..续本文上一页ge numbers. If you were to count them, you”d have whole coops of chickens, herds of cattle, and half a sea”s worth of fish. Our stomach is such a tiny thing, and yet no matter how much you eat you can never keep it full. And you have to feed it hot things, too, like the denizens of purgatory who have to live with fire and flame. If there”s no fire, they can”t live. So there”s a big copper frying pan for them. All the various spirits we”ve eaten gather in the big copper frying pan of our stomach, where they”re consumed by the fires of digestion, and then they haunt us: Their powers penetrate throughout our flesh and blood, giving rise to passion, aversion, and delusion, making us squirm as if we were burned by the fires of purgatory, too.

　　So look at the body. Whose is it

　　 Is it really yours

　　 Where did it come from

　　 No matter how much you care for it, it”s not going to stay with you. It”ll have to go back to where it came from: the properties of earth, water, fire, and wind. The fact that it”s able to stay for a while depends entirely on the breath. When there”s no more breath to it, it starts to decay, and no one wants it then. You won”t be able to take it with you when you go. No one can take his arms, legs, feet, or hands along with him. This is why we say that the body is not-self. It belongs to the world. As for the mind, it”s the one that does good and evil, and will be reborn in line with its kamma. The mind is what doesn”t die. It”s the one that experiences all pleasure and pain.

　　So when you realize this, you should do as much good as you can for your own sake. The Buddha felt compassion for us and taught us in this way, but we don”t feel much compassion for ourselves. We prefer to fill ourselves with suffering. When other people teach us, it”s no match for our teaching ourselves, for other people will teach us only once in a while. The possibility of being a common animal, a human being, a heavenly being, or of reaching nibbana all lie within us, so we have to choose which one we want.

　　The good you do is what will go with you in the future. This is why the Buddha taught us to meditate, to contemplate the body to give rise to dispassion. It”s inconstant, stressful, and nothing of ours. You borrow it for a while and then have to return it. The body doesn”t belong to the mind, and the mind doesn”t belong to the body. They”re separate things that depend on each other. When we can see this, we have no more worries or attachments. We can let go of the body, and three hunks of rust — self-identity views, attachments to precepts and practices, and uncertainty in the Path — will fall from our heart. We”ll see that all good and evil come from the heart. If the heart is pure, that”s the highest good in the world.

　　§ Someone once came to Ajaan Lee with a problem. Some of his friends had said to him, "If the body”s not-self, why can”t we hit you

　　" Ajaan Lee said to answer them by saying, "Look. It”s not mine. I”ve borrowed it, so I have to take good care of it. I can”t let anyone else mistreat it."

　　*

　　The Dhamma doesn”t belong to anyone. It”s common property, like unsettled land: If we don”t lay claim to it by developing it, it”s simply vacant, uncleared land without any crops. If we want to lay claim to it, we have to develop it in line with established principles if we want it really to be ours. When difficulties arise — poverty, pain, illness, and death — we”ll then have something to protect us. But if we haven”t followed the established principles, then we”ll put the blame on the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and inner worth in general for not helping us when these things arise. And that will discourage us from developing any inner worth at all.

　　The mind is the most important factor in life, the most important factor in the world, f…

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