..续本文上一页like a person without a home. Homeless people have nothing but hardship. The sun, wind, rain, and dirt are bound to leave them constantly soiled because they have nothing to act as shelter. To practice centering the mind is to build a home for yourself: Momentary concentration (khanika samadhi) is like a house roofed with thatch; threshold concentration (upacara samadhi), a house roofed with tile; and fixed penetration (appana samadhi), a house built out of brick. Once you have a home, you”ll have a safe place to keep your valuables. You won”t have to put up with the hardships of watching over them, the way a person who has no place to keep his valuables has to go sleeping in the open, exposed to the sun and rain, to guard those valuables -- and even then his valuables aren”t really safe.

　　So it is with the uncentered mind: It goes searching for good from other areas, letting its thoughts wander around in all kinds of concepts and preoccupations. Even if those thoughts are good, we still can”t say that we”re safe. We”re like a woman with plenty of jewelry: If she dresses up in her jewels and goes wandering around, she”s not safe at all. Her wealth might even lead to her own death. In the same way, if our hearts aren”t trained through meditation to gain inner stillness, even the virtues we”ve been able to develop will deteriorate easily because they aren”t yet securely stashed away in the heart. To train the mind to attain stillness and peace, though, is like keeping your valuables in a strongbox.

　　This is why most of us don”t get any good from the good we do. We let the mind fall under the sway of its various preoccupations. These preoccupations are our enemies, because there are times when they can cause the virtues we”ve already developed to wither away. The mind is like a blooming flower: If wind and insects disturb the flower, it may never have a chance to give fruit. The flower here stands for the stillness of the mind on the path; the fruit, for the happiness of the path”s fruition. If our stillness of mind and happiness are constant, we have a chance to attain the ultimate good we all hope for.

　　The ultimate good is like the heartwood of a tree. Other "goods" are like the buds, branches, and leaves. If we haven”t trained our hearts and minds, we”ll meet with things that are good only on the external level. But if our hearts are pure and good within, everything external will follow in becoming good as a result. Just as our hand, if it”s clean, won”t soil what it touches, but if it”s dirty, will spoil even the cleanest cloth; in the same way, if the heart is defiled, everything is defiled. Even the good we do will be defiled, for the highest power in the world -- the sole power giving rise to all good and evil, pleasure and pain -- is the heart. The heart is like a god. Good, evil, pleasure, and pain come entirely from the heart. We could even call the heart a creator of the world, because the peace and continued well-being of the world depend on the heart. If the world is to be destroyed, it will be because of the heart. So we should train this most important part of the world to be centered as a foundation for its wealth and well-being.

　　Centering the mind is a way of gathering together all its skillful potentials. When these potentials are gathered in the right proportions, they”ll give you the strength you need to destroy your enemies: all your defilements and unwise mental states. You have discernment that you”ve trained and made wise in the ways of good and evil, of the world and the Dhamma. Your discernment is like gunpowder. But if you keep your gunpowder for long without putting it into bullets -- a centered mind -- it”ll go damp and moldy. Or if you”re careless and let the fires of greed, anger, or delusion over…

《Keeping the Breath in Mind and Lessons in Samadhi》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…