..续本文上一页t doesn”t become bad as well. That”s how it is when there is clear insight into one”s nature. There is understanding that this is essentially a substance less state of affairs.
The Buddha”s insight saw it all as impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self. He wants us to fully comprehend in the same way. The ”knowing” then knows in accordance with truth. When it knows happiness or sorrow, it remains unmoved. The emotion of happiness is a form of birth. The tendency to become sad is a form of death. When there”s death there is birth, and what is born has to die. That which arises and passes away is caught in this unremitting cycle of becoming. Once the meditators mind comes to this state of understanding, no doubt remains about whether there is further becoming and rebirth. There”s no need to ask anyone else.
The Buddha comprehensively investigated conditioned phenomena and so was able to let it all go. The five khandas were let go of, and the knowing carried on merely as an impartial observer of the process. If he experienced something positive, he didn”t become positive along with it. He simply observed and remained aware. If he experienced something negative, he didn”t become negative. And why was that
Because his mind had been cut free from such causes and conditions. He”d penetrated the Truth. The conditions leading to rebirth no longer existed. This is the knowing that is certain and reliable. This is a mind that is truly at peace. This is what is not born, doesn”t age, doesn”t get sick, and doesn”t die. This is neither cause nor effect, nor dependent on cause and effect. It is independent of the process of causal conditioning. The causes then cease with no conditioning remaining. This mind is above and beyond birth and death, above and beyond happiness and sorrow, above and beyond both good and evil. What can you say
It”s beyond the limitations of language to describe it. All supporting conditions have ceased and any attempt to describe it will merely lead to attachment. The words used then become the theory of the mind.
Theoretical descriptions of the mind and its workings are accurate, but the Buddha realized that this type of knowledge was relatively useless. We understand something intellectually and then believe it, but it”s of no real benefit. It doesn”t lead to peace of mind. The knowing of the Buddha leads to letting go. It results in abandoning and renunciation.
Because it”s precisely this mind that leads us to get involved with both what”s right and what”s wrong. If we”re smart we get involved with those things that are right. If we”re stupid we get involved with those things that are wrong. Such a mind is the world, and the Blessed One took the, things of this world to examine this very world. Having come to know the world as it actually was, he was then known as the ”One who clearly comprehends the world.”
Concerning this issue of samatha and vipassana, the important thing is to develop these states in our own hearts. Only when we genuinely cultivate them ourselves will we know what they actually are. We can go and study what all the books say about psychological factors of the mind, but that kind of intellectual understanding is useless for actually cutting off selfish desire, anger, and delusion. We only study the theory about selfish desire, anger, and delusion, merely describing the various characteristics of these mental defilements: ”Selfish desire has this meaning; anger means that; delusion is defined as this.” Only knowing their theoretical qualities, we can talk about them only on that level. We know and we are intelligent, but when these defilements actually appear in our minds, do they correspond with the theory or not
When, for instance, we experience something undesirable do we react and get in…
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