..续本文上一页r is light breathing comfortable

　　 We have to use our own powers of observation and evaluation, and gain a sense of how to correct, adjust, and ease the breath so that it”s stable, balanced, and just right. If, for example, slow breathing is uncomfortable, adjust it so that it”s faster. If long breathing is uncomfortable, change to short breathing. If the breath is too gentle or weak — making you drowsy or your mind drift — breathe more heavily and strongly.

　　This is like adjusting the air pressure on a Coleman lantern. As soon as the air and the kerosene are mixed in the right proportions, the lantern will give off light at full strength — white and dazzling — able to spread its radiance far. In the same way, as long as mindfulness is firmly wedded to the breath, and we have a sense of how to care for the breath so that it”s just right for the various parts of the body, the mind will be stable and one, not flying out after any thoughts or concepts. It will develop a power, a radiance called discernment — or, to call it by its result, knowledge.

　　This knowledge is a special form of awareness that doesn”t come from anything our teachers have taught us or anyone has told us. Instead, it”s a special form of understanding praised by the Buddha as Right View. This form of understanding is coupled with mindfulness and alertness. It ranks as Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration as well. When a mind rightly concentrated gains increased strength, the results can lead to intuitive insight, direct realization, purity of knowledge, and ultimately to release, free from any sort of doubt.

　　The mind will be independent, quiet, light, and at ease — self-contained like a flame in a glass lantern. Even though insects may come and swarm around the lantern, they can”t put out the flame; and at the same time, the flame can”t lick out to burn the hand of the person carrying it. A mind that has mindfulness constantly watching over it is bound to be incapable of stretching or reaching out to take up with any preoccupations at all. It won”t lick out in front or flicker back behind, and external preoccupations won”t be able to come barging into the heart. Our eyes — the eyes of our discernment — will be clear and far-seeing, just as if we were sitting in the interstices of a net, able to see clearly in whichever direction we looked.

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　　What does discernment come from

　　 You might compare it with learning to become a potter, a tailor, or a basket weaver. The teacher will start out by telling you how to make a pot, sew a shirt or a pair of pants, or weave different patterns, but the proportions and beauty of the object you make will have to depend on your own powers of observation. Suppose you weave a basket and then take a good look at its proportions, to see if it”s too short or too tall. If it”s too short, weave another one, a little taller, and then take a good look at it to see if there”s anything that still needs improving, to see if it”s too thin or too fat. Then weave another one, better-looking than the last. Keep this up until you have one that”s as beautiful and well-proportioned as possible, one with nothing to criticize from any angle. This last basket you can take as your standard. You can now set yourself up in business.

　　What you”ve done is to learn from your own actions. As for your previous efforts, you needn”t concern yourself with them any longer. Throw them out. This is a sense of discernment that arises of its own accord, an ingenuity and sense of judgment that come not from anything your teachers have taught you, but from observing and evaluating on your own the object that you yourself have made.

　　The same holds true in practicing meditation. For discernment to arise, you have to be observant as you keep track of the breath an…

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