..续本文上一页st. Once it”s firmly settled, let it spread out to fill the chest. Make this breath as white and as bright as possible, and then let both the breath and the light spread throughout the body, out to every pore, until different parts of the body appear on their own as pictures. If you don”t want the pictures, take two or three long breaths and they”ll disappear. Keep your awareness still and expansive. Don”t let it latch onto or be affected by any nimitta that may happen to pass into the brightness of the breath. Keep careful watch over the mind. Keep it one. Keep it intent on a single preoccupation, the refined breath, letting this refined breath suffuse the entire body.

　　When you”ve reached this point, knowledge will gradually begin to unfold. The body will be light, like fluff. The mind will be rested and refreshed -- supple, solitary, and self-contained. There will be an extreme sense of physical pleasure and mental ease.

　　If you want to acquire knowledge and skill, practice these steps until you”re adept at entering, leaving, and staying in place. When you”ve mastered them, you”ll be able to give rise to the nimitta of the breath -- the brilliantly white ball or lump of light -- whenever you want. When you want knowledge, simply make the mind still and let go of all preoccupations, leaving just the brightness and emptiness. Think one or two times of whatever you want to know -- of things inside or outside, concerning yourself or others -- and the knowledge will arise or a mental picture will appear. To become thoroughly expert you should, if possible, study directly with someone who has practiced and is skilled in these matters, because knowledge of this sort can come only from the practice of centering the mind.

　　The knowledge that comes from centering the mind falls into two classes: mundane (lokiya) and transcendent (lokuttara). With mundane knowledge, you”re attached to your knowledge and views on the one hand, and to the things that appear and give rise to your knowledge on the other. Your knowledge and the things that give you knowledge through the power of your skill are composed of true and false mixed together -- but the "true" here is true simply on the level of mental fabrication, and anything fabricated is by nature changeable, unstable, and inconstant.

　　So when you want to go on to the transcendent level, gather all the things you know and see into a single preoccupation -- ekaggatarammana, the singleness of mental absorption -- and see that they are all of the same nature. Take all your knowledge and awareness and gather it into the same point, until you can clearly see the truth: that all of these things, by their nature, simply arise and pass away. Don”t try to latch onto the things you know -- your preoccupations -- as yours. Don”t try to latch onto the knowledge that has come from within you as your own. Let these things be, in line with their own inherent nature. If you latch onto your pre-occupations, you”re latching onto stress and pain. If you hold onto your knowledge, it will turn into the cause of stress.

　　So: A mind centered and still gives rise to knowledge. This knowledge is the path. All of the things that come passing by for you to know are stress. Don”t let the mind fasten onto its knowledge. Don”t let it fasten onto the preoccupations that appear for you to know. Let them be, in line with their nature. Put your mind at ease. Don”t fasten onto the mind or suppose it to be this or that. As long as you suppose yourself, you”re suffering from obscured awareness (avijja). When you can truly know this, the transcendent will arise within you -- the noblest good, the most exalted happiness a human being can know.

　　To summarize, the basic steps to practice are as follows:

　　1. Eliminate all bad preoc…

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