..续本文上一页se of these consciousnesses, these crazy consciousnesses, getting into the act, seeping into our own consciousness and making us fall in line with them. These consciousnesses that lurk in our bodies without any bodies of their own: They can get angry, too, you know. They can get greedy and deluded, they can feel love and hate, just like us. Once they start feeling things like this, and they”re right next to us, our own consciousness follows along with them, without our even realizing it. This is why there are so many issues in the heart.

　　It”s entirely possible, you know. Suppose, for instance, that two of your children are quarreling right in front of you. That”s enough to put you in a bad mood yourself. Even though you didn”t get involved in the quarrel along with them, there”s a connection, and so you end up with a lot of hurt feelings, too. This is why we”re taught, Yam ve sevati tadiso: You end up being like the people you hang around with.

　　So we”re taught to analyze things. There are lots of minds in your mind. Some of them are animal minds. It”s not your mind that gets worked up; their minds are the ones getting worked up, but they”re right next to yours, and as a result you start tilting in their direction. This is why we”re taught that they”re anatta, not-self. Consciousness is not-self. So don”t get involved with it. We have to use effort, persistence, endurance, to keep things under our thumb. As soon as these things disappear, that”s when the heart can be bright and at ease. Because actually, when things like this arise in the heart, it”s not our doing. It”s their doing. If it were really our own doing, then when things like this appear in the heart, we should feel happy and content. When they disappear, we should feel happy and content. But actually, when things arise in the heart, there are only some cases where we”re delighted about what”s happening. There are other cases where, no, we”re not happy at all. There”s a conflict in the mind. Sometimes there are huge numbers of these other consciousnesses, and they have lots of agendas of their own. We get outnumbered and start falling in line with them. When this happens we do things wrong and say things wrong and end up sorry afterwards. This is because we act in line with them, and not in line with our own true heart.

　　So you have to keep this point in mind if you want to understand consciousness. The Buddha tells us in really simple terms, but we don”t understand him. He says, "Consciousness isn”t our self." Only four words, and yet we can”t understand them. And how can we expect to understand them

　　 Our hearts aren”t established in concentration, so everything we hear gets all confused. All we can think is that consciousness is our mind. That”s all we can think, so we start aligning ourselves with everything, taking sides. This is us. That”s us. We start siding with everything, which is why we don”t understand consciousness.

　　Now when we start considering things carefully, to see what our own real consciousness is like, we”ll check to see if there”s anything in there that”s honest and loyal and true to us. If there”s something that you like to do — you realize it”s proper, you know it”s right — and you go ahead and do it to completion, then that”s something you can trust. But there are other things that you don”t really like — part of you wants to do them, another part doesn”t — so when there”s a split like this, you should realize that you”ve been associating with fools, with certain kinds of consciousnesses that have come to deceive you. That”s when you have to resist, to persist, to pen that thinking in. In other words, you have to focus on contemplating that particular consciousness to see what kind of consciousness it is. Is it your own consciousness

　　 Or is it …

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