..续本文上一页and simply bear witness to that which arises. Once you have trained your awareness to abide as ”that which knows”, and have investigated the mind and developed insight into the truth about the mind and mental factors, you”ll see the mind as anatta (not self). You”ll see that ultimately all mental and physical formations are things to be let go of and it”ll be clear to you that it”s foolish to attach or give undue importance to them.
The Buddha didn”t teach us to study the mind and mental factors in order to become attached to them, he taught simply to know them as aniccam, dukkham, anatta. The essence of Buddhist practice then, is to let them go and lay them aside. You must establish and sustain awareness of the mind and mental factors as they arise. In fact, the mind has been brought up and conditioned to turn and spin away from this natural state of awareness, giving rise to sankhara which further concoct and fashion it. It has therefore become accustomed to the experience of constant mental proliferation and of all kinds of conditioning, both wholesome and unwholesome. The Buddha taught us to let go, you must first study and practice. This is in accordance with nature - the way things are. The mind is just that way, mental factors are just that way - this is just how it is.
Consider magga (the Noble Eightfold Path), which is founded on panna or Right View. If there is Right View it follows that there will be Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood and so on. These all necessarily involve mental factors, which arise out of the knowing. The knowing is like a lantern. If there is Right Knowing it will pervade every aspect of the path, giving rise to Right Intention, Right Speech and so on, just like the light of the lantern illuminating the path along which you have to travel. In the end, whatever the mind experiences, it must arise from the knowing. If this mind didn”t exist, the knowing couldn”t exist either. These are the essential characteristics of the mind and mental factors.
All this things are mental phenomena. The Buddha taught that the mind is the mind - it”s not a living being, a person, a self, an ”us” or a ”them”. The Dhamma is simply the Dhamma - it”s not a living being, a person, a self, an ”us” or a ”them”. There”s nothing, which is substantial. Whatever aspect of this inpidual existence you choose, whether it”s vedana (feelings) or sanna (perception), for example, it all comes within the range of the five khandhas (aggregates). So it should be let go of.
Meditation is like a plank of wood. Lets say vipassana (insight) is one end of the plank and samatha (calm) is the other. If you were to pick the plank up, would just one end come up or would both of them
Of course when you pick up the plank, both sides come up together. What is vipassana
What is samatha
They are the mind itself. At first the mind becomes peaceful through the practice of samatha, through samadhi (firmness of mind). By developing samadhi you can make the mind peaceful. However, if the peace of samadhi disappears, suffering arises. Why does suffering arise
Because the kind of peace which comes through samatha is itself samudaya (the Noble truth of the Origin of Suffering). It”s a cause for suffering to arise. Even though a certain state of peace has been attained, the practice is not yet finished. The Buddha saw from his own experience, that this isn”t the end of the practice. The process of becoming is not yet completely exhausted; the conditions for continued birth still exist; the practice of the Holy Life is still incomplete. Why is it incomplete
Because suffering still exists. He thus took up the calm of samatha and continued to contemplate it, investigating to gain insight until he was no longer attached to i…
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