..续本文上一页 your breathing, and take at least three long inhalations and exhalations-then you can cut them off. Whatever arises, keep re-establishing your attention. Do not take anything as yourself-everything is only a vision or a construction of the mind, a deception that causes you to like, grasp, or fear. When you see such constructions, do not get involved. All unusual experiences and visions are of value to the wise person but harmful to the unwise. Keep practicing until you are not stirred by them.
If you can trust your mind in this way, there is no problem. If it wants to be glad, you just know that this gladness is uncertain, unstable. Do not fear your visions or other experiences in practice, just learn to work with them. In this way, defilement can be used to train the mind, and you come to know the natural state of the mind, free from extremes, clear, unattached.
As I see it, the mind is like a single point, the center of the universe, and mental states are like visitors who come to stay at this point for short or long periods of time. Get to know these visitors well. Become familiar with the vivid pictures they paint, the alluring stories they tell, to entice you to follow them. But do not give up your seat-it is the only chair around. If you continue to occupy it unceasingly, greeting each guest as it comes, firmly establishing yourself in awareness, transforming your mind into the one who knows, the
one who is awake, the visitors will eventually stop coming back. If you give them real attention, how many times can these visitors return
Speak with them here, and you will know every one of them well. Then your mind will at last be at peace.
Walking Meditation
Work with the walking meditation every day. To begin, clasp the hands in front of you, maintaining a very slight tension that compels the mind to be attentive. Walk at a normal pace from one end of the path to the other, knowing yourself all the way. Stop and return. If the mind wanders, stand still and bring it back. If the mind still wanders, fix attention on the breath. Keep coming back. Mindfulness thus developed is useful at all times.
Change positions when physically tired, but not as soon as you feel an impulse to change. First, know why you want to change-is it physical fatigue, mental restlessness, or laziness
Notice the sufferings of the body. Learn to watch openly and carefully. Effort in practice is a matter of the mind, not the body. It means constantly being aware of what goes on in the mind without following like and dislike as they arise. Sitting or walking all night is not in itself energetic effort if one is not aware in this way.
As you walk from one predetermined point to another, fix the eyes about two yards in front of you and fix the attention on the actual feeling of the body, or repeat the mantra "Buddho." Do not fear things that arise in the mind; question them, know them. The truth is more than thoughts and feelings, so do not believe and get caught by them. See the whole process arising and ceasing. This understanding gives rise to wisdom.
When consciousness arises, we should have awareness of it at the same time, like a light bulb and its light. If you are not alert, the hindrances will catch hold of the mind-only concentration can cut through them. Just as the presence of a thief prevents negligence with our possessions, so the reminder of the hindrances should prevent negligence in our concentration.
Who Is Sick
Late in the spring of 1979, Achaan Chah visited the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, Massachusetts. He taught there for ten days and each afternoon would go for a walk around the grounds. Seeing all the students out on the lawns doing slow walking meditation, he remarked that the meditation center looked like a m…
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