..续本文上一页ldn”t go and hassle the Thai monks. But the British Consul from Vientiane happened to come over one day, and somebody brought him to my hut ... and I really let him have it, double barrelled! He sat there in a stunned state, and, being English, he was very, very, very polite, and every time he got up to go I wouldn”t let him. I couldn”t stop, it was like Niagara Falls, this enormous power coming out, and there was no way I could stop it myself. Finally he left, made an escape somehow: I never saw him again, I wonder why

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　　So when we go through that kind of experience, it”s important to recognise it. It”s nothing dangerous if you know what it is. Be patient with it, don”t believe it or indulge in it. You notice Buddhist monks never go around saying much about what ”level of enlightenment” they have -- it”s just not to be related. When people ask us to teach, we don”t teach about our enlightenment, but about the Four Noble Truths as the way for them to be enlightened. Nowadays there are all kinds of people claiming to be enlightened or Maitreya Buddhas, avatars, and all have large followings; people are willing to believe that quite easily! But this particular emphasis of the Buddha is on recognising the way things are rather than believing in what other people tell us, or say. This is a path of wisdom, in which we”re exploring or investigating the limits of the mind. Witness and see: ”sabbe sankhara anicca”, ”all conditioned phenomena are impermanent”; ”sabbe dhamma anatta”, ”all things are not-self.”

　　Inner Vigilance

　　Now, as to the practice of mindfulness. Concentration is where you put your attention on an object, sustain your attention on that one point (such as the tranquillising rhythm of normal breathing), until you become that sign itself, and the sense of subject and object diminishes. Mindfulness, with vipassana meditation, is the opening of the mind. You no longer concentrate on just one point, but you observe insightfully and reflect on the conditions that come and go, and on the silence of the empty mind. To do this involves letting go of an object; you”re not holding on to any particular object, but observing that whatever arises passes away. This is insight meditation, or ”vipassana”.

　　With what I call ”inner listening”, you can hear the noises that go on in the mind, the desire, the fears, things that you”ve repressed and have never allowed to be fully conscious. But now, even if there are obsessive thoughts or fears, emotions coming up, then be willing to allow them to become conscious so that you can let them go to cessation. If there”s nothing coming or going, then just be in the emptiness, in the silence of the mind. You can hear a high frequency sound in the mind, that”s always there, it”s not an ear sound. You can turn to that, when you let go of the conditions of the mind. But be honest with your intentions. So if you”re turning to the silence, the silent sound of the mind, out of aversion to the conditions, it”s just a repression again, it”s not purification.

　　If your intention is wrong, even though you do concentrate on emptiness, you will not get a good result, because you”ve been misled. You haven”t wisely reflected on things, you haven”t let anything go, you”re just turning away out of aversion, just saying, ”I don”t want to see that”, so you turn away. Now this practice is a patient one of being willing to endure what seems unendurable. It”s an inner vigilance, watching, listening, even experimenting. In this practice, the right understanding is the important thing, rather than the emptiness or form or anything like that. Right understanding comes through the reflection that whatever arises, passes away; reflection that even emptiness is not-self. If you claim that you are one who”s realised em…

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