquer ol…
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