The moment when mindfulness and discernment really penetrate down is when we can know that this is actually the way the mind usually is. Like people who have never meditated: When they start meditating, they send their minds astray, without anything to hold on to. For example, they may have a meditation word, like ”buddho,” and there they sit — their eyes vacant, looking at who-knows-what. But their minds are thinking and painting 108 pictures with endless captions. They then become engrossed with them or wander aimlessly in line with the preoccupations they invent for themselves, falling for their preoccupations more than actually focusing on their meditation. They thus find it hard to settle their minds down because they don”t have enough mindfulness supervising the work of meditation to make them settle down.
Once we have used our alertness and ingenuity in the areas of concentration and discernment, we will come to know clearly that these conditions come from the mind and then delude the mind whose mindfulness and discernment aren”t quick enough to keep up with them. The heart causes us to follow after them deludedly, so that we can”t find any peace of mind at all, even though our original aim was to meditate to find peace of mind. These deceptive thoughts engender love, hate, anger, irritation, without letup, no matter whether we are meditators or not — because as meditators we haven”t set up mindfulness to supervise our hearts, and the result is that we”re just as insane with our thoughts as anyone else. Old Grandfather Boowa has been insane this way himself, and that”s no joke!
Sometimes, no matter how many years in the past a certain issue may lie, this aimless, drifting heart wanders until it meets up with it and revives it. If it was something that made us sad, we become sad about it again, all on our own. We keep it smoldering and think it back to life, even though we don”t know where the issue lay hidden in the meantime. These are simply the mind”s own shadows deceiving it until they seem to take on substance and shape. As what
As anger, greed, anxiety, pain, insanity, all coming from these shadows. What sort of ”path” or ”fruition” is this
Paths and fruitions like this are so heaped all over the world that we can”t find any way out.
So in investigating the acts of the mind, the important point is that discernment be quick to keep up with their vagrant ways. When mindfulness and discernment are quick enough, then whatever forms in the mind, we will see that it comes from the mind itself, which is about to paint pictures to deceive itself, about to label and interpret sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of various kinds. The heart is then up on these preoccupations; and when it is up on them, they vanish immediately, with no chance of taking on substance or shape, of becoming issues or affairs. This is because mindfulness and discernment are wise to them, and so the issues are resolved.
Ultimately, we come to see the harm of which the mind is the sole cause. We don”t praise or blame sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations at all. The heart turns and sees the harm that arises in the mind that deceives itself, saying, ”That”s worth praising... worth criticizing... worth getting glad about... worth getting sad about.” It sees that the blame lies entirely with the mind. This mind is a cheat, a fraud, a deceiver. If we study it and keep watch of its ways through meditation, we will gain a thorough knowledge of its good and evil doings, until it lies within our grasp and can”t escape us at all.
This is how we investigate when we investigate the mind.
Ultimately, other things will come to have no meaning or importance for us. The only important thing is this deceiving mind, so we must investigate this d…
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