..续本文上一页d to gain a sense of how to adjust and improve it so that it”s well-proportioned throughout the body — to the point where it flows evenly without faltering, so that it” s comfortable in slow and out slow, in fast and out fast, long, short, heavy, or refined. Get so that both the in-breath and the out-breath are comfortable no matter what way you breathe, so that — no matter when — you immediately feel a sense of ease the moment you focus on the breath. When you can do this, physical results will appear: a sense of ease and lightness, open and spacious. The body will be strong, the breath and blood will flow unobstructed and won”t form an opening for disease to step in. The body will be healthy and awake.
As for the mind, when mindfulness and alertness are the causes, a still mind is the result. When negligence is the cause, a mind distracted and restless is the result. So we must try to make the causes good, in order to give rise to the good results we”ve referred to. If we use our powers of observation and evaluation in caring for the breath, and are constantly correcting and improving it, we”ll develop awareness on our own, the fruit of having developed our concentration higher step by step.
* * *
When the mind is focused with full circumspection, it can let go of concepts of the past. It sees the true nature of its old preoccupations, that there”s nothing lasting or certain about them. As for the future lying ahead of us, it”s like having to sail a small boat across the great wide sea: There are bound to be dangers on all sides. So the mind lets go of concepts of the future and comes into the present, seeing and knowing the present.
The mind stands firm and doesn”t sway.
Unawareness falls away.
Knowledge arises for an instant and then disappears, so that you can know that there in the present is a void.
A void.
You don”t latch on to world-fashionings of the past, world-fashionings of the future, or dhamma-fashionings of the present. Fashionings disappear. Avijja — counterfeit, untrue awareness — disappears. ”True” disappears. All that remains is awareness: ”buddha... buddha...”
The factor that fashions the body, i.e., the breath; the factors that fashion speech, i.e., thoughts that formulate words; and the factor that fashions the mind, i.e., thinking, all disappear. But awareness doesn”t disappear. When the factor that fashions the body moves, you”re aware of it. When the factor that fashions speech moves, you”re aware of it. When the factor that fashions the mind moves, you”re aware of it, but awareness isn”t attached to anything it knows. In other words, no fashionings can affect it. There”s simply awareness. At a thought, the mind appears, fashionings appear. If you want to use them, there they are. If not, they disappear on their own, by their very nature. Awareness is above everything else. This is release.
Meditators have to reach this sort of awareness if they”re to get good results. In training the mind, this is all there is. Complications are a lot of fuss and bother, and tend to bog down without ever getting to the real point.
The Refinements of the Breath
August 3, 1956
When we sit in meditation, the important point is to be observant of the levels of the breath. The breath in the body has three levels: common, refined and profound.
1. The common breath is the breath we breathe into the body. It comes in two sorts. (a) That which is mixed with impure or polluted air: When it goes into the lungs, it doesn”t all come out. The dregs hang on in the body. And when these dregs mix with the blood in the heart, they can cause the blood to be harmful to the body, giving rise to diseases. But these diseases don”t need to be treated with medicine. If we treat them using the breath, they”ll go away. (b) The oth…
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