..续本文上一页deep meditation always says that it was because they let go of something - that ”controller”, that ”doer”.

　　You can only teach the Four Noble Truths deeply once a person has done a lot of meditation, because suffering, its cause, and the end of suffering, can only be seen through practise, through letting go of suffering. When you are meditating you are letting go of the world. You are letting go of one thorn, the physical thorn of suffering, for a short while, by going into the world of the mind.

　　Revulsion Towards This Thing We Call Existence

　　The Lord Buddha kept on saying that the five aggregates are suffering. I know some monks who say it is just attachment to the five aggregates that is suffering, not the aggregates themselves. You just chanted the Anattalakkhana Sutta (the Discourse on Non-Self; Mv,I,6,38-47), a very beautiful Sutta which does say quite clearly that it”s not just the attachment to the aggregates that is suffering: it”s form (rupa), this body itself, that is suffering, feeling (vedana) is suffering, perception (sa񱡩, consciousness (vi񱡮a) and mental formations (sankhara) are suffering. All formations are suffering (sabbe sankhara dukkha; AN,III,134).

　　If you see this, you get revulsion (nibbida) to these aggregates. Revulsion means that you see that the five aggregates are just a bunch of suffering. To really see it means that you get fed up, you get disinterested, you get repulsed from these five aggregates! Not just from one of them but from all five, especially the mental aggregates. Why do you always want to go out into the world and get more feeling, more sensations, and more experience

　　 "Let”s go out and see a movie and get more experience. Let”s go out and get a wife, get a husband, and have children. You haven”t lived until you”ve had kids", so people say. That”s stupid! That”s just getting more feeling to be worried about, to be concerned about, and to torture yourself with. The whole point of the practise of Buddhism as expressed in the Third Noble Truth is to try and let go of feeling, to try and let go of perception, to try and calm mental formations and to try and eliminate consciousness, to bring it all to an end.

　　Sometimes I get into trouble when I say that consciousness is suffering. I like to use the metaphor for consciousness of a television screen. When you really investigate it, you see that this is not one ”television set” with six different programs on it, ie. sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and mental phenomena, but it”s six completely different types of televisions with only one type of program on each. This is where you actually see what consciousness truly is. When there is consciousness there will be suffering. "Consciousness is the condition for suffering" (vi񱡮a paccaya dukkha), as is stated in the Sutta Nipata (734-735). If you know this, you know the danger (adinava) in consciousness, and then you get revulsion towards consciousness.

　　The world, life, no matter how you arrange it, always ends up in suffering. You get your share of happiness, then suffering, then happiness, then suffering, in whatever realm. Even if you get into the bliss of Jhanas it doesn”t last, you have to come out afterwards. You have a beautiful two-week retreat, and when you come out, you find your disciples are going up the wall and you”ve got work to do. No matter how high you get on your retreat, you”ve got to come down.

　　This is just the nature of life. So what we actually see when we use wisdom power is that wherever we go in the world, no matter what we do, ultimately all we have is suffering. Ajahn Chah used to tell the story of the mangy dog. It itches so much that it goes into the sun to try to get rid of the mange. It doesn”t go away, so it goes into the rain. The itch …

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