..续本文上一页nditions will lose their relevance. Even the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena, which are the necessary terms of the frames of reference, have to be let go. They shouldn”t be held to or borne as a burden on the heart. They must all be let go when your investigation fully reaches the point of dhamma anatta: Phenomena are not-self. Then later you can turn around to contemplate and connect them again as a pastime for the mind in the present, once the mind has gone beyond and yet is still in charge of the khandhas.

　　Meditators, if they are firm and unflinching in the practice of the frames of reference, are sure to see a variety of extraordinary and amazing things arising at intervals in their minds. When the time comes to reap the results on the level of Dhamma corresponding to the causes that have been properly developed, the results will have to appear stage by stage as the attainment of stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, and arahantship. There is no need to doubt this.

　　So know that whether we contemplate the four frames of reference or the four Noble Truths, they are one and the same path for the sake of release from suffering and stress. Even though there may be some differences, they differ only in name. In terms of their basic principles, they are one and the same. Those who work at the four frames of reference and those who work at the four Noble Truths are performing the same branch of work, because stress, its cause, its disbanding, and the path to its disbanding are the same level of truth as the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena -- in the same way as when different people do different jobs in a single factory, the profits from their labor all go to the same factory.

　　To summarize the final results that come from working at the frames of reference and the Noble Truths step by step: In the beginning the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena are in a raw state. Stress, its cause, its disbanding, and the path to its disbanding are in a raw state, because the practice is in a raw state of planing and polishing back and forth without any feel for the heaviness or lightness, depth or shallowness, breadth or narrowness of the Dhamma, and without any sense of right or wrong, good or bad in the practice, because it”s something we have never done before. No one, from our great-grandparents down to our parents and other relatives, has ever told us that the frames of reference and Noble Truths are like this or that, that they should be put into practice this or that way so as to give results of this or that sort -- for they themselves had no way of knowing. What”s worse, they have taken these excellent frames of reference and Noble Truths and thrown them away underground, underwater and into the fire time and again. We are simply their children, grandchildren, and great-grand-children: How can we boast that we”re wise and all-knowing in these matters

　　 We simply have to admit our own ignorance. Even though it”s true that the frames of reference and Noble Truths have been excellent Dhamma from the very beginning, when they reach us they have to start as Dhamma in the raw state, because we ourselves are people in the raw state. Even our practice is practice in the raw state. But as we practice persistently, without retreating, and as our understanding into the Dhamma and the practice gradually appears bit by bit, day by day, and slowly begins to take shape, our conviction in the teachings of the Buddha grows continually stronger and more deeply rooted. The things that used to be mysterious gradually come to be revealed for what they truly are.

　　For example, the four frames of reference and four Noble Truths, even though they were always right with us, used to be as if buried out of sight, without our being aware of them. …

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