..续本文上一页esent and guard against all thoughts of approval and disapproval. Keep the mind neutral. This is the middle way, the mental attitude that forms the Path and gives rise to another level of awareness in which you realize, for instance, how inconstant it is to be a living being: When things go well, you”re happy and pleased; when things go badly, you”re pained and upset. This awareness enables you truly to know the physical sensations and mental acts you”re experiencing and leads to a sense of disenchantment, termed nibbida-ñana. You see all fashionings as inconstant, harmful, stressful, and hard to bear, as lying beyond the control of the heart.

　　At this point, the mind disentangles itself: This is termed viraga-dhamma, dispassion. It feels no desire or attraction; it doesn”t gulp down or lie fermenting in sensations or mental acts, past, present, or future. It develops a special level of intuition that comes from within. What you never before knew, now you know; what you never before met with, now you see, through the power of mindfulness and alertness gathering in at a single point and turning into asavakkhaya-ñana, enabling you to disentangle and free yourself from mundane states of mind — in proportion to the extent of your practice — and so attain the transcendent qualities, beginning with stream-entry.

　　All of this is termed Right Concentration: being skilled at entering, staying in place, and withdrawing, giving rise to —

　　Right Intuition: correct, profound and penetrating;

　　Right View: correct views, in line with the truth;

　　Right Practice: in which you conduct yourself with full circumspection in all aspects of the triple training, with virtue, concentration, and discernment coming together in the heart.

　　This, then, is Right Concentration. For the most part, people who have attained true insight have done so in the four levels of jhana. Although there may be others who have gone wrong in the practice of jhana, we”ll achieve the proper results if we study so as to gain an understanding and adjust our practice so as to bring it into line.

　　This ends the discussion of Right Concentration.

　　All that we have discussed so far can be summarized under three headings: Right View and Right Resolve come under the heading of discernment; Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood under the heading of virtue; and Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration under the heading of concentration. So altogether we have virtue, concentration and discernment.

　　* * * * * * * *

　　The First Heading: Virtue

　　There are three levels of virtue —

　　1. Hetthima-sila: normalcy of word and deed, which consists of three kinds of bodily acts — not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual misconduct; and four kinds of speech — not lying, not speaking pisively, not saying anything coarse or abusive, not speaking idly. If we class virtue on this level according to the wording of the precepts and the groups of people who observe them, there are four — the five precepts, the eight, the ten, and the 227 precepts — all of which deal with aspects of behavior that should be abandoned, termed pahana-kicca. At the same time, the Buddha directed us to develop good manners and proper conduct in the use of the four necessities of life — food, clothing, shelter, and medicine — so that our conduct in terms of thought, word, and deed will be orderly and becoming. This aspect is termed bhavana-kicca, behavior we should work at developing correctly.

　　Observance of these precepts or rules — dealing merely with words and deeds — forms the lower or preliminary level of virtue, which is what makes us into full-fledged human beings (manussa-sampatti).

　　2. Majjhima-sila: the medium level of virtue, i.e., keeping watch over your words and deeds…

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