..续本文上一页se it to sift flour, you”ll get very fine flour. If the weave is coarse, the cloth won”t be worth much. If you use it to sift flour, the flour will come out all lumpy. In the same way, the more refined you can make your awareness, the more refined and valuable the results you”ll get.

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　　When the breath fills the body, awareness gets more refined. The breath that used to be fast will slow down. If it used to be strong, it will become more gentle. If it used to be heavy, it will grow light — to the point where you don”t have to breathe, because the body is full of breath, with no empty spaces. It”s like water we pour into a vessel until it”s full. That”s the point of enough; you don”t have to add any more. This sense of fullness gives rise to a feeling of coolness and clarity.

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　　There are five levels to the breath. The first level is the most blatant one: the breath that we breathe in and out. The second level is the breath that goes past the lungs and connects with the various properties of the body, giving rise to a sense of comfort or discomfort. The third level is the breath that stays in place throughout the body. It doesn”t flow here or there. The breath sensations that used to flow up and down the body stop flowing. The sensations that used to run to the front or the back stop running. Everything stops and is still. The fourth level is the breath that gives rise to a sense of coolness and light. The fifth level is the really refined breath, so refined that it”s like atoms. It can penetrate the entire world. Its power is very fast and strong.

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　　The most refined level of awareness, which is like atoms, has the same sort of power as an atomic bomb buried underground that can explode people and animals to smithereens. When the refined mind is buried in the breath, it can explode people and animals to smithereens, too. What this means is that when the mind reaches this level of refinement, its sense of "self" and "other" disappears without a trace. It lets go of its attachments to body and self, "people" and "beings." This is why we say that it”s like an atomic bomb that can explode people and animals to smithereens.

《The Skill of Release - The Basics of Breathing》全文阅读结束。