..续本文上一页h so that you can breathe, because everywhere there”s nothing but a mass of fire — pain in full force.

　　When I couldn”t find a safe spot in which to place the mind, mindfulness and discernment dug down into the pain, searching for the spot where the pain was greatest. Wherever the pain was greatest, mindfulness and discernment would investigate and explore right there by ferreting out the pain so as to see clearly, ”Where does this feeling come from

　　 Who is pained

　　” When they asked each part of the body, each of them remained in keeping with its nature. The skin was skin, the flesh was flesh, the tendons were tendons, and so forth. They had been that way from the day of birth, but they hadn”t been painful all along from the day of birth in the same way that they had been flesh and skin from the day of birth. ”The pain has been arising and vanishing at intervals. It hasn”t been lasting like these parts of the body.”

　　I focused on down. ”Each part of the body that”s a physical form is a reality. Whatever is a reality stays that way. Right now where is the feeling arising

　　 If we say that all these things are painful, why is there one point where it”s really severe

　　” So I separated things out. At this point, mindfulness and discernment couldn”t slip away anywhere else. They had to run along the areas that hurt, whirling around themselves, separating the feeling from the body, observing the body, observing the feeling, and observing the mind: These three are the important principles.

　　The mind seemed comfortable. No matter how much pain was arising, the mind wasn”t writhing or suffering or anything. But the pain in the body was clearly very strong. The nature of pain and of whatever defilements we have is that they join together. Otherwise the mind won”t be troubled or affected by the physical pain that”s really severe at that moment. So discernment kept digging down until the body, the feeling, and the mind were all clear, each in line with its inpidual truth.

　　The mind was what labeled the feeling as being this or that: This I could see clearly. As soon as this was really clear in this way, the feeling disappeared in a flash. At that moment, the body was simply the body in line with its reality. The feeling was simply a feeling and it disappeared in a flash into the mind. It didn”t go anywhere else. As soon as the feeling disappeared into the mind, the mind knew that the pain had vanished. The pain had vanished as if it had been snapped off and thrown away.

　　In addition, the body disappeared from my sense of awareness. At that moment, the body didn”t exist in my awareness at all. All that was left was simple awareness, because there was only one thing — awareness — and it was simply aware. That”s all. The mind was so refined that you could hardly describe it. It simply knew, because it was extremely delicate and refined within itself. The body had completely disappeared. Feelings had disappeared. No physical feelings were left at all. The body sitting right there in meditation had disappeared from my awareness.

　　All that was left was ”simple knowingness,” without any thoughts being fashioned about this or that. At that point, the mind wasn”t forming any thoughts at all. When it doesn”t form thoughts, we say that nothing at all makes the slightest move. The mind is fixed — firmly fixed in its own solitude. It”s a mind in its simple form, on the level of a mind centered in stillness — but mind you, this doesn”t mean that there was no unawareness.

　　Unawareness had infiltrated right there, because the mind hadn”t withdrawn from unawareness. The mind and unawareness were quiet together because unawareness didn”t get out to work. When discernment has it surrounded, unawareness shrinks in and hides out, quiet in the heart, like the sediment…

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