..续本文上一页ay hard to describe. How was it that things could be so marvelous like this in a way I had never encountered before

　　 Ever since I had begun meditating, nothing like this had ever happened. The mind had completely cut off all connection with any objects and had gathered within itself with real courage. It had gathered by investigating all around itself, which was why it had calmed itself inwardly like a thoroughbred. When it withdrew, it was still full of courage, with no fear of death at all, owing to its conviction that, ”I investigated like this and this when pain arose. The next time it comes, I won”t fear it because it”s the same old pain. It”s pain with the same old face. The body is the same old body. Discernment is the same old discernment we”ve used before.” For this reason, the heart felt no fear of death — so much so that it felt all sorts of things hard to describe. To put it in worldly terms, it was like defying someone right to his face, with no fear of pain or death.

　　See

　　 When the mind is bold, it”s bold all the way. Daring all the way. It fights without retreating. ”Okay, I”ll take you on.” To put it simply and frankly, that”s just how it feels. When the time comes to die, ”Okay, I”ll take you on.” The mind doesn”t retreat. ”When the time comes to die, where will death find any pain for us greater than this

　　 There”s no such thing. The only pain is the pain in the khandhas. It can be great or small, but we know it here in the khandhas. No matter how much or how heavy the pain may be, it can”t outstrip our knowledge and capabilities. It can”t outstrip our mindfulness and discernment. Mindfulness and discernment are capable of keeping track of it all, as they have already known and removed it in the past.” This is what made me feel really bold.

　　When the time would come to die, I didn”t see that there would be any problem, with mindfulness and discernment all around me like this. If the time came to die, then let me die. Birth and death come in a pair. You can”t separate death from birth so as not to die, because they are equal truths.

　　The next time around, I took on the pain again and knew in the same way. I kept on knowing in the same way and winning every time. Once I had given it all my strength in that way, there was never a day in which I”d say, ”Last night I stayed up in meditation all night until dawn and didn”t get anything out of it.” But any night in which the mind had difficulty investigating and settling down, I would come out feeling battered all over my body. I”d be all stiff and sore.

　　But as for getting tactics and strength of mind, I”d get them every time, until I no longer had any fear of death at all — and where would I get any fear

　　 Death was something ordinary. In other words, discernment had analyzed down to ”What dies

　　” Hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, bones: They”re simply their original element — solidity, the earth element. Since when did the earth element ever die

　　 When they disintegrate, what do they become

　　 If we focus on down, we see that they return to their original properties. The water element returns to its original property. The wind and fire elements simply return to their own original properties. Nothing is annihilated. The elements have simply come together in a lump, and the mind comes in and animates it — this super-deluded one comes in and animates it, that”s all — and then carries the entire burden: ”This is my self.” It lays its claims: ”This is me. This is mine.” And so it rakes in every kind of suffering as if contracting for the whole mass, using those assumptions simply to burn itself, and nothing else.

　　The mind itself is the culprit. The five khandhas aren”t the culprits. They aren”t our enemies or anything. They simply have their own reality, but we make assumptions…

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