..续本文上一页d this Teaching to all creatures of the world, and as that includes us why shouldn”t we too be able to comprehend the Four Noble Truths. They”re there within each one of us.

　　Now, about thought-concocting formations.16 Is this contriving and fabricating of thoughts trustworthy

　　 We think up various forms from various things — for instance, take the form of a doll that is quickly broken. Our thought-fabrications are much the same. We think up good or bad (things), anything at all becomes a concoction to fool ourselves. This is why the heart is the chief of fools, gullible and easily taken in by any deception. It believes in anything and is endlessly played false.

　　However, when wisdom is also present it will be able to keep in check and carefully screen such fabrications. They may appear a hundred or thousand times a second, but wisdom is ready at every turn. What can fool wisdom

　　 It realizes that formations are formations, and that knowingness is the heart. How can it be deceived by them

　　 Why be startled and react to shadows arising from oneself — for this is what formations are.

　　It is the same with consciousness17 that flicks on and off whenever anything contacts through the senses and is known by the heart. It is then concocted through formations and memory into self-contrived delusions. We repeatedly fall for our self-made fancies, and it”s this wrong taking up of objects that creates suffering. The damage is done here and this is where it must be seen.

　　You will learn about the Noble Truths right at this point. Follow and probe into it with greater precision and refinement, without concern over how many times you have to go over it. The importance lies in the eventual clear penetration of wisdom, which can pierce through any attachment even if it may seem as big as a mountain.

　　When wisdom is in close pursuit, craving will have to retreat into the big cave,18 into the heart. Driving forward with wisdom, using impermanence, suffering and not-self (to question and probe) exactly where the real substance of these shadows is found. Penetrating further, you will see that it only exists there in the heart where they have gathered together. Elsewhere, it”s just disassociated shadows; excitement and deception over form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness.

　　Once they have all converged, the heart must turn and investigate, right there, in the heart. At this point we must be willing to follow them in and destroy them there, in their hiding place in the heart. They are like brigands in ambush, waiting to shoot our heads off. When bandits take over a place, no matter how valuable the building might be, we must go in with explosives and blow them out; destroying it all, including the bandits. If all must be obliterated — so be it. We still have life and can build again, for we managed to avoid dying too.

　　This is how to deal with this most subtle sort of defilement hiding out in the heart. Hit them hard with the truth of impermanence, suffering and not-self, because these defilements are the essence of sammuti — all our suppositions about the world. They must be crushed and dispersed from the heart, and then we”ll see whether the heart has also been annihilated. No, it is not destroyed. The heart has no cemetery. It is undying19 by its very nature — even when it still has defilements.

　　The Lord Buddha called this the complete dissolution of the defilements: "the end of danger, the quenching of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion" by the pouring of the Undying Dhamma20 elixir. With the defilements gone, only spotless purity remains. It is here in this fully purified heart that perfect happiness is to be found. All work finishes here; all projects end here. The Lord said:

　　"Done is the task, fulfilled is the holy life, the…

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