..续本文上一页n, you have to be observant, checking your breath to see whether or not it”s coming in smoothly, and adjusting it to make it comfortable. Your concentration will then progress step by step and ultimately take you to the transcendent.

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　　When people criticize you, saying that you”re in a blind state of jhana, it”s still better than having no jhana to be in. And if they say that you”re like a baby chick that hasn”t come out of its egg, that”s okay, too. When a baby chick is still in the egg, no hawk can swoop down on it and catch it. When it comes out of the egg is when it becomes prey.

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　　They may say that you”re sitting in "stump" concentration, but don”t pay them any mind, because stumps can have their uses. Sometimes they grow new branches, with tender leaves you can eat. But if the stump catches fire and burns to a crisp, that”s no good at all.

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　　As we keep training the mind, it keeps getting more and more mature, more tempered and sharp, able to cut right through anything at all. Like a knife that we always keep sharpening: There”s no way it can not become sharp. So we should keep at the practice in the same way that we sharpen a knife. If any part of the body or mind isn”t in good shape, we keep adjusting it until we get good results. When good results arise, we”ll be in a state of Right Concentration. The mind will be firmly established in the present, in a state of singleness of preoccupation. We”ll gain power both in body and mind. Power in body means that wherever there are pains, we can adjust the properties of earth, water, fire, and wind to give rise to a sense of comfort, in the same way that we trim a tree. If any branches are broken or rotten, we cut them away and graft on new branches. If the new ones break, we graft on more new ones. We keep on doing this until the tree is healthy and strong.

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　　Making the mind still is good for two things: suppressing and cutting. If we can”t yet cut, we can still suppress. "Suppressing" means that there are defilements in the mind but we don”t let them flare up into action. We keep them in line. "Cutting" means that we don”t even let them arise.

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　　In putting the mind in shape we have to be observant to see what things need correcting, what things need fostering, what things need letting go. If you do nothing but correcting, it won”t work. The same holds true for just letting go. We do whatever the practice requires.

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　　When the mind is in concentration, it doesn”t get distracted by any thoughts that come passing by. It”s like a person entirely focused on his work: If anyone walks by and tries to strike up a conversation, he doesn”t want to respond or even look up from his work. In the same way, when the mind has really cut away its outside preoccupations, it”s bound to stay entirely in the object of its meditation.

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　　The mind full of defilements is like salt water in the ocean. You have to use a lot of directed thought and evaluation to filter and distill the mind to the point where the salt water turns into rain water.

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　　People in the world are like people floating in boats in the middle of the sea when it”s filled with waves and monsoon winds. Some people are so far out that they can”t even see land. Some are bobbing up and down, sometimes able to see land and sometimes not. This stands for people who are meditating "buddho." Others are beginning to come into harbor, where they can see fish traps, sailboats, and the green trees on the coast. Some have swum in so far that they”re almost ashore but not quite. As for the Buddha, he”s like someone who has reached the shore and is standing on the land, free from every kind of danger. He sees all the perils that human beings are subject to, and so he feels compassion for us, trying to help us reach the shore and …

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