..续本文上一页 to be able to find a way to help ourselves. It happened to me that night. When I was cornered and overwhelmed by severe pain, mindfulness and wisdom just dug into the painful feelings.

　　 The pain began as hot flashes along the backs of my hands and feet, but that was really quite mild. When it arose in full force, the entire body was ablaze with pain. All the bones, and the joints connecting them, were like fuel feeding the fire that engulfed the body. It felt as though every bone in my body was breaking apart; as though my neck would snap and my head drop to the floor. When all parts of the body hurt at once, the pain is so intense that one doesn”t know how to begin stemming the tide long enough just to breathe.

　　 This crisis left mindfulness and wisdom with no alternative but to dig down into the pain, searching for the exact spot where it felt most severe. Mindfulness and wisdom probed and investigated right where the pain was greatest, trying to isolate it so as to see it clearly. “Where does this pain originate

　　 Who suffers the pain

　　” They asked these questions of each bodily part and found that each one of them remained in keeping with its own intrinsic nature. The skin was skin, the flesh was flesh, the tendons were tendons, and so forth. They had been so from the day of birth. Pain, on the other hand, is something that comes and goes periodically; it”s not always there in the same way that flesh and skin are. Ordinarily, the pain and the body appear to be all bound up together. But are they really

　　 Focusing inward I could see that each part of the body was a physical reality. What is real stays that way. As I searched the mass of bodily pain, I saw that one point was more severe than all the others. If pain and body are one, and all parts of the body are equally real, then why was the pain stronger in one part than in another

　　 So I tried to separate out and isolate each aspect. At that point in the investigation, mindfulness and wisdom were indispensable. They had to sweep through the areas that hurt and then whirl around the most intense ones, always working to separate the feeling from the body. Having observed the body, they quickly shifted their attention to the pain, then to the citta. These three: body, pain and citta, are the major principles in this investigation.

　　 Although the bodily pain was obviously very strong, I could see that the citta was calm and unafflicted. No matter how much discomfort the body suffered, the citta was not distressed or agitated. This intrigued me. Normally the kilesas join forces with pain, and this alliance causes the citta to be disturbed by the body”s suffering. This prompted wisdom to probe into the nature of the body, the nature of pain and the nature of the citta until all three were perceived clearly as separate realities, each true in its own natural sphere.

　　 I saw clearly that it was the citta that defined feeling as being painful and unpleasant. Otherwise, pain was merely a natural phenomenon that occurred. It was not an integral part of the body, nor was it intrinsic to the citta. As soon as this principle became absolutely clear, the pain vanished in an instant. At that moment, the body was simply the body—a separate reality on its own. Pain was simply feeling, and in a flash that feeling vanished straight into the citta. As soon as the pain vanished into the citta, the citta knew that the pain had disappeared. It just vanished without a trace.

　　 In addition, the entire physical body vanished from awareness. At that moment I was not consciously aware of the body at all. Only a simple and harmonious awareness remained, alone on its own. That”s all. The citta was so exceedingly refined as to be indescribable. It simply knew—a profoundly subtle …

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