..续本文上一页omes defilement itself. So, he taught not to trust the mind.

　　Look at all our monastic regulations and training guidelines, they all make you go against the grain. When you go against the grain there is suffering. Of course, as soon as there is some suffering, you complain that the practice is too difficult and troublesome. You say you can”t do it, but the Buddha didn”t think that way. He saw that if there is suffering, it”s a sign that you are practicing in the correct way. But you understand that you are practicing in the wrong way and that this is the cause of all the difficulty and hardship. When you begin practice and start to experience some suffering, you assume that you must be doing something wrong. Everyone wants to feel good, but they”re not usually concerned about whether it”s the right way or wrong way to practice. As soon as you start going against the kilesa and the stream of tanha, it brings up suffering and you want to stop because you think you must be doing something wrong. But the Buddha taught that actually you are practicing correctly. Having stimulated the kilesa they get heated and stirred up, but you can misunderstand and think that it is you who have been stirred up.

　　The Buddha said it”s the kilesa that get stirred up. It”s because you don”t like going against the defilements that it”s difficult to progress in the practice – you don”t reflect on things. In general you tend to get stuck in one of the two extremes of kamasukhallikanuyoga (sensual indulgence) or attakilamathanuyoga (self-torture). Sensual indulgence means you want to follow all your mind”s desires: whatever you want to do, you do it. You want to follow your craving, which means you want to sit comfortably, sleep as much as you want and so on. Whatever you do, you want to be comfortable – that”s the nature of sensual indulgence. If you are attached to pleasant feelings how can you progress in the practice

　　If you aren”t indulging in sensuality or are unable to obtain satisfaction through attaching to pleasant feelings, then you tend towards the other extreme of aversion, becoming angry and dissatisfied and then suffering because of it. That is the extreme of self-torture. But this is not the way of one who is training to be peaceful and aloof from the defilements.

　　The Buddha taught not to follow these two extreme ways. He taught that when you experience pleasant feelings, you should just take note of them with awareness. If you indulge in anger or hatred, you aren”t walking in the footsteps of the Buddha. It”s following the way of ordinary unenlightened beings, not the way of the samana. One who is peaceful no longer moves in that direction, they walk the middle way. This is samma-patibada (right practice), which means the extreme of sensual indulgence is off to your left and the extreme of self-torture is off to your right.

　　So if you take up the life of a practicing monastic, you should follow the middle way. That means you don”t pay too much attention to happiness and suffering – you let them go. But at the same time you can”t avoid feeling pushed around by these two extremes: one moment you are struck from this side, another moment pulled from that side. It”s like being the clapper of a bell. They hit you from this direction and you swing in that one, back and forth, over and over. It is these two things which push you around. In his first teaching, the Buddha talked about these two extremes because this is where attachment has taken root. Half the time, desire for pleasant things hits you from this side and the rest of the time, dissatisfaction and suffering hit you from the other side. It is just these two things which bully us and push us around the whole time.

　　Walking the middle way means you let go of both the pleasant and the s…

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