..续本文上一页ing down. Thus the Noble Disciples have focused on craving and discarded it, leaving only nirodha, disbanding. The act of disbanding can be pided into two — the disbanding of physical and mental phenomena; or into three — the disbanding of sensual craving, craving for becoming, and craving for no becoming; or into four — the disbanding of feelings, labels, fashionings, and consciousness of various things. Add the disbanding of physical phenomena to the last list and you have five. We could keep going on and on: If you can let go, everything disbands. What this means simply is that the heart no longer clings to these things, no longer gives them sustenance.

　　Letting go, however, has two levels: mundane and transcendent. Mundane letting go is only momentary, not once-and-for-all, and so the disbanding that results is only mundane. It”s not yet constant. As for the path of practice, it”s not yet constant either. It”s the noble eightfold path, all right, but on the mundane level. For example:

　　1. Mundane right view: You see into stress, its causes, its disbanding, and the path to its disbanding, but your insight isn”t yet constant — for although your views are correct, you can”t yet let them go. This is thus classed as mundane right view.

　　2. Mundane right resolve: Your attitude is to renounce sensual pleasures, not to feel ill will, and not to cause harm. These three attitudes are correct, but you haven”t yet freed yourself in line with them. This is thus classed as mundane right resolve.

　　3. Mundane right speech: right speech is of four types — refraining from lies, from pisive tale-bearing, from coarse and abusive speech, and from idle, aimless chatter. You know that these forms of speech are to be avoided, but you still engage in them out of absent-mindedness. This is thus classed as mundane right speech.

　　4. Mundane right action: Your undertakings aren”t yet constantly right. Sometimes you act uprightly, sometimes not. This is classed as mundane right action.

　　5. Mundane right livelihood: Your maintenance of your livelihood by way of thought, word, and deed isn”t yet constant. In other words, it”s not yet absolutely pure — in some ways it is, and in some it isn”t. Thus it is termed mundane right livelihood.

　　6. Mundane right effort: Right effort is of four types — the effort to abandon evil that has already arisen, to avoid evil that hasn”t, to give rise to the good that hasn”t yet arisen, and to maintain the good that has. Your efforts in these four directions aren”t yet really consistent. Sometimes you make the effort and sometimes you don”t. This is thus termed mundane right effort.

　　7. Mundane right mindfulness: Right mindfulness is of four types — reference of the body, to feelings, to the mind, and to mental qualities. When you aren”t consistent in staying with these frames of reference — sometimes keeping them in mind, sometimes not — your practice is classed as inconstant. This is thus termed mundane right mindfulness.

　　8. Mundane right concentration: Right concentration is of three sorts — momentary concentration, threshold concentration, and fixed penetration. If these can suppress unwise mental qualities for only certain periods of time, they”re classed as inconstant: sometimes you have them and sometimes you don”t. This is thus termed mundane right concentration.

　　These eight factors can be reduced to three: virtue, concentration, and discernment — i.e., inconstant virtue, inconstant concentration, inconstant discernment — sometimes pure, sometimes blemished. These in turn reduce ultimately to our own thoughts, words, and deeds. We”re inconstant in thought, word, and deed, sometimes doing good, sometimes doing evil, sometimes speaking what is good, sometimes speaking what is evil, sometimes thinking what is good, som…

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