..续本文上一页memory. “This is a memory” is an honest statement. It”s not a dismissal of the thought, but it”s no longer regarding it with such personal attachment. Memories, when seen clearly, have no essence. They dissolve into thin air.

　　Try taking a guilty memory and deliberately sustaining it. Think of some terrible thing you”ve done in the past, then determine to keep it in your consciousness for five minutes. By trying to keep thinking about it, you will find how difficult it is to sustain. But when that same memory arises and you resist it or wallow in it or believe in it, then it can hang around the whole day. A whole lifetime can be filled with guilt and remorse.

　　Every time you”re

　　aware of what

　　you”re thinking,

　　you”re getting to

　　be an expert.

　　So just by awakening, seeing it the way it is, is a refuge. Every time you”re aware of what you”re thinking—not critical, even if you”re thinking something really ugly and nasty—you”re getting to be an expert. This is what you can trust. As you develop this, have more confidence in it. Your awareness will become a stronger force than your emotions, your defilements, your fears and desires. At first it may seem like emotions and desires are much stronger, that it”s impossible to simply be aware. You may have only a few brief moments of awareness and then back into the raging storm. It may seem hopeless, but it”s not. The more you test it out, investigate and trust this awareness, then more stable it becomes. The seemingly invincible power of the emotional qualities, obsessions, and habits will lose that sense of being the stronger force. You will find that your real strength is in awareness, not in controlling the ocean and waves and cyclones and tsunamis and all the rest that you can”t possible ever control anyway. It”s only in trusting in this one point—here and now—that you realize liberation.

　　Saying “like this” is just a way of reminding oneself to see this moment as it is. Even going to marvelous places is not all that different. It”s just the hype we give it. ing, dismissing, defending, justifying, or blaming; it is what it is, attending to a memory. “This is a memory” is an honest statement. It”s not a dismissal of the thought, but it”s no longer regarding it with such personal attachment. Memories, when seen clearly, have no essence. They dissolve into thin air.

　　Luang Por Sumedho was born in Seattle,Washington. In 1966, he went to Thailand to practice meditation and not long afterwards, he went forth as a monk. He took dependence from Luang Por Chah and remained under his close guidance for ten years. In 1977, he accompanied Luang Por Chah to England, helping to establish Chithurst Monastery and later Amaravati, where he is currently abbot.

《Attending to the Here and Now》全文阅读结束。