..续本文上一页continued with the dream to see at least how it ended.

　　That morning I went to tell my dream to Venerable Acariya Mun. He interpreted it very well. ”This dream, you know,” he said, ”is very auspicious. It shows the pattern for your practice without any deviations. Follow the practice in the way that you”ve dreamed. In the beginning, it”ll be extremely difficult.” That”s what he said. ”You have to give it your best. Don”t retreat. The beginning will be difficult. The part where you made it through the clump of bamboo: That”s the difficult part. So give it your best. Don”t you ever retreat. Once you get past that, it”s all wide open. You”ll get to the island without any trouble. That”s not the hard point. The hard point is right here.”

　　I listened to him, really listened to him, and it went straight to the heart. ”Even if it kills you, don”t retreat at this point. Here at the beginning is the hardest part — where the mind advances and regresses. This part is so hard that you”ll want to go smash your head against that mountain over there out of frustration. The mind advances and regresses, over and over again. Once you get past this point, though, you”ll make progress easily, without any obstacles at all. That”s all there is to it. Give it your best at the beginning and don”t retreat. Understand

　　” That”s what he said. ”If you retreat here, you won”t get anywhere. So give it your life. Strike your way through right here. After all, your vision says you can make it. No matter how difficult it gets, you can make it. So don”t retreat.”

　　I remembered his words and took them to heart — happy and pleased. I kept practicing until that following April in line with what he had said. The mind had regressed ever since December the previous year until December of that year and then on into April. It still hadn”t advanced. It would advance to full strength and then deteriorate, again and again, for a year. It wasn”t until April that I found a new approach, focusing on my meditation theme in a new way so that it was really solid. From that point on I was able to sit in meditation all night long. The mind was able to settle down in full measure, which is why I accelerated my efforts from then on. Speaking of the difficulty, that”s how difficult it really was for me.

　　From there on in, the mind was centered and never regressed. The way it had regressed before was an excellent teacher. I”d absolutely refuse to let it regress again: That was how I felt. If it regressed again, I”d die. I couldn”t stand to stay in the world bearing the mass of suffering that would come if it regressed again, because I had already been through it once — more than a year of the most acute suffering. There”s no suffering that burns more than the suffering that comes when the mind regresses. If it were to regress again, it”d kill me, which was why I was really meticulous in keeping watch over myself from then on. I wouldn”t let the mind regress, and so it kept on progressing.

　　The first time I saw the marvelousness of the mind was when I began sitting in meditation all night — right from the very first night. I was investigating pain, and was it ever severe! At first I hadn”t planned on sitting until dawn, you know. I was simply sitting along, and the pain began to grow. No matter how I contemplated it, I didn”t get anywhere at all. ”Eh. What is this

　　 Okay, if I”m going to die today, let me die.” So I made resolution in that moment: ”From this moment on, I won”t get up until dawn. So. If I survive, so be it. If not, so be it.”

　　I struck right into the pain, to the point where the mind, which had never examined anything in that way... Discernment had never moved into action that way, you know, but when it was really cornered, at the end of its rope, discernment stirred itself…

《Straight from the Heart - An Heir to the Dhamma》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…