..续本文上一页itions and nibbana, won”t believe in the difficulty with which the Buddha and his Noble Disciples practiced.

　　Especially at present, when people are very clever: Whatever would fly in the face of their already being wise and all-knowing, no matter how right or good or fantastic that thing might be, they aren”t willing to use it to take the measure of their own wisdom. As a result, their wisdom can”t escape creating a lot of foolishness for themselves and the common good. For this reason, the path leading to depravity for the mind and the path leading to Dhamma within the mind are very different.

　　Those who practice, the Dhamma says, are those who investigate and reflect on every facet of the world and the Dhamma without being complacent. No matter what posture we are in, no matter where, we should always use mindfulness and discernment to look after ourselves. We shouldn”t be concerned with the deficient or developed manners, the good or bad behavior of other people, the points they give us or take away, more than we are concerned with our own deficient or developed manners, our own good or bad behavior and the points we give or take away from ourselves. This is the path of the Dhamma for those who practice the Dhamma, who are always embued with Dhamma. The opposite way is the low path for those with low minds, with no righteousness infiltrating them at all. This is a warning for all those meditators who have come here for training to understand and take to heart.

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　　The Dhamma I have related today is mostly personal and isn”t appropriate to be made public to people at large whose sensitivities may vary. I myself might be open to criticism, and it might be harmful to the attitudes of those who hear or read when the tape is transcribed onto paper — except for restricted circles of people who would understand. To make this talk public thus goes against the grain with me, but the extent to which I have made it public is out of sympathy for those who have come for training in all rectitude and who have pleaded with me to make it public as an example that those who practice may follow for a long time to come.

　　If this is wrong in any way, I ask the forgiveness of all my readers. It”s with the thought that there will be many people endowed with rectitude in the practice of meditation, both now and the future, who might get some benefit from this outlandish talk, that I put up with the embarrassment of having exposed my own stupidity in it.

《Straight from the Heart - An Heir to the Dhamma》全文阅读结束。