..续本文上一页 of paper, the mind is like a person, knowledge is like a note: Even just this much can serve as our standard. If we”re intent on just these three things — thinking, awareness, and the breath — we”ll give rise to knowledge within ourselves that has no fixed limits and can”t possibly be told to anyone else.

　　As the Mind Turns

　　August 9, 1958

　　Every person has both awareness and unawareness, like a doctor who has studied various diseases: He”s knowledgeable about the diseases he”s studied, but not about the ones he hasn”t. We human beings have both darkness and brightness. The darkness is unawareness; the brightness, awareness.

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　　The affairs of the world keep spinning around like a wheel. We who live in the world thus have both pleasure and pain in line with worldly conditions — the wheel of rebirth. Whenever we spin around and run into the cycle of pain, we feel that the world is really narrow and confining. Whenever we spin around and run into the cycle of pleasure, we feel that the world is wide and refreshing, an inviting place to live. This happens because we spin along with the world and so we don”t really know the world as it actually is. Once we stop spinning, though, we”ll come to know the ways of the world and the true nature of the Dhamma.

　　Whenever we run along after the world, we can”t see the world easily. For this reason, we first have to stop running. Then we”ll see it clearly. If the world is spinning and we”re spinning too, how can we expect to see it

　　 It”s like two persons running: They”ll have a hard time seeing each other”s faces. If one stops but the other is running, they can see each other somewhat, but not clearly. If they”re both running, they”ll see each other even less clearly. For example, if we”re sitting or standing still and someone sneaks up, hits us over the head, and then runs off, we”ll have a hard time catching him. In the same way, if we spin around or get involved in the spinning of the world, we”ll have even less chance of knowing or seeing anything. The Dhamma thus teaches us to stop spinning the wheel of rebirth so that we can know the world clearly.

　　When an airplane propeller or any bladed wheel is spinning, we can”t see how many blades it has, what shape they are, or how fine they are. The faster it spins, the less we can see its shape. Only when it slows down or stops spinning can we see clearly what shape it has. This is an analogy for the spinning of the currents of the world — the outer world — and for our own spinning, we who live in the world.

　　The outer world refers to the earth in which we live. The world of fashionings refers to ourself: our body and mind, which are separate things but have to depend on each other, just as the world and people, which are separate things, have to depend on each other. If we had a body but not a mind, we wouldn”t be able to accomplish anything. The same would be true if we had a mind without a body. So the mind is like a person dwelling in the world. The mind is the craftsman; the body, its work of art. The mind is what creates the body. It”s what creates the world.

　　The world is something broad and always spinning, something hard to see clearly. This is why the Buddha teaches us to stop spinning after the world, and to look only at ourself. That”s when we”ll be able to see the world. We ourself are something small — a fathom long, a span thick, a cubit wide — except that our belly is big. No matter how much we eat, we”re never full. We never have enough. This stands for the greed of the mind, which causes us to suffer from our lack of enough, our desires, our hunger.

　　To see ourself or to see the world, the Buddha teaches us to survey ourself from the head to the feet, from the feet to the head, just as if we”re going to plant a tree: We h…

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