..续本文上一页o stay for good. If you”re intelligent, you won”t take the things that you”ve already spit out and put them back in your mouth again.

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　　Passion and craving are like eating and swallowing, or gathering in. Dispassion is like spitting out or throwing away. If you grasp after things that have gotten away from you or haven”t reached you yet, that”s craving and passion. Dispassion is like when food touches your tongue, you notice it immediately and spit it out before it gets swallowed.

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　　When the Buddha was still a lay person, he tried to track down the source of true happiness. He asked himself, "Does happiness come from being wealthy

　　" But when he looked at wealth, he saw that it had its drawbacks. So he turned to learning, but learning also had its drawbacks. He turned to power, but he saw that power involved killing and war. So he contemplated things back and forth like this, asking himself what he could do to find true happiness. Finally he realized that happiness comes from pain, pain comes from happiness. The world has to keep spinning around like this. And when something spins around, it has to have an axle — otherwise, how could it spin

　　 So when there”s something that spins, there also has to be something that doesn”t spin. He kept contemplating this until he found the source of all spinning and not spinning, which lies right here in the heart.

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　　There are two kinds of knowing: true knowing and imitation knowing. True knowing is what stays right here and now, without going anywhere else. You know when you”re standing, you know when you”re lying down, speaking, thinking, etc. As for imitation knowing, that”s the knowledge that goes after labels and perceptions. Labels are an act of knowing, but they”re not the knowing itself. They”re like the shadow of knowing. True knowing is being mindful of the present, seeing causes and effects. This is discernment.

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　　Knowing in line with labels, in line with books or with what people say, is imitation knowing, not the real thing. It”s like the shadow of knowing. Real knowing is the knowing that arises within yourself. It”s paccattam, i.e., entirely personal. It”s the kind of knowing that can”t be taught and can”t be told. It has to arise within you. Only then will you know what”s inconstant, stressful, and not-self; and what”s constant, easeful, and self. Change-of-lineage knowledge (gotarabhu-ñana) sees both sides and lets go of both. The truth of the Dhamma is Dhammathiti, the aspect of mind that stays in place without changing. The movements and characteristics of the mind are simply shadows or imitations of knowing. In practicing the Dhamma, you want true knowing. If you don”t really practice, you”ll meet up only with the shadows of the Dhamma. For this reason we should practice so that true knowing will appear within us.

　　§ Dhammathiti is something that by its nature stays in place. It doesn”t change or waver, rise or fall in line with the mental objects that come into contact. It”s the mind released from suffering and stress, the mind that stays in line with its true nature. Even though there may be thinking or talking or acting in all kinds of ways, the mind simply is aware. It doesn”t show any symptoms of changing from its primal nature. Say, for example, that we place a glass here, without anyone or anything touching it or moving it. It will stay right there for ten years, one hundred years, without breaking. The mind that”s Dhammathiti is just like that. Or you can say that it”s like writing the number 1 without changing it into anything else. It will have to stay the same 1 it was in the first place. This is called Dhammathiti.

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　　Always contemplate things in terms of inconstancy, stress, and not-self — but you also have to look at them in terms of constancy, ease, and self as well. You have to look at things from both sides, and not just at their shortcomings. You have to look at their uses, too, but you can”t let yourself get attached to either side. Otherwise you”ll be like a person with one eye: Constancy, ease, and self will be able to sneak up and hit you over the head without your realizing it.

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　　Insight has two sides: the side that sees in line with what we”re taught and the side that sees in the other direction. Seeing in line with what people say can turn into a corruption of insight. Seeing in the other direction means seeing in line with things they don”t say. Wherever they say there”s inconstancy, that”s where there”s constancy. Wherever they say there”s stress, that”s where there”s ease. Wherever they say there”s not-self, that”s where there”s self. This is intuitive insight.

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　　The still calm of discernment is not something the Buddha wanted, because it”s not really calm, not really still. The ultimate happiness is something even higher than discernment.

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　　Those who have attained the transcendent — stream-winners, once-returners, nonreturners, and arahants: These terms apply, not to people, but to the mind.

《The Skill of Release - All-around Discernment》全文阅读结束。