..续本文上一页and frowns, shows its fangs – and you go, ”Ooh! Help!” and run away. Then that demon thinks, ”This really is a sucker!”
If you realise the demon, you recognise that the demon is a condition, nothing more than that. No matter how ferocious or nasty it might appear, it”s nothing really. Simply recognise it as a condition that looks fierce and nasty. Fear, the feeling of fear ... you begin to recognise that fear is just an illusion of the mind – conditioned. Desire, any form of desire, is the same way: it has its appearance, it seems to be more than what it really is. Meditation is breaking down, breaking through the illusion of the way things seem to be, by recognising, realising conditions as they are – as changing, as unsatisfactory and as not having any personal quality, not any personal self or soul, as just something that comes and goes, changes. You begin to stand back, you feel a space, a gap in yourself. After a while, things that used to completely overwhelm and demolish you seem more distant; you have a way of looking at them as if they were something separate rather than what you are, “what I am”.
Meditation is a constant realising – realising the conditions of the mind as just that, as conditions of the mind. Ignorant people do not understand this. They think the conditions of the mind are themselves, or they think they shouldn”t have certain conditions and that they should have other kinds of conditions. If you are a very idealistic person, you would like to be good, saintly, intelligent, noble, courageous, the finest quality of human being. ”That”s what I want to be. I want to be a very noble and fine person.” Well, that”s all very good, you have this ideal: ”That”s what I”d like to be” . . . ”the noble heart” . . .”the courageous man”. . . ”the gentle, compassionate woman”.
All these are wonderful ideals, but then you have to face the realities of daily life. We find ourselves being caught up in getting angry, getting upset, jealous, greedy, thinking all kinds of unpleasant things about people we know, thoughts and feelings that, if we were the perfect human beings we would like to be, we would never think or feel. So then we start thinking: ”I am so far removed from that ideal human being, that wonderful man, that perfect woman, that I”m a hopeless, useless, worthless BUM!” Why
Because the conditions of your mind are not always fitting the ideal. Sometimes you might be very courageous, very noble-hearted. At certain moments we find ourselves doing the most wonderful things, acting in a most courageous way. But at other times the opposite is the case. We wonder, ”How do such ugly thoughts come into my mind
If I were really good, I would never have such evil thoughts or feelings.”
Now, what can we realise, without trying to become anything, is that these conditions are just that. Whether they are noble, brave, and courageous, or weak, wishy-washy, ignoble and stupid, they are still only conditions dependent on all kinds of factors that we can”t predict or control. Begin to realise that, on the conditional level of samsara, everything is affecting everything. There”s no way that we can say, ”I”m going to isolate myself completely from everything so that nothing is affecting me,” because everything is affecting everything all the time. On the conditioned level, there”s nothing much we can do except recognise, realise – although we do have a choice. We can use our bodies for good action rather than evil; that”s where the choice comes. If you”re mindful and wise, then you skilfully use your body and speech, that which goes out, relates to other beings and to the earth you live on. You use it skilfully, for that which is kind, compassionate, charitable and moral.
What goes on in the mind could be anything – maybe eve…
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