..续本文上一页r people. When you see them, focus on the symptoms of the body that appear externally — as when you see a child suffering pain in the process of being born, or a person suffering a disease that impairs or cripples the body, or a person suffering the pains and inconveniences of old age, or a dead person, which is something disconcerting to people the world over. When you see these things, be mindful to hold your reactions in check and reflect on your own condition — that you, too, are subject to these things — so that you will feel motivated to start right in developing the virtues that will serve you as a solid mainstay beyond the reach of birth, aging, illness, and death. Then reflect again on your own body — the "inner body" — as your next frame of reference.

　　2. The inner body: the meeting place of the six elements — earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness — the body itself forming the first four. Center your mindfulness in the body, considering it from four angles:

　　a. Consider it as a group of elements.

　　b. Separate it into its 32 parts (hair of the head, hair of the body, etc.).

　　c. Consider how the mingling of the elements leads to such forms of filthiness as saliva, mucus, blood, lymph, and pus, which permeate throughout the body.

　　d. Consider it as inconstant — it”s unstable, always changing and deteriorating; as stressful — it can”t last — no matter what good or evil you may do, it changes with every in-and-out breath; and as not-self — some of its aspects, no matter how you try to prevent them, can”t help following their own inherent nature.

　　The body, viewed from any of these four aspects, can serve as a frame of reference. But although our frame of reference may be right, if we aren”t circumspect and fully aware, or if we practice in a misguided way, we can come to see wrong as right to the point where our perceptions become skewed. For example, if we see an old person, a sick person or a dead person, we may become so depressed and despondent that we don”t want to do any work at all, on the level of either the world or the Dhamma, and instead want simply to die so as to get away from it all. Or in examining the elements — earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness — we may come to the conclusion that what”s inside is nothing but elements, what”s outside is nothing but elements, and we can”t see anything above and beyond this, so that our perception of things becomes skewed, seeing that there”s no "man," no "woman." This is what can lead monks to sleep with women and abandon their precepts, eating food in the evening and drinking alcohol, thinking that it”s only elements eating elements so there shouldn”t be any harm. Or we may consider the filthy and unattractive aspects of the body until we”ve reach a point where things seem so foul and disgusting that we can”t eat at all and simply want to escape. Some people, on reaching this point, want to jump off a cliff or into the river to drown. Or we may view things as inconstant, stressful, and not-self, but if we act deludedly, without being circumspect in our discernment, the mind can become a turmoil. If our foundation — our concentration — isn”t strong enough for this sort of investigation, it can lead to a distressing sense of alienation, of being trapped in the body. This is called skewed perception, and it can lead to corruptions of insight (vipassanupakkilesa), all because we aren”t circumspect and skilled in training the mind. We may feel that we already know, but knowledge is no match for experience, as in the old saying,

　　"To know is no match for having done.

　　A son is no match for his father."

　　So in dealing with this frame of reference, if we want our path to be smooth and convenient, with no stumps or thorns, we should focus on the sensati…

《The Path to Peace and Freedom for the Mind》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…