..续本文上一页he monks, it was only a little bit. He simply went through the motions of putting food in the monks” bowls, taking the precepts, listening to the sermon, but his mind was focused on eating murrel-fish curry with his friend. So he didn”t get any of the good results that he should have from his actions. This is why it”s said that evil thoughts cancel out our goodness. Even if we”re doing good, thoughts of this sort cut off our goodness, like a palm tree or a coconut tree with its crown cut off. Or a banana tree that has borne fruit: it won”t be able to grow any further, to bear flowers or produce any more fruit. People who think in ways that are evil, even if they do good, don”t meet with any progress in life. They meet with nothing but failure. This is called demeritorious fabrication, another kind of demon that prevents us from succeeding at giving rise to goodness.
The third kind of mental fabrication is thinking that”s neutral, that isn”t yet good or evil. This kind of thinking can also be a demon of defilement. Say, for instance, that we plan to work on our farm. "We don”t have time to go to the monastery," we tell ourselves. "We don”t yet have enough to eat." Or if we plan to go selling things. "If we go to the monastery, we won”t have time to get a good return." Or we spend our time thinking about some important business we have to do, that we”ll have to do this and say that. Or we think about going out to cruise around and relax a bit. When we think in this way, it takes up the time we can use to develop goodness within ourselves. We keep putting it off. In what way
When we”re children, we tell ourselves that we can wait until we”re older. We”re not going to die anytime soon, so we should take the time to study instead. When we become young adults, we tell ourselves that we can wait until we get married. Once we get married and get ourselves established in our career, we tell ourselves to wait until our children are grown and they get married. Going to the monastery can wait until we”ve aged a bit. We keep on putting it off and turn ourselves into nice sweet pigs for Mara to swallow down easily without our even realizing it.
Finally, if we really do survive until old age, our children get worried and try to dissuade us from going. "Mom, don”t go to the monastery. You”re old. You”ll suffer all sorts of hardships." And we believe them. "If you feel faint or get sick, it”s going to be hard for you." Your eyes get so that you can”t see, your ears get so that you can”t hear. You can”t hear the sermons, can”t hear when they”re giving the precepts. Your eyes, your ears, every path for doing good gets closed off and sealed up tight.
This is what happens to people who get all wrapped up in their work — worried about how they”re going to eat, sleep, and live; worried about wealth and poverty to the point where they can”t develop any skillfulness and see it through. These ways of thinking are a type of mental fabrication that fools us, trips us up, pulls us back, ties us down. That”s why they count as a type of Mara, as demons of defilement.
The demon of defilement on the fourth level is ignorance, not being acquainted with things. We aren”t acquainted with suffering and stress; aren”t acquainted with the cause of stress; aren”t acquainted with the cessation of stress or with the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress. Our not being acquainted with these four noble truths is one aspect of ignorance. Another aspect is not knowing which affairs are past, which ones are future, and which ones are present. These three, plus the four noble truths, add up to seven. And then there”s not knowing ignorance itself, which makes eight. These forms of unawareness are called avijja, or ignorance.
What this all boils down to is not…
《The Demons of Defilement》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…