..续本文上一页awareness is an automatic aspect of the mind that already exists and that you discover when you train in the beginning stages of practice.

　　Whatever you see, whatever you do, notice everything. Do not put the meditation aside for a rest. Some people think they can stop as soon as they come out of a period of formal practice. Having stopped formal practice, they stop being attentive, stop contemplating. Do not do it that way. Whatever you see, you should contemplate. If you see good people or bad people, rich people or poor people, watch. When you see old people or small children, youngsters or adults, contemplate all of it. This is the heart of our practice.

　　In contemplating to seek the Dharma, you should observe the characteristics, the cause and effect, the play of all the objects of your senses, big and small, white and black, good and evil. If there is thinking, simply contemplate it as thinking. All these things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and empty of self, so do not cling to them. Awareness is their graveyard; dump them all here. Then seeing the impermanence and emptiness of all things, you can put an end to suffering. Keep contemplating and examining this life.

　　Notice what happens when something good comes to you. Are you glad

　　 You should contemplate that gladness. Perhaps you use something for a while and then start to dislike it, wanting to give it or sell it to someone else. If no one comes to buy it, you may even try to throw it away. Why are we like this

　　 Our life is impermanent, constantly subject to change. You must look at its true characteristics. Once you completely understand just one of these incidents, you will understand them all. They are all of the same nature.

　　Perhaps you do not like a particular sight or sound. Make note of that-later, you may like it, you may become pleased with what formerly displeased you. Such things do happen. When you realize clearly that all such things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not self, you will dump them all and attachment will not arise. When you see that all the various things that come to you are the same, there will be only Dharma arising.

　　Once having entered this stream and tasted liberation, you will not return, you will have gone beyond wrongdoing and wrong understanding. The mind, -the heart, will have turned, will have entered the stream, and it will not be able to fall back into suffering again. How could it fall

　　 It has given up unskillful actions because it sees the danger in them and cannot again be made to do wrong in body or speech. It has entered the Way fully, knows its duties, knows its work, knows the Path, knows its own nature. It lets go of what needs to be let go of and keeps letting go without doubting.

　　All that I have said up to now has merely been words. When people come to see me, I have to say something. But it is best not to speak about these matters too much. Better to begin practice without delay. I am like a good friend inviting you to go somewhere. Do not hesitate, just get going. You won”t regret it.

　　The Leaves will Always Fall

　　Every day or two, the open grounds and walkways of the monastery must be swept clear of the leaves that fall in every Asian season. For the large open areas, the monks will team up and, with long-handled bamboo brooms extended, sweep like a dust storm, clearing all the leaves in their path. Sweeping is so satisfying.

　　All the while, the forest continues to give its teachings. The leaves fall, the monks sweep, and yet, even while the sweeping continues and the near end of a long path is being cleared, the monks can look back to the far end they have already swept and see a new scattering of leaves already starting to cover their work.

　　"Our lives are like the breath, like the growing and falling …

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