..续本文上一页choose one ”Dhamma theme” (kammatthana)or another as a means of controlling and looking after the mind. Otherwise, it will go straying off to its old habitual occupations and cause suffering and discontent to the point where we”re constantly disturbed and distracted. This is why we”re taught to meditate on ”Buddho, Dhammo, or Sangho,” to be mindful of the breath, or to combine ”Buddho” with the breath, thinking ”Bud” with the in-breath and ”dho” with the out-breath, whichever theme seems most suited to our temperament. In focusing on these things, you should focus your awareness exclusively in the heart. For example, when you focus on the inand- out breath, make yourself aware of each time the breath comes in and each time it goes out until the end of the time you”ve set to meditate. You can focus on the feeling of the breath at any point that seems most prominent in your awareness. Whichever point the feeling of the breath is clearest -- such as the tip of the nose, for example -- is the point you should focus on, the point you should be mindful of. Make sure you know when the breath comes in and when it goes out. If you want, you can combine it with ”Buddho”, thinking ”Bud” with the in-breath and ”dho” with the out-breath. Keep your attention exclusively with the breath. You don”t have to go thinking about any other issues outside of the work you”re doing -- focusing on the breath -- right now in the present.
This way, as mindfulness gradually becomes more steady and continuous, the mind won”t have any chance to slip out after the various preoccupations that can cause it harm. It will settle further and further into stillness. At the same time, the breath -- which was coarse or blatant when you first began focusing on it -- will gradually become more and more refined. It may even reach the stage where it disappears altogether from your sense of awareness. This is because it”s so refined -- so refined that it disappears. At that moment there”s no breath and only knowingness remains. This is one of the things that can happen in your meditation.
The heart at that point is very quiet and very amazing. The breath has disappeared without leaving a trace, and the body disappears at the same instant. What this means is that it disappears in your sense of feeling, not that the actual body goes away anywhere. It”s still sitting right there, but your awareness isn”t involved with any sense of ”body” at all. It”s simply knowingness pure and simple, entirely on its own. This is called ”a quiet mind.” The mind is its own self on this level and it develops a strange, uncanny, and amazing feeling of pleasure.
As soon as the mind becomes quiet and disentangled from all activities, there”s no sense of time or place, because the mind isn”t giving meaning to anything with thoughts of time or place. There”s simply knowingness maintaining itself in that state. This is the feeling of pleasure that can come from meditation. You can, if you want, call it one of the fruits of meditation.
As for those who repeat ”Buddho” as their theme, the same sort of thing happens. If you focus on ”Buddho” without coordinating it with the breath, simply be aware of each repetition of ”Buddho, Buddho, Buddho”. You don”t have to go thinking about how the results are going to appear. Maybe someone has tried to scare you, saying, "Watch out. If you meditate, you may get a vision like this or like that, and then you”ll go crazy." There are lots of people who say this sort of thing, but for the most part they themselves have never meditated. They just like to go around saying these things to scare those people who are all too ready to believe this sort of thing, because they”re people of the same sort -- quick to believe these things, quick to get scared, quick to find e…
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