..续本文上一页ned, how many hours a day you sit, if you still operate from this basic delusion you end up with suffering as a result.
You can”t get enlightenment through ignorance. The way to realise, or to be enlightened, is to awaken to the present - to trust in the ability to listen, to be in a state of simple awareness. This may be difficult to sustain, because we are programmed for passions - for going up and down the scale of greed, hatred and delusion in all its variations. However, there is that which is aware of the passions, that can be established through mindfulness - of body, feelings, mind states and mental phenomena. Mindfulness and reflection on the five khandhas allows us to change our attitude towards them, rather than always seeing them as ”me and mine.”
So the constant requirement in all these experiences is mindfulness. We notice the arising of a condition, like an inhalation: it begins, reaches a peak, and then the exhalation begins, and then ends. Similarly, you can be aware of the mood as changing; when you are patient enough and willing to sustain attention, a mood is definitely impermanent - it isn”t a solid block. If we don”t recognise our moods in this way, we”re always either indulging in them or resisting them, and they have a great influence on how we experience life. But as soon as I awaken and pay attention, my relationship to conditions changes. Instead of being deluded by the conditioned realm, I observe it. There is the state of knowing, of being aware of the changingness of conditioned phenomena, behind which there is the Unconditioned. With intuitive awareness, we find that silence, the unconditioned, as an embracing background, within which the conditions are in perspective. They are the way they are, they”re like this: but then they end, they cease.
On the personal level I can feel afraid: even to think of Enlightenment or realising the Deathless could be seen as an over-estimation or delusion. Sometimes we prefer to think of ourselves in negative terms because we think that by being humble and admitting our faults we are being honest. But in fact we have to let go of that luxury of seeing ourselves as a damaged person, or a helpless victim of circumstances: ”My mother never loved me - that”s why I am the way I am,” ”I never had the opportunities that you”ve had”, or whatever. I”m not trying to make fun of that but I”m pointing out that if we”re attached to those roles, then we will always experience life in that way. But there is an escape; there is a release from the suffering of delusion and from the power of that conditioning.
We might think: ”Well, the Buddha did it, but that was over two thousand five hundred years ago, and it”s only hearsay. I didn”t know Gotama the Buddha, so maybe they just made it up - maybe there wasn”t any Gotama the Buddha.” But if you practise and develop mindfulness, it doesn”t matter whether the Buddha ever existed - because the teaching works. We”re not demanding historical accuracy, but: does it work
Is there an escape from suffering
Do you know when suffering is there
Do you know when there is no suffering
This realm we live in as human inpiduals is basically a realm that is changing - and it”s kammic, everything depends on something else. Having a human body connects us to the condition of ageing. Now I can create suffering around the ageing process of this body if I want; people do, don”t they
People pay billions for cosmetic surgery and to have everything changed around: to get the lines out, look younger and so forth - because if you”re identified with the body then when, as is natural, it starts getting old, you suffer.
The Buddha got old, but he didn”t suffer. He had sicknesses, but he didn”t suffer. He didn”t suffer when his body died, and he did…
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