..续本文上一页 Concepts of past and future are what obstruct and destroy our goodness. The Buddha said,
atitam nanvagameyya nappatikankhe anagatam
paccuppannañca yo dhammam tatha tatha vipassati:
If we don”t go conceiving the past or the future, leaving only the present, we”ll come to see the truth of the Dhamma.
Concepts, even if they deal with the Dhamma, are fashionings because they fall in the area of mental concoction. There are three types of mental fashionings: (1) If we think in ways that are good, they”re called meritorious concoctions (puññabhisankhara). (2) If we think in ways that are evil, they”re called demeritorious concoctions (apuññabhisankhara). (3) If we think in ways that are neither good nor evil, they”re called impassive concoctions (aneñjabhisankhara) or avyakata — neutral and indeterminate. Actually, aneñjabhisankhara has a higher meaning, because it refers to the four levels of absorption in formlessness (arupa jhana). Avyakata refers to such things as thinking about eating a meal or taking a bath, things that are completely unrelated to good and evil. All of these fashionings come from unawareness and ignorance. If we”re really intelligent and aware, we shouldn”t go conceiving them.
To cut off concepts means to let our mental fashionings disband, to let our trains of thought disband. We sit in meditation, making the body and mind quiet. When the body is still, the mind stays with the stillness. When the heart is at peace, the mind stays with the peace. Concentration develops. The mind comes up to the forefront. Mental fashionings disappear, but the mind is still there. Goodness is still there. In nibbana, nothing disappears anywhere or gets annihilated, except for unawareness.
When mental fashionings and unawareness disband, awareness arises. For example, knowledge of past lives: We see the mind”s ancestry — its past lifetimes. Knowledge of death and rebirth: We know the good and bad actions of our fellow beings, how they die and are reborn. A mind trained to maturity in concentration develops quality, like a mature mango seed that”s capable of containing all its ancestry, its parents and children, in itself. If anyone plants it, it”ll break out into roots, stems, branches, leaves, flowers, and more fruits just like before. A mind not yet trained to maturity is like the seed of an unripe mango that”s fallen from the tree. If you plant it, it won”t grow. It”ll just rot there in the dirt. Since it”s not yet ripe, it isn”t capable of containing its ancestry and descendants.
People aware of their own birth and death in this way are said not to be lacking. Not lacking in what
Not lacking in birth. They”re acquainted with the births they”ve experienced through many lives and states of being in the past — so many that they”re weary of it all, to the point where they don”t want to take birth again. As for people who don”t know, who don”t have this awareness, they feel that they”re lacking. They want to take birth again and so they keep on creating birth over and over again. As for those who do have awareness, they”ve had enough. They”re smart enough. They won”t give rise to any more births or states of being. Whatever is good, they keep within themselves, like putting a ripe mango seed in a showcase to look at, or peeling off its hard outer shell and then putting it in a storeroom. No one will be able to plant it again, and we can take it out for a look whenever we want.
To train the mind to a higher level is the apex of all that is good and worthwhile. To raise the level of our heart is like coming up and sitting here in the meditation hall. Once we”ve gotten up off the level of the ground, we”ve escaped from the rain, the heat of the sun, and from all sorts of dangers…
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