..续本文上一页 wholesome mind.
The third part is pañña-wisdom or insight, summed up as:
Sacittapariyodapanaṃ
Purify the totality of mind by developing insight.
These three trainings are the teaching of all the Buddhas of the past and will be the teaching of all the Buddhas of the future. That is why it is said,
Etaṃ Buddhana sasanaṃ.
This is the teaching of all the Buddhas.
Buddha: The Super-Scientist of Peace
- by S. N. Goenka
(The following address was delivered at the United Nations on Vesākha, the full moon day of May, which is celebrated each year as the day marking the birth, the enlightenment and the passing away of Gotama the Buddha. The first part was published in the March 2003 issue of the Vipassana Newsletter. This is the concluding part of the address.)
The Practical Teaching of the Buddha
To live the life of morality is the teaching of every religion. It is the quintessence, the inner core of every spiritual teaching. However, the Buddha was not interested in merely giving sermons to live a moral life. He taught us to take the next important step of samādhi-mastery over the mind. For this one needs an object of concentration. There are many objects by which one can train the mind. The Buddha himself gave many objects, and of these, one of the most popular was one”s own respiration. He called this Ānāpānassati-developing the faculty of awareness of inhalation and exhalation. Respiration is common to all human beings belonging to any community. Nobody can have an objection to the practice of awareness of respiration. How can one label breath as Muslim or Hindu, Christian or Jewish, Buddhist or Jain, Sikh or Parsi, Caucasian or African or Asian, male or female
Ānāpānassati requires us to remain aware of the breath on the area below the nostrils and above the upper lip. It is one-pointed concentration at the middle of the upper lip-uttaroṭṭhassa vemajjhappadese.
As the mind gets concentrated on this small area, it becomes more and more sharp, more and more sensitive. After just three days of practice, one starts feeling physical sensations on this part of the body. And then, one turns to the next training of paññā, that is, wisdom or insight.
One observes sensations throughout the physical structure, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes. In doing so, one notices that the sensations are closely related to what happens in the mind. It becomes clear that every time one performs an unwholesome action, one has to generate some impurity or other in the mind. Before one kills, one has to generate immense hatred. Before one steals, one generates greed. To indulge in sexual misconduct, one has to generate immense passion. One cannot do any harm to others without first harming oneself-Pubbe hanati attānaṃ, pacchā hanati so pare. Negativities such as anger, hatred, greed, ill will, jealousy, egotism and fear make a person unhappy, miserable and violent. One becomes agitated. When one is agitated, one doesn”t keep this agitation to oneself: one starts distributing it to others, one starts harming others in society. One realizes this law of nature within the framework of one”s own mind and body.
Someone may seem outwardly happy while performing unwholesome actions but their real situation is like burning charcoal covered with a thick layer of ash-bhasmacchannova pāvako. One is burning inside because of the mental negativities, and yet one is totally ignorant of what is happening inside.
This is avijjā, moha, ignorance. For the Buddha, ignorance is not lack of knowledge of some philosophical belief. It is lack of knowledge of what is happening within oneself. One doesn”t understand how one becomes miserable because of this veil of ignoranc…
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