..续本文上一页nough for our purposes to call them automatic mindfulness and discernment. That”s appropriate enough for them. There”s no need to call them anything more exalted than that, for this doesn”t deviate at all from the truth as it exists. This is why the mind was prominent, and this prominence made it bright all the way through.

　　One day I was doing walking meditation on the western side of Wat Doi Dhammachedi. I had gone without food for three or four days, and that day was the lunar sabbath, so people were coming to the monastery to give alms. I went off to do walking meditation from daybreak and came back only when it was time to receive alms in front of the main hall. When I was standing in contemplation on the meditation path, an uncanny feeling of wonder arose, to the point where I exclaimed, ”Why is it that this mind is so amazing

　　 Whatever I look at — even the earth on which I”m treading and see clearly with my eyes — why is it that the mind, which is the major part, is completely empty

　　 There are no trees or mountains in the mind. It”s completely empty, with nothing left. There”s nothing but emptiness filling the heart.”

　　I stood there contemplating for a moment, when a kind of realization appeared: ”If there is a point or a center of the knower anywhere, that is the essence of a level of being.” That”s what it said, and I was bewildered.

　　Actually, the word ”point” referred to that point of the knower. If I had understood this problem in terms of the truth that appeared to warn me, things would have been able to disband right then and there. But instead of understanding, I was bewildered — because it was something I had never before known or seen. If there was a point, it would be the point of the knower. If there was a center, it would mean the center of the knower. Where was it

　　 There in that knowing mind. That was the essence of a level of being. The statement that appeared in the mind already said so clearly. There was nothing at all wrong about it, but I was simply bewildered — ”What is this

　　” — so for the time being I didn”t get any benefit from it at all. I let more than three months pass by in vain, even though the problem was still weighing on the mind. I couldn”t set it down.

　　When the time came for me to know, I was contemplating just the mind — nothing wide-ranging or anything — because the mind had already known everything on the blatant level. Whatever sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations there might be throughout the cosmos, the mind had already known, understood and let go. It wasn”t interested in investigating them. It wasn”t even willing to investigate rupa, vedana, sañña, sankhara, or viññana at all. It was interested only in that conspicuous awareness, together with the subtle feelings within the mind.

　　Mindfulness and discernment kept making contact with that awareness, examining it back and forth. But you should know that the ”point” I referred to was still a conventional reality. No matter how magnificent it might be, it was still magnificence in the realm of convention. No matter how radiant or splendid it might be, it was still radiance and splendor in the realm of convention, because there was still unawareness (avijja) within it.

　　Unawareness forms the essence of conventional reality. The point of that prominence eventually began to show its ups and downs — in keeping with the very refined level of the mind — so that I was able to catch sight of them. Sometimes it was a little tarnished, sometimes radiant, sometimes stressful, sometimes at ease, in line with the refinement of the mind on this level, enough for me to detect its irregularities.

　　Mindfulness and discernment on this level were very meticulous guardians of this state of mind, you know. Instead…

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