..续本文上一页he result. When the result is to cease the cause must first cease. That”s all he said, but it was enough for Sariputta. [49]

　　Now this was a cause for the arising of Dhamma. At that time Sariputta had eyes, he had ears, he had a nose, a tongue, a body and a mind. All his faculties were intact. If he didn”t have his faculties would there have been sufficient causes for wisdom to arise for him

　　 Would he have been aware of anything

　　 But most of us are afraid of contact. Either that or we like to have contact but we develop no wisdom from it: instead we repeatedly indulge through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, delighting in and getting lost in sense objects. This is how it is. These sense bases can entice us into delight and indulgence or they can lead to knowledge and wisdom.

　　They have both harm and benefit, depending on our wisdom.

　　So now let us understand that, having gone forth and come to practice, we should take everything as practice. Even the bad things. We should know them all. Why

　　 So that we may know the truth. When we talk of practice we don”t simply mean those things that are good and pleasing to us. That”s not how it is. In this world some things are to our liking, some are not. These things all exist in this world, nowhere else. Usually whatever we like we want, even with fellow monks and novices. Whatever monk or novice we don”t like we don”t want to associate with, we only want to be with those we like. You see

　　 This is choosing according to our likes. Whatever we don”t like we don”t want to see or know about.

　　Actually the Buddha wanted us to experience these things. Lokavidu -- look at this world and know it clearly. If we don”t know the truth of the world clearly then we can”t go anywhere. Living in the world we must understand the world. The Noble Ones of the past, including the Buddha, all lived with these things, they lived in this world, among deluded people. They attained the truth right in this very world, nowhere else. They didn”t run off to some other world to find the truth. But they had wisdom. They restrained their senses, but the practice is to look into all these things and know them as they are.

　　Therefore the Buddha taught us to know the sense bases, our points of contact. The eye contacts forms and sends them "in" to become sights. The ears make contact with sounds, the nose makes contact with odors, the tongue makes contact with tastes, the body makes contact with tactile sensations, and so awareness arises. Where awareness arises is where we should look and see things as they are. If we don;t know these things as they really are we will either fall in love with them or hate them. Where these sensations arise is where we can become enlightened, where wisdom can arise.

　　But sometimes we don”t want things to be like that. The Buddha taught restraint, but restraint doesn”t mean we don”t see anything, hear anything, smell, taste, feel or think anything. That”s not what it means. If practicers don”t understand this then as soon as they see or hear anything they cower and run away. They don”t deal with things. They run away, thinking that by so doing those things will eventually lose their power over them, that they will eventually transcend them. But they won”t. They won”t transcend anything like that. If they run away not knowing the truth of them, later on the same stuff will pop up to be dealt with again.

　　For example, those practicers who are never content, be they in monasteries, forests, or mountains. They wander on "dhutanga pilgrimage" looking at this, that and the other, thinking they”ll find contentment that way. They go, and then they come back... didn”t see anything. They try going to a mountain top..."Ah! This is the spot, now I”m right." They feel at peace for a few days…

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