..续本文上一页 it from different angles. Begin with the hair on the head, the hair on the body, the nails, the teeth and the skin, and move on to the flesh, blood, sinews and bones. Then dissect the inner organs, one by one, until the whole body is completely dismembered. Analyze this conglomeration of disparate parts to clearly understand its true nature.
If you find it difficult to investigate your own body in this way, begin by mentally dissecting someone else”s body. Choose a body external to yourself; for instance, a body of the opposite sex. Visualize each part, each organ of that body as best you can, and ask yourself: Which piece is truly attractive
Which part is actually seductive
Place the hair in one pile, the nails and teeth in another; do the same with the skin, the flesh, the sinews and the bones. Which pile deserves to be an object of your desire
Examine them closely and answer with total honesty. Strip off the skin and pile it in front of you. Where is the beauty in this mass of tissue, this thin veneer that covers up the meat and entrails
Do those various parts add up to a person
Once the skin is removed, what can we find to admire in the human body
Men and women—they are all the same. Not a shred of beauty can be found in the body of a human being. It is just a bag of flesh and blood and bones that manages to deceive everyone in the world into lusting after it.
It is wisdom”s duty to expose that deception. Examine the skin carefully. Skin is the great deceiver. Because it wraps up the entire human body, it”s the part we always see. But what does it wrap up
It wraps up the animal flesh, the muscles, the fluids and the fat. It wraps up the skeleton with the tendons and the sinews. It wraps up the liver, the kidneys, the stomach, the intestines, and all the internal organs. No one has ever suggested that the body”s innards are desirable things of beauty, worthy of being admired with passion and yearning. Probing deeply, without fear or hesitation, wisdom exposes the plain truth about the body. Don”t be fooled by a thin veil of scaly tissue. Peel it off and see what lies underneath. This is the practice of wisdom.
In order to really see the truth of this matter for yourself, in a clear and precise way that leaves no room for doubt, you must be very persistent and very diligent. Merely doing this meditation practice once or twice, or from time to time, will not be enough to bring conclusive results. You must approach the practice as if it”s your life”s work—as though nothing else in the world matters except the analysis you are working on at that moment. Time is not a factor; place is not a factor; ease and comfort are not factors. Regardless of how long it takes or how difficult the work proves to be, you must relentlessly stick with body contemplation until all doubt and uncertainty are eliminated.
Body contemplation should occupy every breath, every thought, every movement until the mind becomes thoroughly saturated with it. Nothing short of total commitment will bring genuine and direct insight into the truth. When body contemplation is practiced with single-minded intensity, each successive body part becomes a kind of fuel feeding the fires of mindfulness and wisdom. Mindfulness and wisdom then become a conflagration consuming the human body section by section, part by part, as they examine and investigate the truth with a burning intensity. This is what is meant by tapadhamma.
Focus intently on those body parts that really capture your attention, the ones whose truth feels most obvious to you. Use them as whetstones to sharpen your wisdom. Expose them and tear them apart until their inherently disgusting and repulsive nature becomes apparent. Asubha meditation is insight into the repulsiv…
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