..续本文上一页h is not a convention, comes to rule the heart through the complete penetration of mindfulness and discernment. So investigate on in until you understand, reaching the point of letting go with no more concerns.

　　What is sañña labeling

　　 Labeling this, labeling that, making assumptions about this and that: These are all affairs of defilement using sañña. When cognizance (viññana) takes note, it too is turned into defilement. So we investigate these things, using discernment in the same way as when we investigate feelings. We then understand. When we understand, these things become simply cognizance taking note, simply sañña labeling, without labeling so as to be defilement, without taking note so as to be defilement. Defilement then retreats further and further inward.

　　Ultimately, these five issues -- namely, the physical khandha, our body; the vedana khandha, feelings in the body (as for feelings in the mind, let”s save those for the moment); the sañña khandha, the sankhara khandha, and the viññana khandha -- are all clearly known in the heart, with no more doubts. The defilements gather inward, converge inward. They can”t go out roaming, because they”ll get slashed to bits by mindfulness and discernment. So they have to withdraw inward to find a hiding place. This, in actuality, is what the investigation is like, and not otherwise.

　　In our investigation as meditators, when discernment reaches any particular level, we”ll know for ourselves, step by step. Both defilement and discernment: We”ll know both sides at the same time. When discernment is very strong, defilement grows weaker. Mindfulness and discernment become even more courageous and unflinching. The words laziness and lethargy, which are affairs of defilement, disappear. We keep moving in with persistence day and night. This is the way it is when the path gains strength. As meditators you should take note of this and practice so as to know it and see it, so as to make it your own treasure arising in your heart. Your doubts will then be ended in every way.

　　We now take this atomic mindfulness and discernment and shoot it into the central point of conventional reality, the point that causes living beings to founder in the wheel of the cycle (vatta) so that they can”t find their way out, don”t know the way out, don”t know the ways of birth, don”t know who has been born as what, where they have died, what burdens of suffering and stress they have carried. Mindfulness and discernment go crashing down into that point until it is scattered to pieces. And so now how can we not know what it is that has caused us to take birth and die

　　 There is only defilement that is the important seed causing us to take birth and die, causing us to suffer pain and stress. The true Dhamma hasn”t caused us to suffer. It has brought us nothing but pleasure and ease in line with its levels, in line with the levels of what is noble and good. The things that give rise to major and minor sufferings are all affairs of defilement. We can see this clearly. We can know this clearly. Especially when defilement has been completely scattered from the heart, it”s as if the earth and sky collapse. How can this not send a tremor through the three levels of the cosmos

　　 -- because this thing is what has wandered throughout the three levels of the cosmos. When it has been made to collapse within the heart, what is the heart like now

　　 How does the outer space of the Dhamma differ from the outer space of the world

　　 Now we know clearly. The outer space of this purified mind: Is it annihilation

　　 The outer space of the world isn”t annihilation. If it were annihilation, they wouldn”t call it outer space. It”s a nature that exists in li…

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