..续本文上一页courage it. The only people he praised were the ones who were able to liberate themselves from suffering.
To accomplish this requires training, and the tools and equipment to get the job done are generosity, virtue, samadhi, and wisdom. We have to take them up and train with them. Together they form a Path inclining inwards, and wisdom is the first step. This Path cannot mature if the mind is encrusted with defilements, but if we are stout-hearted and strong, the Path will eliminate these impurities. However, if it”s the defilements that are stout-hearted and strong they will destroy the Path. Dhamma practice simply involves these two forces battling it out incessantly until the end of the road is reached. They engage in unremitting battle until the very end.
THE DANGERS OF ATTACHMENT
Using the tools of practice entails hardship and arduous challenges. We rely on patience, endurance and going without. We have to do it ourselves, experience it for ourselves, realize it ourselves. Scholars, however, tend to get confused a lot. For example, when they sit in meditation, as soon as their minds experience a teeny bit of tranquility they start to think, ”Hey, this must be first Jhana”.[4] This is how their minds work. And once those thoughts arise the tranquility they”d experienced is shattered. Soon they start to think that it must have been the second Jhana they”d attained. Don”t think and speculate about it. There aren”t any billboards which announce which level of - samadhi we”re experiencing. The reality is completely different. There aren”t any signs like the road signs that tell you, ”This way to Wat Nong Pah Pong.” That”s not how I read the mind. It doesn”t announce.
Although a number of highly esteemed scholars have written descriptions of the first, second, third, and fourth Jhanas, what”s written is merely external information. If the mind actually enters these states of profound peace, it doesn”t know anything about those written descriptions. It knows, but what it knows isn”t the same as the theory we study. If the scholars try to clutch their theory and drag it into their meditation, sitting and pondering, ”Hmmm ... what could this be
Is this first Jhana yet
” There! The peace is shattered, and they don”t experience anything of real value. And why is that
Because there is desire, and once there”s craving what happens
The mind simultaneously withdraws out of the meditation. So it”s necessary for all of us to relinquish thinking and speculation. Abandon them completely. Just take up the body, speech and mind and delve entirely into the practice. Observe the workings of the mind, but don”t lug the Dhamma books in there with you. Otherwise everything becomes a big mess, because nothing in those books corresponds precisely to the reality of the way things truly are.
People who study a lot, who are full of theoretical knowledge, usually don”t succeed in Dhamma practice. They get bogged down at the information level. The truth is, the heart and mind can”t be measured by external standards. If the mind is getting peaceful, just allow it to be peaceful. The most profound levels of deep peace do exist. Personally, I didn”t know much about the theory of practice. I”d been a monk for three years and still had a lot of questions about what samadhi actually was. I kept trying to think about it and figure it out as I meditated, but my mind became even more restless and distracted than it had been before! The amount of thinking actually increased. When I wasn”t meditating it was more peaceful. Boy, was it difficult, so exasperating! But even though I encountered so many obstacles, I never threw in the towel. I just kept on doing it. When I wasn”t trying to do anything in particular, my mind was relatively at ease. But whenever I de…
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