..续本文上一页if we don”t solve them at the heart

　　 The big problems lie solely at the heart, at this awareness. Crudeness is a matter of this awareness. Refinement is a matter of this awareness. That which makes people crude or refined is this awareness, with defilement as the reinforcement. If the mind becomes refined, it”s because goodness is the reinforcement, making it refined until it goes beyond the final point of refinement, beyond the final point of conventions, and ends up gaining release from all stress, with no seeds for any further connections.

　　Another question that people are always asking is how to overcome laziness. If we were to tell them to use laziness to overcome laziness, it would be tantamount to telling them to become an enemy of beds, blankets, and pillows by sleeping without ever waking up. It would be as if they were already dead, because laziness makes you weak and listless like a person ready to die. How can you use laziness to cure laziness

　　 Once you get a nice resting place as a means of lulling you to drown in sleep, it”s as if you were already dead — dead right there on the pillow! Even when you wake up, you don”t want to get up, because laziness stomps all over you and destroys you, forcing you not to get up. This is how it goes when you use laziness to cure laziness.

　　If you use energy and persistence to cure laziness, then you get right up, ready to fight. If there”s a fight, you have hope of winning. But if you simply lie prostrate, all you can do is lose — although whether we should call it losing or something else is hard to say, because you don”t even put up a fight at all, so how can you say that you lose

　　 If there”s a fight and you can”t win, then you can say that this person wins and that person loses. But here there”s no fight at all! You simply lie there groveling. If you don”t call this being a servant in the house of defilements, what would you call it

　　 Because that”s what it is: being a servant in their house. If you use laziness — to the point of being its servant — to cure defilement, you end up piling on even more defilements. Or what would you say

　　 As things stand, defilements already fill the heart, so if you foster them even more, where are you going to put them

　　 You”ve got only one heart! The only way is to remove defilements so that you can begin to breathe, and not let them sit on top of your nose so that you can never gasp a breath at all.

　　Remove them so that you can begin to see yourself: ”At last, after all the time I”ve been meditating, I”ve finally seen a piece of defilement”s grandchild — laziness — fall off, just like a chip of bark off a tree. Today at last I can begin to see myself. Up to now there”s only been defilement making use of my nose and mouth. It”s really infuriating!”

　　Persistence. Diligence. Exertion in the way of reason that can accomplish our purposes: This is the path that sages have followed. Even though it may be difficult, we”re up to the fight. It”s like removing a thorn from your foot: Even though it hurts to remove it, you have to bear it. If you let it stay there, your whole foot will become infected and putrid. You won”t be able to walk at all, and may even lose the foot. So there”s only one reasonable course: Pull it out. No matter how much it hurts, you have to bear it, because you have to get the thing out! This is a line of reasoning you have to accept. Once the thorn is out, it holds no more poison. Put medicine on the wound, and the foot will heal without flaring up as it would if the thorn were still embedded there.

　　Defilement is just like a thorn. We let it lie buried forever in the heart. As long as it remains, the heart is infected and putrid, there in the midst of the round of rebirth — an endless monotony. Is this what you want

　　 To be a putrid …

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